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68 as may readily be supposed, in rude times, when the will of the strongest was often the only law, bastards not unfrequently obtained a position to which they were not entitled by birth. Moreover when throwing a sheet over a woman (chadar dálna) gave her the full status of a legitimate wife, it was difficult to distinguish between the lawful son and the bastard. There were again degrees in illegitimacy, and well-recognised distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate concubinage, the son of a common slave girl not ranking with one born of a girl of respectable position who may have come to the house of the chief as one of the attendants on his bride.

With regard to the succession of collaterals there was some difference of practice, but the general rule was against it, as indeed is proved by the custom of the Karewa marriage under which a man taking the widow of his deceased brother acquired rights of succession which he would not otherwise have possessed. Mahárájá Ranjít Singh altogether refused to allow collaterals any rights, and on failure of male heirs of the body he invariably claimed an estate, though he ordinarily reassigned it to a near relation on payment of a heavy fine or nazrana. The practice of the English in the protected Cis-Sutlej States was similar and on much stronger grounds, for the Málwá Sikhs had been far more subordinate to the Delhi Government than those of the Mánjha, who were the conquerors and freeholders of their own lands, while Ranjít Singh was merely the most successful among