Marriage is a contract rather than a rite. Polygamy or concubinage is rare: the adoption of children common. All the sons inherit equally; daughters not at all. A Bodo can only marry to one of his own people. Divorce, though practicable and easy, is rare; the wife and daughter have their due influence. No infanticide, no suttí. Children are named as soon as the mother comes abroad, which is generally four or five days after her confinement. The idea that the delivery involves a temporal impurity is recognised; so that all births (and deaths also) necessitate a temporary segregation and certain purificatory forms. The one, however, is short, and the other simple. The infant "is named immediately after birth, or as soon as the mother comes abroad, which is always four or five days after delivery. There are no family names, or names derived from the gods. Most Bodo and Dhimáls bear meaningless designations, or any passing event of the moment may suggest a significant term: thus a Bhótia chief arrives at the village, and the child is called Jinkhap; or a hill peasant arrives, and it is named Góngar, after the titular or general designation of the Bhótias. Children are not weaned so long as their mother can suckle them, which is always from two to three years--sometimes more--and two children, the last and penultimate, are occasionally seen at the breast together. The delayed period of weaning will account in part for the limited fecundity of the women. When a Bodo or Dhimál comes of age, the event is not solemnized by any rite or social usage whatever. Marriage takes place at maturity, the male being usually from twenty to twenty-five years of age, and the female, from fifteen to twenty. Courtship is not sanctioned: the parents or friends negotiate the wedlock."
In this the commercial element is predominant. A price--_Jan_--must be paid by the bridegroom elect for the intended bride. If the former have "no means of discharging this sum, he must go to the house of his father-in-law elect and there literally earn his wife by the sweat of his brow, labouring, _more Judaico_, upon mere diet for a term of years, varying from two as an average to five and even seven as the extreme period. This custom is named Gabóï by the Bodo--Ghárjyá by the Dhimáls."