Judgement Appeal from a decree of the High Court (Sept. 10, 1895), reversing a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Tirhoot (Sept. 19, 1892). The sole question decided in this case was one of fact— " whether the appellant was the lawful wife of Rajah Ram Das, deceased." The Subordinate Judge, relying on "the direct testimony of so many apparently trustworthy witnesses," held the marriage was proved; and decreed maintenance at the rate of Rs. 750 a month. The High Court, on the other hand, arrived at the conclusion that the conduct of the parties both before and after the marriage was inconsistent with a marriage having taken place, and consequently considered the evidence of the appellants witnesses by no means satisfactory. They also considered that if a marriage had been established Rs. 500 a month was a sufficient maintenance. Prinsep J. summed up his judgment as follows "I find myself unable to agree with the Subordinate Judge that the plaintiff is the widow of the deceased Rajah Ram Das, and as such entitled to maintenance. The plaintiffs case really depends upon the evidence of the witnesses to the marriage. This evidence is by no means satisfactory for reasons already stated, and it is completely negatived by the conduct of the parties I both before and after the alleged marriage. The visit of Gopi Bai at that time seems to have been for medical attendance on the Mohunt, and it would seem that advantage was taken of his dissolute and immoral habits to entangle him into living with the plaintiff. Her age was unmistakably not that stated by her, seven or eight years, and in this respect we agree with the Subordinate Judge ; and I here draw attention to the fact that the condition under which the Mohunt is said to have married this girl, namely, that he should acknowledge and appoint her brother as his successor in the mohuntship, which was set up in the proceedings relating to the application for probate, is no part of the evidence in the present case. Moreover, the conduct of the Mohunt himself and the absence of such evidence as might be expected, that the marriage was announced either by him or by persons connected with his estate at Jaintpore when Gopi Bai and her family came to Jaintpore, or indeed was ever openly asserted until the application for probate of the deceased Mohunt made on behalf of defendant, tends to throw discredit on the evidence of the witnesses to the marriage. Lastly, the conduct of the defendant since that time does not prove any admission of the plaintiffs status as widow." Ghose J., while arriving at the conclusion that the suit should be dismissed, referred to evidence which made for plaintiffs success, and with hesitation decided that the probabilities against the marriage having taken place were such that it would not be safe to hold in the affirmative, and he added that a perusal of the direct testimony did not carry much conviction to his mind. C. W. Arathoon, for the appellant. Ross, for the respondent. 1900. June 19. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by Lord Robertson. The question raised by this appeal is whether the appellant was the wife and is now the widow of Rajah Ram Das, who died on November 27, 1878. The suit was initiated by the appellant on November 22, 1890, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Tirhoot. The plaint and the written statement of the respondent, who, being heir of the deceased, appeared as defendant, involved other questions on which issue was joined; but these it is now unnecessary to rehearse. Many witnesses were examined and many exhibits were filed. On September 19, 1892, the Subordinate Judge of Tirhoot found that the plaintiff was the lawfully married wife of Rajah Ram Das and is now his widow, and he pronounced decree for maintenance at the rate of Rs. 750 a month. An appeal having been taken to the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, that Court on September 10, 1895, set aside the Subordinate Judges decree and dismissed the suit with costs. The present appeal is brought from that judgment of the High Court. Rajah Ram Das was zemindar of Jaintpore and a person of considerable wealth and position. He called himself Mohunt, but he was not in fact a Mohunt. The present appeal is brought from that judgment of the High Court. Rajah Ram Das was zemindar of Jaintpore and a person of considerable wealth and position. He called himself Mohunt, but he was not in fact a Mohunt. Prior to the disputed period he was unmarried, but he was free to marry; he was greatly addicted to women, and he died, under thirty years of age, of diseases induced by his excesses. At the time of the alleged marriage, which was seven months before his death, he was suffering from those ailments. Of the personal facts relating to the appellant, it is difficult to say anything that is quite certain. She and her mother, for a purpose collateral to the present issue, have thought well to represent her as of the tender age of seven or eight at the time of her marriage, but it may be assumed that she was in fact older and had attained puberty. Her father is a most shadowy figure in the evidence, and his identity is not certainly ascertained. Her mothers part in these proceedings is much more prominent. The respondent suggests that she was an adventuress ; and both she and her daughter are, to say the least, not uniformly truthful even in matters dangerously near the essence of their claim, and they are persons whose own statements must be received with caution and whose case it is necessary to test with vigilance. At the time of the alleged marriage Gopi Bai, the mother, was practising medicine; and, contrary to her own statement, she does not seem to have] withheld the benefits of her skill from either sex. She was a Bairagi, as was also the Rajah, and the judge of the High Court, who has formed the most adverse opinion of the appellants case, considers that Gopi Bai attended the Rajah professionally, and " took advantage of his dissolute and immoral habits to entangle him into living with the plaintiff." This observation may well introduce what is the central fact in the case—a fact which it is necessary to keep steadily in mind throughout the examination of the evidence, and which narrows the