Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/529

Rh would demand from the father of the girl an explanation of the breach of contract. No explanation is likely to be satisfactory, and the father is fined three hundred varāhas.* This sum, like the purchase money, is seldom paid, but the award of it places the party from whom it is due in a somewhat inferior position to the party to whom it is payable. They occupy thenceforth the position of creditor to debtor. On the occasion of quarrels, no delicate sense of refinement restrains the former from alluding to the debt, and the position would be retained through several generations. There is a Tamil proverb that the quarrels of a Korava and an Idaiyan are not easily settled. If the contracting parties are ready to fulfil their engagement, the maternal uncle of the girl is paid five varāhas as the first instalment of the purchase money, and a Brāhman purōhit is asked to fix an auspicious time for the marriage ceremony. At the appointed time, the wedding party assembles at the home of the bride, and the first day is spent in eating and drinking,the bride and bridegroom being arrayed in new clothes purchased at the expense of the bride's father. On the following day, they again feast. The contracting couple are seated on a kambli (blanket), on which some grains of rice have been previously sprinkled. The guests form a circle round them, and, at the auspicious moment, the bridegroom ties a string of black beads round the bride's neck. When the string has been tied, the married women present, with hands crossed, throw rice over the heads of the pair. This rice has been previously prepared, and consists of five seers of rice with five pieces of turmeric, dried cocoanut, dried date fruit and jaggery (crude sugar), and five silver or copper