THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
179 
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 married 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 consummated. 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 interference of the priest, 
or any further ceremony, and no disgrace attaches on the 
occasion to either party, but the woman is quite as much 
esteemed by her next lover as if he had found her in a 
state of virginity. 
After the parties have agreed to marry, the first step is, 
that the man present his bride with the wedding-clothes, 
which indeed are not of the most costly kind : they consist* 
of a piece of cloth, six or seven yards in length, for the use 
of the bride, and another piece of cloth to be placed on the 
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