'Russia and India in 1903' [‎23r] (47/68)

BRITISH TRADE IN INDIA.
4i
matters, and especially marriage, and the ruinous
expenses incurred by the people on the occasion of
weddings and funerals. In each State a local council
was appointed to carry out the decisions arrived at,
and to enforce them by law.
It is well known that Indian children are married
by their parents at a very early age. The Sabha there
fore declared that boys and girls should not be married
before the ages of eighteen and fourteen respectively,
and most important of all, that no second marriage
should take place during the lifetime of the first wife,
unless the latter was afflicted with an incurable disease
or had no offspring. It was also further declared that
the father who agreed to give his daughter in marriage
to a man, knowing that he was already married to
another woman, committed the same offence as the
party proposing the marriage. Widowers even are
forbidden to re-marry under forty-five years of age, if
they have a son living.
How far-reaching these reforms were will be readily
understood, and it is gratifying to read in the last
report of the Rajputra Sabha that of 4,437 Rajput
marriages in 1901 only 377 were against rules in
respect of these matters, and 213 in respect of age, 49
in respect of expenses, 19 in respect of wedding gifts,
and 300 in respect of a superfluous wedding party.
The Agent to the Governor-General, who presides at
the annual meetings, was indeed not satisfied with
contraventions amounting to 25 per cent. But con
sidering the difficulty of removing the customs of
centuries, and more especially in the direction of cur
tailing personal liberty, individual generosity and
hospitality, it will be admitted that good work has been
done. In some parts even of the United Kingdom,
Rajputra Sabha rules would be useful for curtailing
funeral expenses. To them the Rajputs have sub
mitted themselves well, and there were only fifty
contraventions .—Sheffield Telegraph.