PHYSIOLOGICAL IGNORANCE 255 



society. Its cruelty has been mitigated in the Panjab 

 and elsewhere outside Bengal by a custom of deferring 

 actual consummation to a later date. This however 

 is contrary to the intention of the sacred laws, which 

 appear to contemplate marriage with a view to 

 immediate consummation. 1 Infant marriage under these 

 laws was originally confined to the Aryan-speaking 

 population. With other practices inculcated by the 

 Brahmans it is now spreading wherever social distinc- 

 tion is desired and threatens to become the general 

 rule in the Indian peninsula. It is quite possible and 

 even likely that some of the peoples of that vast area 

 may have practised infant marriage, at all events as 

 an occasional thing, independently of Brahman in- 

 fluence. So subtle however is that influence that it 

 is difficult to point with certainty to a case. The 

 Todas may be described as untouched by Brahmanism. 

 The custom of infant marriage is well established 

 among them, but the girl does not usually join her 

 husband until she is about fifteen or sixteen years of 

 age. Shortly before she reaches puberty a man 

 belonging to the opposite endogamous group to that 

 of which she is a member, and therefore ineligible for 

 marriage though not for cohabitation with her, is called 

 in to perform the ceremony of putting his mantle over 

 her. He comes in the daytime to her village and 

 lying down beside her for a few minutes puts his 

 mantle over her, so that it covers them both. Deflora- 

 tion is not part of ihis rite ; the rite is only a pre- 

 liminary to that. " Fourteen or fifteen days later," 

 says Dr. Rivers, "a man of strong physique, who may 



1 Ind. Census, i. (1901), 431 sqq. Cf. Sacred Bks. xiv. 91, 314; 

 xxv. 328, 343, 344- 