true scope of the controversy. It is common ground between the parties that Rajah Earn Das and the appellant lived together for the last seven months of his life; and the only question is whether this took place on the footing of marriage or of concubinage. Had the fact been otherwise, the inherent improbabilities of the plaintiffs case arising from the alleged age of the bride and the health of the bridegroom would have been extremely difficult to overcome. But, if these two persons, whatever her age and whatever his health, did in fact cohabit during the period in controversy, objections have no relevancy which strike no more at the theory of marriage than at the theory of concubinage, but really at facts common to both. Accordingly, so far as the appellants age is concerned, the true inference is not that the story of the marriage must be rejected, but only that she was older than she allows, and that the credibility of herself and her witnesses is to that extent affected. Again, the surprise and disgust excited by Gopi Bai having given her daughter to a person in the Rajahs condition of health arise equally on either theory, and have scarcely any influence in the election between the two. The case of the appellant then, as presented in evidence, is tht she was married to the Rajah Ram Das at Benares on a day early in May, 1878. The long interval between the alleged marriage and the trial of the issue must be allowed for in considering the evidence of the witnesses examined. It does not, however, give rise to any just suspicion that the appellants claim is an afterthought; for, immediately after the death of Rajah Ram Das, the appellant judicially asserted herself as his widow, and she received maintenance out of his estate from his death down to the dispute which led to the present litigation. These points will be hereafter more fully examined. The appellant has submitted to their Lordships considera tion the evidence of eleven witnesses who assert that they were present at the marriage ceremony, and two who assert that they were present at the procession immediately preceding, but not at the ceremony itself. The marriage rites to which the witnesses depose were appropriate to the fact that both parties were Bairagis. The marriage rites to which the witnesses depose were appropriate to the fact that both parties were Bairagis. The body of evidence thus presented is so substantial that it is difficult to disregard it, unless analysis shews its quality to render it unreliable. The respondent has boldly faced this difficulty, and asked their Lordships to follow the High Court in entirely rejecting it. It is to be observed, however, that neither of the learned judges of the High Court has presented any destructive criticism of that evidence, founded on inherent defects; the conclusion of both is rested on the antecedent improbability of such a marriage, and on the subsequent events of the case. Their Lordships have had the benefit of a close and careful examination of the evidence by the respondents counsel, and they are unable to find adequate grounds for believing that witnesses who are not only numerous but of various social positions have been suborned, and the respectability of some of them is vouched for by the learned judges in the High Court. But further, all the witnesses were cross-examined, and the cross-examination has in no instance shaken the evidence, while in several cases it has brought out circumstantial and striking additions to its verisimilitude. There is no monotony in the evidence, while at the same time there are no contradictions; each witness speaks from his own point of view, and some saw more and some less. On one point indeed the respondent has succeeded in raising the suspicion that some of the witnesses have spoken rather on the suggestion of the appellants mother than from their own knowledge, and that is the appellants age. It seems certain that at the time of the marriage the plaintiff was not so young as seven or eight, and many of the witnesses give that as her age. But, even assuming that those witnesses have too facilely accepted the appellants story as to her age, their Lordships do not regard this as an adequate ground for rejecting the whole of their evidence as tutored. But, even assuming that those witnesses have too facilely accepted the appellants story as to her age, their Lordships do not regard this as an adequate ground for rejecting the whole of their evidence as tutored. The age of the bride (whose dress precluded any accurate inferences from her face or figure) was not a matter on which they had personal knowledge or could do otherwise than rely on information, whereas the matter which they came to attest was the factum proprium that at Benares on a certain day they saw certain things done. On the whole, the solid body of direct testimony presented by the appellant as to the fact of marriage can only be rebutted by the most cogent contrary inferences from the circumstances of the parties. Before ascertaining whether such exist it is well to gather together those proved facts which corroborate the affirmative evidence. Of these, one is supplied by the respondent. In cross-examination the appellant seems to have been challenged by the respondent to say whether any persons were with the Rajah when he was at Benares on the occasion of his marriage, and she named two persons, both of whom were afterwards put into the witness-box by the respondent. Both these men were very likely to have been with the Rajah on the occasion in question, if he himself was there, for they were close attendants and confidants, as their own depositions shew. It was manifestly the duty of the respondent, if the appellant had spoken falsely on this crucial test of her story which he himself had selected, to disprove her statement by these witnesses ; yet neither was asked a question on the subject. The appellant may fairly claim, and the Subordinate Judge has held, that her statement that they were present is to be accepted as true. The next fact in the order of time is one which has sub stantial importance, and has been treated much too lightly in the High Court. After the death of the Rajah, the executor under his will applied for (and ultimately obtained) probate. But