CHILD WIFE SOLD

Evening Star, Issue 19638, 18 August 1927, Page 9

CHILD WIFE SOLD

BY PARENTS AND BROTHERS. A case in which a girl who, although only fourteen, had already been married several years (as is customary in Ind'a), was the victim of a conspiracy by her parents and brothers to sell her to another husband, has just been concluded at Debra Dun. The girl, named Musammat Bugdj, was kidnapped during her husband’s absence by her mother and brothers, who conspired to sell her to anybody offering enough money, and deputed a third man to procure a suitable husband. Eventually a corn mrechant in the Nabha State (some hundred miles from Debra Dun) was chosen as the prospective purchaser, and a bargain struck for about £220 to be paid to the girl’s brothers in instalments, with a third of the money as deposit on the signature of the contract. The girl escaped from Doebaud. where the marriage was to take place, out her mother found her and forcibly took her to the wedding disguised as a boy. The ceremony took place at a time when, according to Hindu law, marriages are illegal, but the conspirators drew up special rites to suit themselves. The father, mother, and two brothers of the giri were eacli sentenced to four years’ rigorous imprisonment, and the procurer and the new “husband’ to two years.