The first act of the bridegroom on entering the hut is to take a horsewhip (jédal) made entirely of leather, and with it inflict three severe blows upon the fair person of his bride, with the view of taming any lurking propensity to shrewishness.[1] His example is followed by his male relatives, who by this act obtain ever afterwards peculiar rights and power over the bride, which her husband dare not dispute. If she cries out in the least, or even flinches under the chastisement, she is ridiculed and despised by the village community.
All then leave the hut except the bride and bridegroom, and two of the male relatives of the latter, whose duty it is to hold the girl down while the husband performs the operation of defibulation with a knife, her cries being drowned by four girls who dance and sing immediately outside the hut.
The happy pair are then left to themselves, while dancing and singing are kept up in the kraal for the greater part of the night.
In the morning the bride's female relations bring presents of milk, and are accompanied by a young male child whose parents are living. The child drinks some of the milk before any one else tastes it; and after him the bridegroom, if his parents are living; but if one or both of his parents are dead, and those of the bride living, she drinks after the child. By doing this they believe that if the newly-married woman bears a child the father will be alive at the time.
After an irregular marriage ceremony of this kind, if the woman shows signs of approaching maternity, the husband takes a pearl or bead of some kind from his wife's necklace, and travels in search of a kádhí, to whom he presents the pearl, thus insuring the legitimacy of the offspring.
The mother-in-law is never allowed to interfere in the domestic affairs of her daughter; and she dare not—without risk of a broken head— enter the hut while her son-in-law is present.
If the wife dies, leaving unmarried sisters, the widower is bound to
- ↑ A similar custom seems to have prevailed among the ancient Muscovites. Barclay, an early English traveller in Russia, speaking of the women of the country says:—"They don't think their Husbands love them unless they give them now and then reall Proofs of it, by giving them a good Cudgelling."
