KAMA SUTRA : PART3-CHAPTER -1 On marriage

When a girl of the same caste, and a virgin, is married in accordance with the
precepts of Holy Writ, the results of such a union are the acquisition of Dharma
and Artha, offspring, affinity, increase of friends, and untarnished love. For this
reason a man should fix his affections upon a girl who is of good family, whose
parents are alive, and who is three years or more younger than himself. She
should be born of a highly respectable family, possessed of wealth, well
connected, and with many relations and friends. She should also be beautiful,
of a good disposition, with lucky marks on her body, and with good hair, nails,
teeth, ears, eyes and breasts, neither more nor less than they ought to be, and
no one of them entirely wanting, and not troubled with a sickly body. The man
should, of course, also possess these qualities himself. But at all events, says
Ghotakamukha, a girl who has been already joined with others (i.e. no longer a
maiden) should never be loved, for it would be reproachable to do such a thing.

Now in order to bring about a marriage with such a girl as described above,
thee parents and relations of the man should exert themselves, as also such
friends on both sides as may be desired to assist in the matter. These friends
should bring to the notice of the girl's parents, the faults, both present and
future, of all the other men that may wish to marry her, and should at the same
time extol even to exaggeration all the excellencies, ancestral, and paternal, of
their friend, so as to endear him to them, and particularly to those that may be
liked by the girl's mother. One of the friends should also disguise himself as an
astrologer, and declare the future good fortune and wealth of his friend by
showing the existence of all the lucky omens (1) and signs, (2) the good
influence of planets, the auspicious entrance of the sun into a sign of the
Zodiac, propitious stars and fortunate marks on his body. Others again should
rouse the jealousy of the girl's mother by telling her that their friend has a
chance of getting from some other quarter even a better girl than hers.

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