the law’ since the engagement is made by the parents of both parties, the young couple being passive subjects to the parental arrangement, for their benefit as they are assured.  The young lady, from her rigid seclusion, has no prior attachment, and she is educated to be ‘obedient to her husband’.  She is taught from her earliest youth to look forward to such match as her kind parents may think proper to provide for her; and, therefore, can have no objection to accepting the husband selected for her by them.  The parents, loving their daughter, and aware of the responsibility resting on them, are cautious in selecting for their girls suitable husbands, according to their particular view of the eligibility of the suitor.

The first marriage of a Mussulmaun is the only one where a public display of the ceremony is deemed necessary, and the first wife is always considered the head of his female establishment.  Although he may be the husband of many wives in the course of time, and some of them prove greater favourites, yet the first wife takes precedence in all matters where dignity is to be preserved.  And when the several wives meet—­each have separate habitations if possible—­all the rest pay to the first wife that deference which superiority exacts from inferiors; not only do the secondary wives pay this respect to the first, but the whole circle of relations and friends make the same distinction, as a matter of course; for the first wife takes precedence in every way.

Should the first wife fortunately present her husband with a son, he is the undisputed heir; but the children of every subsequent wife are equals in the father’s estimation.  Should the husband be dissolute and have offspring by concubines—­which is not very common,—­those children are remembered and provided for in the distribution of his property; and, as very often occurs, they are cherished by the wives with nearly as much care as their own children; but illegitimate offspring very seldom marry in the same rank their father held in society.

The latitude allowed by ‘the law’ preserves the many-wived Mussulmaun from the world’s censure; and his conscience rests unaccused when he adds to his numbers, if he cannot reproach himself with having neglected or unkindly treated any of the number bound to him, or their children.  But the privilege is not always indulged in by the Mussulmauns; much depends on circumstances, and more on the man’s disposition.  If it be the happy lot of a kind-hearted, good man to be married to a woman of assimilating mind, possessing the needful requisites to render home agreeable, and a prospect of an increasing family, then the husband has no motive to draw him into further engagements, and he is satisfied with one wife.  Many such men I have known in Hindoostaun, particularly among the Syaads and religious characters, who deem a plurality of wives a plague to the possessors in proportion to their numbers.

The affluent, the sensualist, and the ambitious, are most prone to swell the numbers in their harem.  With some men, who are not highly gifted intellectually, it is esteemed a mark of gentility to have several wives.