Gardi Jawai : The One where boy stays at bride's house .


“Bity em Beta Nam” is a very  old proverb in the santal society which means if you give daughter you will get son” or in the other sense if you have daughter you have son. So, difference is not so much in between boy and girl in the Santals society. No Santal become so much unhappy having daughter only because he may get easily a young and handsome boy as Gardi jawain for his daughter. The word ghar means distress, Gardi jawain means Ghar din lagit jawain. i.e. jawain for distress day.
This is also a negotiable marriage. The difference of marriage with that of other negotiable marriage is that the negotiation starts from bride side. The Raibarij guides the parents of bridegroom to brides house for Arah duarnel . i.e. to see the landed property and judge the Ere. If both the things are satisfactory, the marriage is settle. On the fixed day bariyats from bride’s house go directly to the bride’s groom’s house and bring the bride groom. The Sindurdan ceremony is held in bride’s house. The bride groom smears the Sindur on forehead of bride. No bride price is required, rather some amount of money are given to the bridegroom’s parent as compensation. All the expenditure of the marriage is borne  by the brides parents.
After the marriage, the boy stays in girl’s house. He, then assits his father in law in all sorts of works includeing cultivation, In case the father in law is too old to work, he himself does all the work. He takes all kinds of responsibilities regarding the management of the house  and ultimately becomes the sole custodian of the family like that of a son. Only one social bar is imposed on him is that he can not perform the last rite of his father and mother in law after their death as the belongs to separate claim or sept. So, the last rite is performed by their agnets and for that some amount of land is to be given to them before the gardi jawain enters in to the house. This provision is nothing but a arrangement for cordial living of new comer with the surrounding i.e agnets.

eDisom Team

Santhaledisom.com is an Online Publisher of contents related to Santhals. This website was started in 2014 with the soul aim of upbringing contents related to Tradition, Culture, Customs and Literature of Santhal Community by collecting and documenting them in form of our researches and writings, and publishing them on Internet . At present, the website is the largest knowledgebase of Santhal Community available on Internet having more than 100+ Articles, 1000+ Santhali Songs.