[Tribal council.] 2. The tribal council (panchâyat) with a permanent president (mahto) and an assistant (dîwân) is very powerful. The council hears the evidence and gives its opinion, which may or not be accepted by the Mahto, who gives the final order. The usual punishment is an order to feed the clansmen for two days on goat’s flesh and rice. For a second offence excommunication for twelve years is the sentence, and during this time, unless he make humble submission and receive pardon from the council, all marriages in his family are stopped, he is not allowed to eat or smoke with his clansmen, and cannot sit on the tribal mat (tât) at meetings of the council. In Oudh, however, it would appear that they have no regularly constituted council. Whenever a case affecting caste discipline occurs, a meeting of the adult householders of the neighbourhood is convened: they appoint a Chairman for the meeting and decide the case. They have a sort of local organization (eka) for marriages, which generally take place within an assigned local area. They seldom go any considerable distance to find wives. [316] [Marriage rules.] 3. A man may have as many wives as he can afford: but monogamy is the rule. In Oudh they say that no man can have more than seven wives at one time; but it is needless to say that very few Dharkârs can afford more than one. If a man marries more than one wife, the senior wife (jethi mehrâru) rules the household. Concubinage and polyandry are prohibited. Women have considerable freedom, and intertribal fornication is visited by a fine of a two days’ feast to the clansmen. The lover has to pay the girl’s father in such cases eight rupees in cash and to give her mother a cloth—an arrangement so common apparently that there is a special name for it,—mâi kâpar, or “the mother’s cloth.” He then feeds the council on goat’s flesh and rice, and after this the young couple are recognized as man and wife. Dharkârs practise adult marriage, the age being seventeen or eighteen. The marriage is arranged by the father’s sister’s husband (phûpha) of the bridegroom. The bride-price paid by the boy’s father is fixed—eight rupees in cash, one loin cloth (dhoti), and one hundred cakes (pûri). This is used in the marriage feast, and the cloth goes to the girl. The parties are so carefully examined before marriage that no physical defect subsequently ascertained is a bar to marriage. If the wife without reason shown to the satisfaction of the council refuse to live with her husband, her father has to refund the cash bride-price. If the husband refuses to keep his wife, the council will punish him and compel him to bring her home. If either husband or wife habitually commit adultery, the injured party may divorce the other, but before they can do so the case must be heard by the council and the Mahto must give his permission, which will not be granted unless the fact is proved by the evidence of eye-witnesses. If a woman is divorced, she