Readers' Forum
“Marriage vows”
In her letter "Marriage vows” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, December 21, 2015) Mehroo S. Kharegat has referred to a question asked by the officiating priest to the witness representing the father of the bridegroom during a Zoroastrian wedding ceremony "...to take this bride in marriage for the bridegroom on promise of paying her 2,000 dirhams of pure white silver and two dinars of red gold (of the coinage) of the city of Nishapore (in Iran).” Kharegat has questioned the relevance of these lines in the present times (presumably in India) and why our esteemed scholars and priests have neither pointed this out nor changed it.
The late Dastur Khurshed S. Daboo had taken cognizance of the irrelevance of these lines, and had replaced them with: "Ba paymaan-e chand mahr dadan [on the promise of paying (literally, to give) some mahr (the marriage gift settled upon the wife)].” My late father Ervad (Dr) Peshotan F. Peer, some other priests in our circle and I have followed this usage while performing wedding ceremonies.
The very erudite scholar priest, the late Ervad Phiroze Shapurji Masani, founder of the Parsi Vegetarian and Temperance Society, had published three volumes of the Pazend Prayers Series. The second volume of this series (published in 1920) contains different Pazend setayashes, and also the text of the nuptial benedictions. In the last, Masani has revised the lines, with a few words in Pazend, which are translated into Gujarati as "On the promise of giving certain amount of Indian rupees and some jewelry in gold.” And he has also provided a suitable footnote to that effect.
The late Dastur Khurshed S. Daboo had taken cognizance of the irrelevance of these lines, and had replaced them with: "Ba paymaan-e chand mahr dadan [on the promise of paying (literally, to give) some mahr (the marriage gift settled upon the wife)].” My late father Ervad (Dr) Peshotan F. Peer, some other priests in our circle and I have followed this usage while performing wedding ceremonies.
The very erudite scholar priest, the late Ervad Phiroze Shapurji Masani, founder of the Parsi Vegetarian and Temperance Society, had published three volumes of the Pazend Prayers Series. The second volume of this series (published in 1920) contains different Pazend setayashes, and also the text of the nuptial benedictions. In the last, Masani has revised the lines, with a few words in Pazend, which are translated into Gujarati as "On the promise of giving certain amount of Indian rupees and some jewelry in gold.” And he has also provided a suitable footnote to that effect.
Ervad (Dr) ROOYINTAN P. PEER
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