Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/263

Rh exclusively. After a few years of the marital foolery, the husband either dies or is quietly removed. And then the young widow, used to sin, breaks out into open profligacy, undermining the morals of all who come in contact with her.

On the other hand, when the wife dies first, leaving a son of say ten years, the father gets for him a bride of thirteen or fifteen. There is a double object in view. He cannot marry again if he is a poor man. He will have sooner or later to bring a wife for the son; so he resorts to this stratagem. Such arrangements are rare, but people know what they are made for. The re-marriage of widows and permission to marry one degree out of caste, would do away with practices the infamy of which attaches to almost all sections of uneducated Hindus.

Oh Caste! what havoc hast thou wrought in Gujarát in the name of religion, and under the sanction of antiquity! We have been thy slaves for centuries—and no slaves so abject as we Gujarátis, no tyrant so absolute as thou, cruel, cruel Caste! But thy days are numbered. Yes,