Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/242

226 really happy marriage can be conceived. And still, curious to say, a Hindu marriage seldom turns out unhappy. The credit of this is mainly due to the Hindu woman.

Parsis, too, cannot marry out of caste; but there is an incipient revolt at work against this ruling, and several daring youths have taken unto them fair European brides. But this happens in rare instances, and it is not at all desirable, I believe.

But the Parsi can marry his cousin—even first cousins marry. In fact, such alliance is always preferred. To such an extent is this practice of "breeding in and in" carried by certain families, that the results have told disastrously on the progeny. Eminent medical men have strongly condemned this practice. Of one European doctor, high up in the profession, it is said that he was once called to the side of a young Parsi lady in trouble. The new comer was so slow in coming, that the mother's life was at one time despaired of. But at last she came. Her grandfather, a very wealthy merchant, looking at the tiny little girl, small enough to make a morsel