his wife’s dowry, in the event of separation; the young man is at liberty to name any sum he pleases.  It would not prevent the marriage if the smallest amount were promised; but he is in the presence of his bride’s family, and within her hearing also, though he has not yet seen her;—­it is a critical moment for him, thus surrounded.  Besides, as he never intends to separate from the lady, in the strict letter of the law, he cannot refrain from gratifying those interested in the honour he is about to confer by the value of the promised dowry, and, therefore, he names a very heavy sum, which perhaps his whole generation never could have collected in their joint lives.  This sum would of itself be a barrier to divorce; but that is not the only object which influences the Mussulmaun generally to waive the divorce; it is because they would not publish their own disgrace, by divorcing an unfaithful or undutiful wife.

If the first wife dies, a second is sought after on the same principle which guided the first—­’a superior to head his house’.  In this case there would be the same public display which marked the first wife’s marriage; all the minor or secondary wives being introduced to the zeenahnah privately; they are in consequence termed Dhollie[3] wives, or brought home under cover.

Many great men appear to be close imitators of King Solomon, with whose history they are perfectly conversant, for I have heard of the sovereign princes in Hindoostaun having seven or eight hundred wives at one time in their palaces.  This is hearsay report only, and I should hope an exaggeration.[4]

The first marriage is usually solemnized when the youth is eighteen, and the young lady thirteen, or fourteen at the most; many are married at an earlier age, when, in the opinion of the parents, an eligible match is to be secured.  And in some cases, where the parents on both sides have the union of their children at heart, they contract them at six or seven years old, which marriage they solemnly bind themselves to fulfil when the children have reached a proper age; under these circumstances the children are allowed to live in the same house, and often form an attachment for each other, which renders their union a life of real happiness.

There are to be found in Mussulmaun society parents of mercenary minds, who prefer giving their daughters in marriage as dhollie wives to noblemen or men of property, to the preferable plan of uniting them with a husband of their own grade, with whom the girl would most likely live without a rival in the mud-walled tenement; this will explain the facilities offered to a sovereign or nobleman in extending the numbers of his harem.