The harshness is made the greater by vices which, though forbidden, have in practice become common. The sale of daughters is an offence against which the sacred writings of the Hindus strongly and consistently inveigh. Yet in only too many cases parents do little else than sell their girls in marriage to the highest bidder. The sums of money which they demand and which they use, not for the daughter’s benefit, but for their own, are so large that they are forced to accept a suitor of sufficient substance without regard to fitness or religious sanction. Of the higher classes many nowadays revolt against such conduct, which they recognize to be wicked and despicable. But in the lower castes it is still general. The inner motive of such actions is, of course, the ignorance, quite as much as the selfishness, of the father. Too ignorant to comprehend that a human soul is an end in itself and that a daughter is also a free human being, he looks on her with besotted eye as a mere instrument of his own betterment. Hand in hand with this evil, and dependent from it, is the terrible practice of giving young brides to elderly husbands. In no other country could the results be more disastrous or the girl-wife more unhappy. Vallabh, the Gujaráti poet, has expressed that wretchedness in a beautiful song, which has had some influence in abating this social evil. From it the following lines are quoted, addressed to the Goddess Mother:-- “Goddess mother, old is the husband thou hast given me, Mother, accursed is this coming to life of mine. Alas, what more can I say? Goddess mother, a little child am I and he a great lumbering, aged man, My youth is like a blossom and my husband is a shrivelled mummy. Mother, mine are just sixteen years and he has seen his eighty. Goddess mother, of a winter’s night there is many a taste one feels, But doltish is old age, and my husband is deaf and dumb. Goddess mother, sportive am I and would like to play and I make my eyes twinkle, But, mother, he, he says, ‘I’ll beat you,’ and lifts his stick in his hand. Old is my husband, mother, what good can come out of age? Goddess mother, on the festival all the girls are gaily dressed and merry, But my husband is tired and weak and ugly, and I bend my head in shame. Mother, my hair is black and his head is all white or grey. My youth is at its blooming and already my life is wrecked. Goddess mother, why was I not strangled at birth, why was I not poisoned? Yet if my husband die, it is my part to be true to death. Nay, Goddess mother, with joined hands I pray at thy feet, When I am born again, give me a husband that is young and strong.”