of the entertainment receive presents of money, garments, brass and other houshold utensils.

About forty-five years ago, Jăyŭ-Narayŭnů, a bramhŭn of Khidŭr-poorů, near Calcutta, expended 40,000 roopees in the wedding of his nephew, and entertained five or six thousand guests.-Soon after this, Huree-Krishnŭ-rayй, a pēer-alee bramhăn, expended more than a lack of roopees in the marriage of his eldest son, entertaining the năwab, and most of the rajas of Bengal.-About thirty years since, raja Raj-Krishnŭ, of Calcutta, a kayůst'hu, expended 80 or 90,000 roopees in his son's marriage.

At the end of a year, the bridegroom takes home his wife; or, if she be very young, she remains at her father's (visits excepted) till the proper time for their ultimate union, when her husband proceeds to the house of his father-in-law, if a poor man, on foot, and if rich, in a palanqueen, with a few friends. When the married pair return to the house of the boy's father, most of those ceremonies are repeated which took place there on the day after marriage. A Hindoo, on his marriage, does not become a house-keeper, as in England, but continues to live with his father; and in this way, if they can agree, many generations live together. At present, however, separations into distinct families are becoming more and more common.

At the time of the second marriage, certain foolish customs are practised by the females: the girl also abstains from eating the common rice, fish, &c. and on the fifth, seventh, or ninth day, the worship of Shusht'hee, Markŭndéyă, Gănéshŭ, and the nine planets, is performed, the officiating bramhún reading, and the bridegroom repeating the service after him. To this succeeds the worship of the sun, in which the officiating bramhăn, joining the open hands of the bride and bridegroom, repeats certain formulas from one of the smritees. After these services, the bridegroom feeds the bride with sugar, clarified butter, honey, and the urine and dung of a calf, mixed together; and folds up plantains, nutmegs, &c. in the garment of the bride, and as they enter the house, the bridegroom causes a ring to slide between the bride's garment and her waist.* The bride and bridegroom then eat furmenty together.

Among the Romans, the man sent a ring as a pledge to the woman.

The Hindoos in general carry their attachment to children, especially to sons, to the greatest excess. They are amazed at the apparent want of affection in Europeans, who leave their parents, and traverse foreign countries, some of them without the hope of ever seeing them again. If a man should not have children, his father or elder brother seeks for him a second wife ;* few take this trouble on themselves. The husband directs which wife shall have the chief rule, though, according to the shastră, this honour belongs to the wife he first married. Multitudes of instances occur, in which a plurality of wives is the source of perpetual disputes and misery: indeed the Hindoos confess, that scarcely any instances are to be found of the continuance of domestic happiness where more than one wife lives in the same house. A person of some respectability deplored to the author, in the most pitiable manner, his miserable condition on account of having been driven by his father into a state of polygamy. He was obliged to have two cook-rooms, separate apartments, and was compelled to dine with his two wives alternately with the utmost regularity; the children of the different wives were continually quarelling; and thus, through the jealousies, and the innumerable vexations and collisions inseparable from polygamy, he was almost driven to desperation.-On further enquiry into this matter, I found, that polygamy was acknowledged to be the greatest of all domestic afflictions among the Hindoos. Kuvee-kunkună, in his Chundee, a Bengalee poem, has deplored his own case in having two wives; and it has become a proverb, that one wife would rather accompany her husband to the gloomy regions of Yumu, than see him sit with the other. In short, the whole country is full of the most disgraceful proofs, that polygamy is an unnatural and miserable state.-Thus Divine Providence seems evidently to have marked polygamy as a state contrary to moral order; in which order we see, that innocent enjoyments are always connected with tranquillity, and vicious ones ever followed with pain and disorder. See the history of Abraham, Gen. xxi. &c.

He who has lost his wife by death, generally marries another as soon as he is purified, that is, in eleven days, if a bramhăn, and in a month, ifa shōodrů.† Some wait

* The Hindoos say, a man ought to wait till his wife is more than twenty before he marries a second.

+ The wife of one of the author's servants once presented a complaint against her husband, that he neither maintain nor lived with her : when he man was asked the reason of this cruel behaviour, he said, without shame, “Ok Sabéb, she was so sick some time ago, that I did not expect her to live; I therefore married another !”

longer, and a few do not marry again. A Hindoo may marry a second time, a third,* and so on, till he is fifty years old; but, according to the shastru, not when he is advanced beyond this age; nevertheless many of the lower orders marry when sixty, and some kooleenus marry when as old as eighty. The ceremonies at a second marriage are similar to those at the first.

Few men continue in a single state to old age: those who do, cohabit with concubines: few females remain unmarried; none who can obtain husbands. Yet the cast presents such various obstacles to union, and there are so many gradations of rank by which marriages are regulated, that cases do exist in which men cannot ob tain wives, nor women husbands.+ Still, so great a disgrace is incurred by remaining unmarried, that on one occasion a number of old maids were married to an aged koolēēnŭ bramhun, as his friends were carrying him to the Ganges to die.

