And what is worse, public opinion
compels them to act in this cruel manner; for, as the
same writer informs us, the man who suffers his
daughter to remain unmarried till she is thirteen or
fourteen years old is "subjected to endless annoyances,
beset with stinging remarks, unpleasant whisperings and
slanderous gossip. No orthodox Hindoo will allow his
son to accept the hand of such a grown-up girl."
How preventive of all possibility of free choice or love such a custom
is may be inferred from another brief extract from the same article:
"The superstitious notion of a Hindoo parent that it is
a sin not to give his daughter in marriage before she
ceases to to be a child impels him urgently to get her
a husband before she has passed her ninth or tenth
year. He sends out to match-makers and spares no pains
to discover a bridegroom in some family of rank equal
or superior to his own. Having found a boy ... he
endeavors to secure him by entreaty or by large offers
of money or jewels."
The Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati (22) gives some further grewsome details
which would seem like the inventions of a burlesque writer were they
not attested by such unbiassed authority. "Religions enjoin that every
girl must be given in marriage; the neglect of this duty means for the
father unpardonable sin, public ridicule, and caste excommunication.
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