DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0249
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 215
having no husband at all and to the painful repression of the
craving for maternity which is nowhere stronger than in India?
To treat the symptom does not necessarily cure the disease,
although it may induce new symptoms. Supposing Kulin
polygamy to be effectively abolished by repressive legislation
pr social disapproval, the surplus of marriageable girls result-
lng from hypergamy would still remain. What is to become
°f them ? European experience suggests that enforced celibacy
°'i a large scale is not invariably an ideal condition. If, there-
fore, a fresh set of evils is to be avoided, the reformers would
do wisely to follow Mr. Girindra'Nath Dutt's advice and strike
boldly at hypergamy, whatever form it may assume. This
they can only deal with themselves, since legislation on. the
subject would plainly be futile. Indigenous complaints demand
indigenous remedies.
Whatever may be the case in Bengal, the following extract
from the recently published District Gazetteer seems to be con-
clusive as to the existence of polygamy among the Brahmans
of Muzaffarpur, a district forming part of the ancient tract of
Mithila, whence, according to Mr. Girindra Nath Dutt, the
system of Kulinism was borrowed some centuries ago by the
Rahmans of Bengal. Most of the Muzaffarpur Brahmans
belong to the Maithil or Tirhutiya sub-caste, which is divided
>nto five hypergamous groups—Srotriya or Sote, Jog, Panji-
oaddh, Nagar and Jaiwar. The men of each group may take
wives from the groups ranking below it in this scale of social
Precedence, but the women can only marry in their own or in
a higher group.
" Polygam}'," says Mr. O'Malley, the author of this interest-
^g volume, "is practised among these Brahmans by the
b>ikauwa or 'Vendor'—a class of Maithil Brahmans who derive
their name from the practice of selling themselves, or more
larely their minor sons, to the daughters of the lower groups
of the series given above. Some have as many as forty or
nlty wives, who live with their own parents and are visited at
lritervals by their husbands. Bikauwa Brahmans who have
married into the lower classes are not received on equal terms
by the members of their own class, but the women whom they
niarry consider themselves raised by the alliance. The price
paid for a Bikauwa varies according to the class to which he
belongs and the means of the family of the girl whom he is to
marry. It may be as little as Rs. 20: it has been known to rise
*s high as Rs. 6,000." *
[* On polygamy in Bengal see Census Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 326 et set/,"}
having no husband at all and to the painful repression of the
craving for maternity which is nowhere stronger than in India?
To treat the symptom does not necessarily cure the disease,
although it may induce new symptoms. Supposing Kulin
polygamy to be effectively abolished by repressive legislation
pr social disapproval, the surplus of marriageable girls result-
lng from hypergamy would still remain. What is to become
°f them ? European experience suggests that enforced celibacy
°'i a large scale is not invariably an ideal condition. If, there-
fore, a fresh set of evils is to be avoided, the reformers would
do wisely to follow Mr. Girindra'Nath Dutt's advice and strike
boldly at hypergamy, whatever form it may assume. This
they can only deal with themselves, since legislation on. the
subject would plainly be futile. Indigenous complaints demand
indigenous remedies.
Whatever may be the case in Bengal, the following extract
from the recently published District Gazetteer seems to be con-
clusive as to the existence of polygamy among the Brahmans
of Muzaffarpur, a district forming part of the ancient tract of
Mithila, whence, according to Mr. Girindra Nath Dutt, the
system of Kulinism was borrowed some centuries ago by the
Rahmans of Bengal. Most of the Muzaffarpur Brahmans
belong to the Maithil or Tirhutiya sub-caste, which is divided
>nto five hypergamous groups—Srotriya or Sote, Jog, Panji-
oaddh, Nagar and Jaiwar. The men of each group may take
wives from the groups ranking below it in this scale of social
Precedence, but the women can only marry in their own or in
a higher group.
" Polygam}'," says Mr. O'Malley, the author of this interest-
^g volume, "is practised among these Brahmans by the
b>ikauwa or 'Vendor'—a class of Maithil Brahmans who derive
their name from the practice of selling themselves, or more
larely their minor sons, to the daughters of the lower groups
of the series given above. Some have as many as forty or
nlty wives, who live with their own parents and are visited at
lritervals by their husbands. Bikauwa Brahmans who have
married into the lower classes are not received on equal terms
by the members of their own class, but the women whom they
niarry consider themselves raised by the alliance. The price
paid for a Bikauwa varies according to the class to which he
belongs and the means of the family of the girl whom he is to
marry. It may be as little as Rs. 20: it has been known to rise
*s high as Rs. 6,000." *
[* On polygamy in Bengal see Census Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 326 et set/,"}