Widows amongst the lowest casts are sometimes married by a form called nika; when the bride and bridegroom, in the presence of friends, place a garland of flowers on the neck of each other, and thus declare themselves man and wife,

The greatest number of marriages take place in the months Ugrōhayunů, Maghu, and Phalgoonů, these being considered as very fortunate months. In Joisht'hй, eldest sons are forbidden to marry. In Voishakhi few marriages are celebrated, and in Poushi and Choitrů scarcely any, except where the parents are of low cast, and extremely poor. In the other months, none marry. From marriages in the first three months, arise riches; in Asharhů, poverty. If an eldest son be married in Joisht'hu, he will die; if any marry in Shravănů, none of the children will live; if in Bhadrŭ or Choitrü, the wife will be inconstant; if in Ashwinů, both husband and wife will die ;

A third marriage is considered as improper and baneful to the female; hence, before the marriage ceremony takes place, they first betroth the man to a tree, when, it is said, the evil expends itself on the tree, and the tree immediately dies.

+ In the year 1815, some Hindoos, of high cast, were on the eve of petitioning the English government to interfere and prevent the koolēēnus from engrossing so many wives, as this disgraceful custom prevented many individuals from entering into the marriage state.

if in Kartik, they will have fevers and other diseases; if in Poushu, the wife will become a widow.*

Hindoo girls, to obtain good husbands, frequently worship the gods; and a woman sometimes secretly administers to her husband a medicine, obtained from some old woman, to cause her husband to love her! When husbands remain long from home, some women practise a superstitious custom to hasten their return; while others, to ascertain whether a husband is well or ill, is on his way home or not, is dead or alive, call a witch, who takes the winnowing fan, and, according to its motion in her hand, pronounces the exact circumstances of the absent husband.

The Hindoos are seldom happy in their marriages; nor can domestic happiness be expected where females are reduced to a state of complete servitude, and are neither qualified nor permitted to be the companions of their husbands. A man, except he is of low cast, never enters into conversation with his wife, during the day, nor is she ever permitted to eat in the presence of her husband, or to sit in the company even of near friends. An elder brother never looks at his younger brother's wife.

Several of the shastrus describe the virtues of an excellent wife : Ramů thus mourns over the loss of Seeta : "She was not a common wife;-in the management of my affairs, she even gave me excellent counsel; when I needed her services, she was my slave; if I was ever angry, like the patient earth, she bore my impatience without a murmur; in the hour of necessity, she cherished me, as a mother does her child; in the moments of repose, she was to me as a courtezan; in times of hilarity, she was with me as a friend."+-When engaged in religious services, an excellent wife assists her husband with a mind as devout as his own. On all occasions she gives her whole mind to make him happy; is as faithful to him as a shadow to the body; shares in all his joys and sorrows; and esteems him, whether poor or rich, whether possessed of excellent or evil qualities, whether handsome or deformed.‡

In the ab

*The Romans, says Kennett, were very superstitious in reference to the particular time of marriage, fancying several days and seasons very unfortunate for this design. Ovid says, Fast. 5. 487,

sence or sickness of her husband, a good wife renounces every gratification; and at his death, dies with him.*

The following description of Hindoo females, though written respecting those living in another part of India, appears to be so just, that I have thought it right to copy it. Bartolomeo is certainly one of our best writers on Hindoo manners and customs. "Till their thirteenth year, they are stout and vigorous; but after that period, they alter much faster than the women in any of the nations of Europe. Early marriage, labour, and diseases, exhaust their constitutions before the regular time of decay. They are lively, active, and tractable; possess great acuteness; are fond of conversation; employ florid expressions, and a phraseology abundant in images; never carry any thing into effect till after mature deliberation; are inquisitive and prying, yet modest in discourse; have a fickle inconstant disposition; make promises with great readiness, yet seldom perform them; are importunate in their requests, but ungrateful when they have obtained their end; behave in a cringing obsequious manner when they fear any one, but are haughty and insolent when they gain the superiority; and assume an air of calmness and composure when they acquire no satisfaction for an injury, but are malicious and irreconcileable when they find an opportunity of being revenged. I was acquainted with many families who had ruined themselves with lawsuits, because they preferred the gratification of revenge to every consideration of prudence."

The merits and demerits of husband and wife are transferable to either in a future state if a wife perform many meritorious works, and the husband die first, he will enjoy heaven as the fruit of his wife's virtuous deeds; † and if the wife be guilty of many wicked actions, and the husband die first, he will suffer for the sins of his wife. In the apprehensions of a Hindoo, therefore, marriage ought to be a very serious business.

* See the Markŭndéyů pooranů.

+ The Muhabharŭtă, and other shastrus, teach, that a female, when she offers herself on the funeral pile, removes the sins of her husband, and carries him with her to heaven. Savitrēë, a bramhŭnēē, say the pooranŭs, raised her husband to life by her works of merit.