But in the higher castes the cost of a marriage is at least $200, wherefore if a man has several daughters his ruin is almost certain.  Female infanticide is often the result, but even if the girls are allowed to grow up there is a way for the father to escape.  There is a special high class of Brahmans who make it their business to marry these girls.  They go up and down the land marrying ten, twenty, sometimes as many as one hundred and fifty of them, receiving presents from the bride’s parents and immediately thereafter bidding good-by to her, going home never to see their “wife” again.  The parents have now done their duty; they have escaped religious and social ostracism at the expense, it is true, of their daughters, who remain at home to make themselves useful.  These poor girls can never marry again, and whether or not they become moral outcasts, their life is ruined; but that, to a Hindoo, is a trifling matter; girls, in his opinion, were not created for their own sake, but for the pleasure, comfort, and salvation of man.

HOW HINDOO GIRLS ARE DISPOSED OF

In some parts of India the infant girls are merely subjected to an “irrevocable betrothal” for the time being, while in others they fall at once into the clutches of their degraded husbands.[264] In either case they have absolutely no choice in the selection of a life-partner.  As Dubois remarks (I., 198): 

“In negotiating marriage the inclinations of the future spouses are never attended to.  Indeed, it would be ridiculous to consult girls of that age; and, accordingly, the choice devolves entirely upon the parents,” “The ceremony of the ‘bhanwar,’ or circuit of the pole or branch, is,” says Dalton (148), “observed in most Hindu marriages....  Its origin is curious..  As a Hindu bridegroom of the upper classes has no opportunity of trotting out his intended previous to marriage, and she is equally in the dark regarding the paces of her lord, the two are made to walk around the post a certain number of times to prove that they are sound in limb.”

Even the accidental coincidence of the choice of a husband with the girl’s own preference—­should any such exist—­is rendered impossible by a superstitious custom which demands that a horoscope must in all cases be taken to see if the signs are propitious, as Ramabai Sarasvati informs us (35), adding that if the signs are not propitious another girl is chosen.  Sometimes a dozen are thus rejected, and the number may rise to three hundred before superstition is satisfied and a suitable match is found!  The same writer gives the following pathetic instance of the frivolous way in which the girls are disposed of.  A father is bathing in the river; a stranger comes in, the father asks him to what caste he belongs, and finding that all right, offers him his nine-year-old daughter.  The stranger accepts, marries the child the next day, and carries her to his home nine hundred miles away.  These poor child brides, she says, are often delighted to get married, because they are promised a ride on an elephant!