Vol. X, No. 9.] Marriage Customs of the Cochin Castes. 299 

 [N.S.] 



ber of physical and mental defectives among them. Many 

 writers on the pathology of the Jews say, that the excessive 

 proportion of the deaf, mute, blind, insane, idiotic, imbecile 

 and diabetic persons among them is the result of breeding 

 in-and-in, which has been going on for centuries among tl 

 Jews of Europe. 1 The same facts are observed in some of the 

 members of the South Indian castes. Dr. Nayar states, that 

 in a large number of deaf mutes that come under his observa- 

 tion, an appreciable percentage are children of consanguineous 

 marriages. 2 



Age of the Contracting Parties. — Religious compulsion to 

 marry, the obligation to marry girls before the attainment of 

 puberty, and the prohibition of the marriage of widows, which 

 are so characteristic of the majority of the Indian population, 

 are in force in the Cochin State, only among the Tamil, Kon- 

 kani and other foreign Brahman* and also among some Tamul 

 Sudras. The Nambuthiris are the only indigenous Brahmans 

 among whom child marriage is absolutely unknown. The 

 early age at which the girls are married, and the great pre- 

 ponderance of widows over widowers are features sufficiently 

 prominent in Cochin as elsewhere in India. Nearly 20 per 

 cent of the population of the State follow the Marmnakkatha- 

 yam law of inheritance, and among them marriage is not com- 

 pulsory from a religious point of view as it is among the 

 several other classes of the Hindus. Child marriage in the 

 form of irrevocable betrothal is unknown among them, nor is 

 the remarriage of widows prohibited. In these latter respects, 



the Kammalans, the fishing castes (Valans, Kadal Arayans, 

 Mukku-vans and Marakkaans), the Izhuvans, Kaniyans and 

 other indigenous castes, though to a certain extent governed 

 by the Marumakkathayam law, follow the lead of the Nayars, 

 while the Christians and the Jonakan mapillas, who form a 

 third of the population, marry their girls only after they come 

 of age (though exceptions are often met with), and freely allow 

 remarriage of widows. Tamul Brahman girls and those of th< 

 Konkanis are married before they come of age. Even among 

 them the marriagable age is gradually rising. Among the rest of 

 the people, girls are seldom married before they attain the twelfth 

 year, the average age, when all sections of the population, in- 

 cluding Christians and Muhammadans, are taken together , being 

 about 14. In the case of males the average is about 20; 

 though these ages are quite early when compared with most 

 parts of India. The different religious communities of the 

 State present somewhat different features in regard to early 

 marriage. Christian males marry earlier, and Christian females 

 later than their Hindu brothers and sisters, while in the case 



The 



% Census of India, vol. xii, part 1. page 146. 



