CHAPTER I - General rules.

( These rules are in accordance with the laws of Manou).

We have to get married in his ( her;its ? ) caste, with a very similar, rich, noble, beautiful virgin, and who is at least three years old less than one.

We do not have to look for in marriage a girl in the following cases.

It is a friend or a younger sister; we hold her ( it ? ) hidden; his ( her;its ? ) name is not harmonious; she ( it ? ) has the crushed nose; she ( it ? ) has the erased and striking navel, instead of being hollow; she ( it ? ) is hermaphrodite (App. 1). His ( her;its ? ) size is bent or deformed; she ( it ? ) is tied up; she ( it ? ) has the prominent forehead ( front ? ); she ( it ? ) misses head; she ( it ? ) is unclean; she ( it ? ) belonged to a man; she ( it ? ) is affected by goitre or the other striking glands; she ( it ? ) is deformed more or less; she ( it ? ) exceeded the age of puberty; she ( it ? ) perspires ( transpires ? ) constantly hands and feet (App. 2).

It is especially necessary to avoid the misalliances. The one who enters a family superior to his is considered neither by his wife nor relatives ( parents ? ) of this one. The one who marries a woman of lower rank in his does not obtain for her, in his ( her ? ) own family, the common consideration (App. 3).

Here are some aphorisms about the marriage.

A hardly looked for girl has to take for husband the man who she loves and who appears to him ( her ? ) to have to satisfy his ( her ? ) desires of all kinds.

If his ( her ? ) relatives ( parents ? ) give her ( it ? ) to a rich man, only because of his fortune, or to a man who has several women, she ( it ? ) will never become attached to him, whatever are her ( its ? ) qualities.

It is better a poor husband and of little appearance, but entirely to her, that a beautiful and attractive man who owes to several women.

The women of a rich man, although they enjoy all the advantages and the pleasures which they can wish, always have lovers [ 36 ].

We do not have to accept for husband a man without judgment either deprived of his social position [ 37 ], or fascinated for the journeys, or loaded with women and children, or devoted in the game ( set ? ).

The real husband of a girl is the man who has all the qualities which she likes.

That one only has on her of the influence and the prestige, because he is the husband of the love.

[ Note 36: today the polygamy is very rare in India. All the marriages are made by the relatives ( parents ? ), without even as the fiancés know before the ceremony. He ( it ? ) is there otherwise than at the converted Indians and at the Brahmanes of the English big cities which had many reports ( connections ? ) with the Europeans; we should indeed spread among all the Hindus aphorisms above.]

[ Note 37: _La decay _, it is the exclusion from the caste, that is a sort of civil death or excommunication. A condemnation to an infamous punishment (pronounced always by European judges) does not pull ( entail ? ) the decay with the eyes of the Hindus.]