Originally posted by: HeartQuake
Not true. Only Indra got married to her . Satya was the " Neet Bar " of the wedding . Neet bar ( fake groom) and some times even Neet Koney ( fake bride) is a standard part of any bengali wedding , where a little boy from the groom's side is dressed exactly like the groom and accompanies him , same goes for Neet koney. It's still very much part of Bengali weddings. However they take no part in marriage rituals for obvious reasons . Their role is limited to accompanying the groom.
A special Aarti and Tilak are done to the groom by usually the bride's mother or elder sister , which in this case you'll notice had been done to Indra nath only , thereby showing that he is the groom. However due to Satya's neet bar attire Bulbul confused her as the groom.
In those days , let alone marrying three people , even considering a woman marrying another man after the husband's demise was considered a grave sin and in the life time of husband , no other men were usually even allowed to touch a married woman , not even her father or brother . There was no exception to this rule. So no, it was not common , not even rare.
Even in these age and times , 10 years age difference in marriage is still pretty common in many bengali households and during those days 15 years was considered the standard scripture indicated age difference between man and woman . Even 20 years age difference was pretty much common. Even Rabindranath Tagore married a woman at least 12 years younger than him and by the time she was pregnant , she was only 13.
So these things were very common and encouraged by society . By the time a girl reached 14 , she's usually married , if not , then that is an exception.
The notion of paedophillia and perversion in the idea of sleeping with a child etc. these came with modern age and liberation movements. The time we see this story set in , usually as soon as the girl would start menstruating , she would be having regular intercourse with her husband and expected to conceive and produce a child as soon as possible,
So the marriage part at least was not perversion by any standard , considering the backdrop and set up of the story.
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