Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 3.djvu/537

Rh until the woman bears a daughter. Some Koravas seem to be even more previous than fathers who enter their infant sons for a popular house at a public school. For their children are said to be espoused even before they are born. Two men, who wish their children to marry, say to one another: "If your wife should have a girl and mine a boy (or vice versâ), they must marry." And, to bind themselves to this, they exchange tobacco, and the potential bridegroom's father stands a drink to the future bride's relations. But if, after the children are grown up, a Brāhman should pronounce the omens unpropitious, the marriage does not take place, and the bride's father pays back the cost of the liquor consumed at the betrothal. If the marriage is arranged, a pot of water is placed before the couple, and a grass (Cynodon Dactylon) put into the water. This is equal to a binding oath between them.* Of this grass it is said in the Atharwana Vēda: " May this grass, which rose from the water of life, which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, efface a hundred of my sins, and prolong my existence on earth for a hundred years." It is noted by the Rev. J. Cain † that "at the birth of a daughter, the father of an unmarried little boy often brings a rupee, and ties it in the cloth of the father of the newly born girl. When the girl is grown up, he can claim her for his son. For twenty-five rupees he can claim her much earlier."

In North Arcot, the Koravas are said ‡ to "mortgage their unmarried daughters, who become the absolute property of the mortgagee till the debt is discharged. The same practice exists in Chingleput and Tanjore. In Madras, the Koravars sell their wives outright when