nokrom, a term which I have fully explained in the chapter on inheritance. When a girl is thus given in marriage to her cousin, the couple take up their abode with the former's parents. At the death of his father-in-law the nokrom marries the widow, thus assuming the anomalous position of husband to both mother and daughter."[1]
Here, again, it is plain that marriage with the widowed mother-in-law follows, and does not precede, marriage with her daughter; a man first marries his cousin and takes up his abode with her parents; afterwards, when his father-in-law dies, he marries the widow, his mother-in-law.
(5) Further, Major A. Playfair, in treating of inheritance among the Garos, writes as follows:
"Although a man cannot inherit property, his machong [motherhood] assumes a right to control what his wife has brought him. In order that the control shall not die out in the event, for instance, of the husband's death, he has the right to choose a male member of his clan to represent him. This representative is known as his nokrom. He is not an heir, for as a male he cannot inherit, and the person whose nokrom he is has nothing to leave, but he is the channel through which the 'motherhood' of the husband maintains its hold on the property of the wife. When possible, this nokrom is the son of the man's sister, and he is expected to marry his uncle's daughter, and the widow also when his uncle dies. In the event of there being no sister's son, a member of the man's machong [motherhood] is adopted as nokrom."[2]
From this passage we learn that a man is expected to marry his cross-cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother, in the lifetime of his uncle, and that on his uncle's death he is expected to marry the widow, his mother-in-law. Thus once more we are informed, on the best authority, that marriage with a mother-in-law, the widow of a mother's
