Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/217

 (2) Sir W. W. Hunter writes thus :

"Right of Succession.—A remarkable custom among the Garos is that a man who marries the favourite daughter of a household has to marry his mother-in-law in the event of the death of his father-in-law, and through her succeeds to all the property, which thus descends through the female line. The sons receive nothing, but have to look to the family into which they marry for their establishment in life."

Sir W. W. Hunter does not mention the marriage with a cross-cousin, but the words which I have printed in italics make it quite clear that the marriage with the mother-in-law follows the marriage with her daughter and is a consequence of it: a man marries his mother-in-law because he had first married her daughter.

(3) Sir Edward A. Gait, speaking of the Garos, writes thus :

"There is a curious custom, by which the husband of the youngest daughter has to marry his mother-in-law (who is often his own aunt) when she becomes a widow and failing to do this, he loses his claim to share in the family property. Mr. Teunon informs me of a case in which a man refused to marry the widow, who was in this instance a second wife, and not his wife's own mother; and the old lady then gave herself and her own daughter in marriage to another man. In a dispute regarding the property which followed, the laskar reported that the first man having failed to do his duty, the second was entitled to the greater part of the property."

This is the passage quoted by Mr. Hodson, but in quoting it he has omitted the opening sentences, which I have printed in italics. Yet these sentences are essential to the passage, the remainder of which cannot be