Period of
solemnizing marriage.--Method adopted in choosing a husband or
wife.--Overtures and contracts of marriage, how regulated.--Mugganee,
the first contract.--Dress of the bride elect on this occasion.--The
ceremonies described as witnessed.--Remarks on the bride.--Present
from the bridegroom on Buckrah Eade.

The Mussulmauns have permission from their Lawgiver to be pluralists in
wives, as well as the Israelites of old.[1] Mahumud's motive for
restricting the number of wives each man might lawfully marry, was, say
his biographers, for the purpose of reforming the then existing state of
society, and correcting abuses of long standing amongst the Arabians.

My authority tells me, that at the period of Mahumud's commencing his
mission, the Arabians were a most abandoned and dissolute people, guilty
of every excess that can debase the character of man: drunkards,
profligate, and overbearing barbarians, both in principle and action.
Mahumud is said unvariedly to have manifested kindly feelings towards the
weaker sex, who, he considered, were intended to be the companion and
solace of man, and not the slave of his ungovernable sensuality or caprice;
he set the best possible example in his own domestic circle, and
instituted such laws as were then needed to restrain vice and promote the
happiness of those Arabians who had received him as a Prophet. He forbade
all kinds of fermented liquors, which were then in common use; and to the
frequent intoxication of the men, were attributed their vicious habits,
base pursuits, and unmanly cruelty to the poor females. Mahumud's code of
laws relating to marriage restricted them to a limited number of wives;
for at that period they all possessed crowded harems, many of the
inhabitants of which were the victims of their reckless persecution; young
females torn from the bosom of their families and immured in the vilest
state of bondage, to be cast out upon the wide world to starvation and
misery, whenever the base master of the house or tent desired to make room
for a fresh supply, often the spoils of his predatory excursions.

By the laws of Mahumud his followers are restrained from concubinage; they
are equally restricted from forced marriages. The number of their wives
must be regulated by their means of supporting them, the law strictly
forbidding neglect, or unkind treatment of any one of the number his
followers may deem it convenient to marry.

At the period when