The _full shorjai_, or bed made of flowers, together with a large quantity of spices, confectioneries, fruits, and clothes, are sent by her father on the third day after the marriage, which are distributed to the families in the neighborhood. After staying through eight days she returns to her father’s house, and occasionally goes to her new home until she attains her thirteenth year, when she commences a regular married life. As it is my desire to relate the scenes of Hindoo life, its manners, customs, and peculiarities as faithfully as the rules of propriety will allow, I should say that there is a second marriage which occurs during two or three years after the first, which I forbear to describe. I cannot close this chapter without making some remarks on the Hindoo marriage. Escaping the maladies of superstition, and standing under the light of true religion, with feelings of love and refinement in my heart, I shudder at, and clearly see, the defects in the system we have considered. The very thought of marrying a person whose joys and sorrows I am to participate in, who is to become one with me, without knowing her character and seeing her face at all, makes me shudder. How many hundreds in Bengal are spending their days in wretchedness! There, with many, the affection between husband and wife is rather compulsory than heartfelt. True love does rarely grace the connubial life of the Hindoos. Their children do not know what innocent social comforts are. Vice, with its thousand branches, twines round their lives. Faithlessness to the married relations, discord between, and separation of two who are required to be strictly one, are the defective features of the Hindoo families in general. As there is no system of divorcement or a second marriage for the women, a hundredfold is added to their deplorable condition. A goldsmith, a neighbor of mine, bleeds his wife almost twice a month for some trifles done, such as looking on the street through the window, talking with women outside of the house, &c. He being her lord and tyrant does as he has a mind, and finds no check to his brutal conduct. Of course the gentlemen in the neighborhood remonstrate with him for his conduct, but this affects him for a season only. He was fined several times, but not divorced, which measure only could save the unfortunate woman from future sufferings. CHAPTER VI. DEATH.--BOITHORNEE.--BATHING.--ANOINTMENT.--SHO.--BURNING THE BODY.--EXPRESSION OF MOURNING.--WIDOWS.--SHORATHO.