Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/227

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IN INDIA.
207

would be an act of felony. The time has come when such unconstitutional practices should be suppressed, by making them penal!

18. COOLINISM.—Another practice equally inconsistent with the increase of the population is that of Coolin-Brahminism. A Coolin Brahminis in Hindoo religion believed to be a quintessence of every thing sacred and mundane; to form a matrimonial alliance with such men is an object of ambition with the highest families, and to admit of the largest extension of such marriages, they are licensed by the priesthood to plenary indulgence in the number of their wives. They therefore lead a roving sort of life; they get feasted, worshipped, and enriched by the family of the bride, and when the honeymoon is over, they ride away, probably never to return, to enter into similar engagements with other families on their conjugal tour, leaving at every halt a Penelope in her teens, to lament for their loss, and despair of their return.

19. WIDOWISM.—It is somewhat curious that when government put an end to Sutteeism, one of the chief incentives to that sacrifice, viz., the prohibition of Hindoo widows marrying a second time should have been allowed to continue in effect. However, that remnant of barbarism is now under the consideration of government,and will no doubt be consigned to oblivion.