496 Manners and Customs of the Ceylonese. 
In some respects the accounts given of the matrimonial con- 
nexions of the Ceylonese are incorrect. It has in particular 
been said that each husband has only one wife, although a 
v/omaii is permitted to cohabit promiscuously with several hus- 
bands. This however is not always the case : many of the men 
indeed have but one wife, while others liave as many as they 
can maintain. There is no positive regulation on the subject, 
and it is probable that the ease with which promiscuous inter- 
course is carried on, and the ease with which marriages are 
dissolved, is, together with their poverty, the true cause why 
polygamy is not more general among them. In their particular 
circumstances indeed, where the houses consist often of but one 
apartment, and even the necessaries of life are so scanty, it 
is not to be supposed that a man will voluntarily undertake 
the burden of maintaining two wives, when he can at pleasure 
put away the wife he begins to get tired of, and take in her 
place the new object of his affections. 
The marriage ceremony, which, among nations with stricter 
ideas of chastity, is looked upon with a degree of mystery and 
veneration, is a matter of very small importance among the 
Ceylonese, and seems to be at all attended to only with a view 
to entitle the parties to share in each others goods, and to give 
their relations an opportunity of observing that they have mar- 
ried into their own cast. The marriages are often contracted by 
the parents while the parties are as yet in a state of childhood, 
merely with a view to match them according to their rank, 
and are often dissolved by consent almost as soon as consum- 
mated. It is also customary for those who intend to marry, 
previously to cohabit and make trial of each others temper; 
and if they find they cannot agree, they break off without the 
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