In India, family life has in all essentials healthily developed and maintained itself on the basis which we can detect in the sentences of the marriage ceremony. The fortunate birth of a child, purification after child-bed, and naming of the child--according to the law the name of a boy ought to express among the Brahmans some helpful greeting, among the Kshatriyas power, among the Vaiçyas wealth, among the Çudras subjection[342]--the first cutting of the hair, the investiture of the sons with the sacred girdle, the birthdays, betrothals, and marriages are great festivals among the families, kept with considerable expense. The Indians love their children; their maintenance and marriage form at present the chief care of wealthy parents. The law allows a man to give his daughter even to the poorest husband of his own caste; but now the main effort of the family is not indeed to obtain the wealthiest husband for a daughter, but to obtain one of at least equal wealth with their own, and whenever possible of better descent. The claims of the priestly Brahmans belonging to those eight tribes which carried back their origin to the great saints, tribes existing in the fourth century B.C., are in existence still;[343] but the number of the clans has increased. The ceremonies at marriages are still essentially those of the old ritual. Before walking round the fire the hands of the bride and bridegroom are united with kuça-grass, and the points of their garments tied together. It has long been a custom and a rule that the bride should be equipped by her father, and the splendour with which marriages are celebrated makes the wedding of a daughter a heavy burden on families that are not wealthy. The Kshatriyas more especially suffer in this respect, since they are peculiarly apt to seek after connections with ancient families. In families of this caste it sometimes happens that daughters are exposed or otherwise put out of the way in order to escape the cost of their future equipment and marriage.[344] FOOTNOTES: [294] _e.g._ "Ramayana," 1, 13, 72, ed. Schlegel. [295] Manu, 8, 380, 381. [296] Manu, 2, 127. [297] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 80. [298] Manu, 9, 322. [299] Manu, 10, 80-117. [300] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 139. [301] Manu, 3, 12-15, 44; 9, 22-24, 85-87. [302] Manu, 3, 16-19; 10, 5, 6. [303] Manu, 10, 15. [304] Manu, 10, 46. [305] Manu, 10, 48. [306] Manu, 10, 8. [307] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 820, _n._ 2. [308] Manu, 10, 49. [309] Manu, 10, 48. [310] Manu, 10, 15; (above, p. 15). [311] Manu, 10, 51-56; (above, p. 168). [312] Manu, 10, 67. [313] Manu, 10, 43-45. [314] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 396, 439, 534. [315] Sherring, "Hindu Castes and Tribes," 7-9; 120, 247. [316] "Açvalayana Çrauta-Sutra," book 12, in M. Müller, "Hist. of Sanskrit Lit." p. 381. [317] Manu, 3, 27-38, 160, 171; 9, 100, 127 ff. The analogous series in the Açvalayana in A. Weber, "Indische Studien," 5, 284.