WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
day at doll weddings. The Indian girl is capable of very warm friendships with girl companions. She goes to school, but the period of education is too short, as she usually marries before she is eighteen. At sixteen years of age, she is often already a mother. The girls of respectable families are not allowed to sing or dance, but sometimes they imitate the dancing of the nautch girls. Dancing is usually an art practised only by the professional dancers, who are not highly esteemed in society.
The system of marriage by parental arrangement is condemned by the Babu. He contrasts the custom with the freedom of selection permitted to Western women. Early marriage in India is attributable to the extreme dread of losing caste. It is most important that every well-born girl should be betrothed or married while still a child. This institution is of comparatively modern origin, and is contrary to the teaching of the "Sushrata," a famous medical work, which states that girls should not marry before sixteen, and that the husband should have reached the age of twenty-five. The protracted marriage ceremonies and rites are criticised by this writer. There is too much publicity and interference on the part of relatives. The bride and bridegroom know little or nothing of one another; yet they are united for life in the closest of human intimacies. The marriage of
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