It justly ridiculed a certain Gujerati newspaper,
which had just described in very pompous expressions a recent
wedding ceremony in Poona. The bridegroom, who had just entered
his sixth year "pressed to his heart a blushing bride of two and
a half!" The usual answers of this couple entering into matrimony
proved so indistinct that the Mobed had to address the questions
to their parents: "Are you willing to have him for your lawful
husband, O daughter of Zaratushta?" and "Are you willing to be
her husband, O son of Zoroaster?" "Everything went as well as it
could be expected," continued the newspaper; "the bridegroom was
led out of the room by the hand, and the bride, who was carried
away in arms, greeted the guests, not with smiles, but with a
tremendous howl, which made her forget the existence of such a
thing as a pocket-handkerchief, and remember only her feeding-bottle;
for the latter article she asked re-peatedly, half choked with sobs,
and throttled with the weight of the family diamonds. Taking
it all in all, it was a Parsi marriage, which shows the progress
of our speedily developing nation with the exactitude of a weather
glass," added the satirical newspaper.
Having read this we laughed heartily, though we did not give full
credit to this description, and thought it a good deal exaggerated.
We knew Parsi and Brahman families in which were husbands of ten
years of age; but had never heard as yet of a bride who was a
baby in arms.
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