Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/363

Rh Purāna, seems to have been widely practiced all over the country. And the method adopted by the Kōmatis to evade the king, and maintain the mēnarikam rule, has its counterpart in the popular ballad known as Lakshmammapata, still sung all over the Northern Circars, which gives a graphic description of the murder of his wife by a husband, who would not agree to giving their daughter away from his own sister's son. Even now, the sentiment on this subject is so strong that a man who goes against the rule of mēnarikam, not only among the Kōmatis, but among all castes observing it, is looked down on. It is usually described as bending the twig from its natural course, and, as the twig would waste away and die in consequence, so would parties to such marriages not prosper. In 1839, according to the Asiatic Journal, a case was taken before the Supreme Court of Madras, in which the plaintiff brought an action against his uncle for giving his daughter away in marriage, without making him an offer of her hand. The Judges were anxious that the matter should be settled out of Court, but the parties disagreed so entirely that nothing less than a public trial would satisfy them. It has not been possible to trace the decision of the Court.

The Kōmatis have for a long time been alleged to be connected with the Mādigas in a variety of ways. "The Kōmatis," Mr. F. R. Hemingway writes, "do not as a rule deny the fact of this connection. The Mādigas are, indeed, apparently under the protection of the Kōmatis, apply to them for help when in trouble, and obtain loans and other assistance. Some Kōmatis explain the connection with the Mādigas by a story that either Vishnu Vardhana, or his successor Rājarāja Narēndra persecuted the Kōmatis, and that they had to fly for refuge to the Mādigas. The Mādigas took them