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OF THE HINDUS.
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the marriage of children. In fact, it was impossible for a man to marry before maturity, as nine years are specified as the shortest term of his studentship, until the expiration of which he was not allowed to marry. He did not enter his studentship till he was seven or eight, and therefore, at the earliest, he could not have been married before he was seventeen; an early age enough, in our estimation, but absolute manhood, as compared with the age of nine or ten, at which Hindu boys are, according to the present practice, husbands. There is no doubt that many other innovations for the worse have been made in the marriage ritual and usages of the Hindus. And the whole system, the premature age at which the parties are married, the practice of polygamy, and the circumstances under which the alliance is commonly contracted, involving the utter degradation of the female sex, is equally fatal to the development of the moral virtues and intellectual energies of the man, and is utterly destructive both of public advancement and domestic felicity.
The funeral ceremonies originate also in part from the Vedas. It may be necessary here to explain that the use of forms and prayers, derived from the Vedas, is not incompatible with the neglect of the study of these works. The necessity of an acquaintance with the text has been obviated by the compilation of manuals and breviaries, if they may be so termed, in which the rules are laid down, and the formula (whether from the Vedas or other authorities) are