Page:Status of Women in Tamilnadu during the Sangam age .pdf/17

Dr. C. Balasubramanian GIRLS WHO OFFERED THEIR HEARTS TO THE WINNERS IN BULL FIGHTS

Young women born of Mullai tract would like to marry only those heroes who came out successful in bull fighting games. They never dream of marrying a coward who was afraid of the games.** Girls of long beautiful {tresses could be won only by the heroes who had over-mastered the bull.** From these internal evidences we have to infer that bull- fighting and success in the fierce game was a condition precedent to amatch between a young man and a young women of the Mullai tract.

In the ancient Tamil Society a huge amount was offered by the bridegroom's party for purchase of jewels for the embellishment of the bride. Buta father would never agree to give his daughter in marriage to a young man, even though he had brought out very large gifts of wealth, if only he was otherwise ineligible to her hand. **

When once a lady-love elected to marry a youngman, she accepted him as her lord finally, and never rejects him later. A lady-love who had lost her heart to her lover feigns to be carried only away by fresh floods while she was sporting in the river along wirh her maid friends. The lover who, she know was in the vicinity, plunged in the stream, caught hold of the girl, hugged her to his bosom, and rescued her from

her danger. Her parents and villagers decided to marry them, because their physical bodies united in contact, as did their hearts already. The maid friends of the lady love wonders how, at the apt moment, the lady could have called for rains at her command to bring freshes in the river.** In this context | am tempted to bring to your attention a parallel ideal embodied by Tiruvalluvar In his famous, oft quoted Kural, “The Lady who worships no God but her husband could bid even untimely rains to fall.""** As the Kurifci girls marry only the suitor of their choice rains came in abundance and in time. And the Kurifici men had plenty of