Читать книгу The Village in the Jungle онлайн

39 страница из 47

And yet the villager makes a clear distinction between marriage and what he calls concubinage. In the former the woman is recognised by his and her families as his wife; almost invariably she is openly taken to his house, and there is a procession and feasting on the wedding day: in the latter the woman is never publicly recognised as a wife. Marriage is considered to be more respectable than concubinage, and in a headman's immediate family it would be more usual to find the women 'recognised' wives than 'unrecognised' wives. And though in the ordinary village life the 'unrecognised' wife is as common as, or even more common than, the 'recognised' wife, and is treated by all exactly as if she were the man's wife, yet the distinction is understood and becomes apparent upon formal occasions. For instance, a woman who is living with a man as his 'unrecognised' wife cannot be present at her sister's wedding. When a man takes a woman to live with him in this informal way, the arrangement is, however, regarded as in many ways a formal one, a slightly lower form than the recognised marriage. The man and the woman are of the same caste always: there would even be strong objection on the part of the man or woman's relations if either the one or the other did not come from a 'respectable' family.