on January 18, 1879, within two months of his death, the appellant filed a caveat in the Probate Court designing herself as widow of the Rajah, and she followed this up by a written statement in which her marriage was specifically alleged. After the death of the Rajah, the executor under his will applied for (and ultimately obtained) probate. But on January 18, 1879, within two months of his death, the appellant filed a caveat in the Probate Court designing herself as widow of the Rajah, and she followed this up by a written statement in which her marriage was specifically alleged. It is unnecessary to consider the main contention which she maintained on that occasion, for the judge held that, even assuming everything she said to be true, no valid objection was stated to the prayer of the executor for probate. The point is not merely that the appellant immediately shewed herself in the character of widow, but that she thus came forward, not asserting her marriage (as if assertion were needed), but assuming it, in order to enforce what she alleged to have been a condition of her marriage, namely, that her brother should be adopted as son of the Rajah. This tone of the appellants pleading, implying that the marriage itself was undisputed, is in harmony with certain admissions by the respondent, who it is true was only a boy at the time of the Rajahs death, but who says that five or six months before that event (that is to say, just after the alleged marriage) he had heard the appellant and her mother say that the appellant was married to the Rajah. The position taken by the appellant in the probate proceedings throws a strong light also on the subsequent payment to her of maintenance, for there could be no dubiety as to the footing on which she received it. These payments were made regularly until the respondent got into pecuniary embarrassment, and there are extant tankhas in which the allowance is expressly said to be on account of maintenance. The respondent has sought to assimilate these payments to payments to certain prostitutes who had been the mistresses of the Rajah, on the ground that in a statement of liabilities the allowance of the appellant appears in juxtaposition to those doles. But even in this juxtaposition the appellants name is distinguished by the honourable prefix of Mussummat, while the amount of her allowance is in marked contrast to those of the others. But even in this juxtaposition the appellants name is distinguished by the honourable prefix of Mussummat, while the amount of her allowance is in marked contrast to those of the others. Among the minor corroborations of the appellants claim she points to the fact that in certain letters to her the respondent addressed her as bhouji (brothers wife), and although the amatory tone of the letters precludes the reader from taking everything literally, this is to be noted along with the other facts of the appellants case. The circumstances now noticed, derived from the period after the Rajahs death, furnish strong corroboration of the direct evidence of the fact of marriage. (Their Lordships do not rely on some words uttered by the Rajah himself, for they may possibly have been intended merely as an evasion of an unwelcome inquiry.) Against this evidence the respondent has mainly relied on the general improbabilities arising from the alleged age of the appellant and the health of the Rajah, on the inferiority of her position, on the absence of religious motive for the marriage, and on a variety of other objections, such as the unlikelihood of a personage like the Rajah going to Benares for his marriage without a retinue. Several of these matters have been already touched on; and there is this further general observation to be made—that the disorders of the Rajahs life make the ordinary criteria of conduct misleading guides to the truth of what he allowed himself to do or was induced to do. It may very well be that Gopi Bai had established an influence over this invalid and voluptuary to which her medical skill contributed, and that the Rajah did not court publicity for a marriage upon which reflection might be made. The respondent, however, has advanced a few specific facts which, so far as they go, bear directly against the marriage. The Rajah had made his will before the alleged marriage, and in it, of course, there was no provision for the appellant. When he did make provision for her, it was by furnishing the larger part (if not the whole) of the price of a property, which was conveyed by the seller to the appellant. The Rajah had made his will before the alleged marriage, and in it, of course, there was no provision for the appellant. When he did make provision for her, it was by furnishing the larger part (if not the whole) of the price of a property, which was conveyed by the seller to the appellant. Now, the purchase and the terms of the conveyance were arranged by two persons, of whom one was a servant of the Rajah and the other a servant of Gopi Bai, and the respondents point is that the appellant is not described as the Rajahs wife, but as if she were unmarried. Prima facie this is an argument against the appellant; but it is not of a very conclusive character, and the respondent did not bring home either to the appellant or Gopi Bai or to the Rajah any knowledge of the terms of the conveyance. As regards the testamentary intentions of the Rajah towards the appellant, it may very well have been that he relied, as he justly might, on the provision of the law to secure this lady maintenance over and above the property conveyed by this deed of sale. On a full consideration of the whole case their Lordships deem the marriage to be established. On the question of the amount of maintenance, their Lordships agree with the High Court in fixing Rs. 500 a month as the sum which the appellant ought to receive. They will humbly advise Her Majesty that the judgment of the High Court should be reversed, and that of the Subordinate Judge should be restored with this variation, that the amount of maintenance be Rs. 500 a month instead of Rs. 750 a month, and that the respondent pay the costs in the High Court and proportionate costs in the Court of the Subordinate Judge. The respondent will also pay the costs of this appeal.