The Nairs treat their mothers with the utmost respect, and have a filial regard for maternal uncles and aunts; but they scarcely notice their fathers, and have little affection for brothers and sisters. Yet notwithstanding this allowed profligacy, these singular people are very jealous of the honor of their women. An intrigue with a European, or one of a different tribe, would be punished with death. The Bramins indeed are allowed to be the lovers of wives and daughters of the other superior castes; their proposals are deemed too great an honor to be refused. The disgusting class called fakirs likewise obtain great influence over the minds of women by their ostentatious sanctity. They often carry beautiful girls to their temples, under the pretence that the god has chosen them for wives; and this is considered an enviable distinction. The women among the Nairs go with the upper part of the person entirely uncovered; as is generally the case throughout Malabar, and even in the southern parts of the peninsula. They have their ears bored in childhood, and in order to enlarge the aperture, they put in a rolled leaf of the cocoa tree, or suspend a piece of lead; afterward they insert small round ivory cases. They wear the hair flowing loosely behind, or hanging in several tresses curiously braided. It is never cut off, except in seasons of mourning, or as a punishment. The women in this part of Hindostan have a singular custom. When a young girl is betrothed, when she is married, and when a son is born, all the female relatives meet at her house, and make the event known to the neighbors by a long, loud, monotonous howl, which one would suppose was intended to express any thing but joy. There is a caste in Hindostan, comprising all painters and gilders, in which brothers marry their sisters, and uncles their nieces. At funerals, hired female mourners tear their hair, beat themselves, and utter dismal cries. The custom of widows burning themselves upon the funeral pile of their husbands is not commanded as a religious duty in any of their sacred writings; but enthusiastic devotees have been led to sanction the cruel ceremony by the following text: “The woman who dies with her husband shall enjoy life eternal with him in heaven.”