You must have heard several weird traditional practices but today’s seems to be the weirdest one.
There is a tribe in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri where girls have to become pregnant and then only she can get married. This is a custom of Toto tribe of the neighbouring state.
Girls of the tribe get married only after they become pregnant. Till then, the girl has to remain single.
The tribe which stays in the Totpada town of Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal has been following this peculiar custom since ages. And the reason behind this is to save the tribe which is slowly decreasing in numbers.
According to traditions, the girl and the boy go in for a live-in relationship for a year. If the girl conceives and delivers during the period, then the two are married off with the blessings of the senior members of both the families.
Usually in most case the boy ‘elopes’ with one of his cousin sisters. The two then start living together in the boy’s house. Here rules are followed strictly.
In this tribe, not only marriage, but the rules of divorce are also strange, after marrying in the above manner, if a boy or the girl wants to divorce, or wants to get separated, she has to perform a special puja, which costs a lot.
This is one of the reasons why there are lesser number of divorce cases. People here retreat because of this in getting a divorce.
The boy and the girl then can choose different partners again after a gap of six-seven months and try their lucks again.