The Tai Ahom National Council Memo Scheduling

writes P. R. Gurdon in Encyclopaedia of Religion & Ethics, Vol I, p. 235). In the chak-long
marriage, the Ahom priest normally recounts the family trees and great deeds of forefather of
both families to the new couple thus reminding them of their past history.
In a judgement of the Hon’ble High Court of Gauhati gave recognition to the
chak-long as the customary Ahom marriage system. Marriage by Homa or saptapadi
ceremony before the sacred fire is unknown to the Ahom even to this day. Except a section of the
Ahom, others perform Chak-long marriage.
Ahom Women do not suffer from the Disabilities of Hindu Women:
In other parts of India Hindu women suffer greatly from certain social customs and institutions.
But the Ahom women are free from such disabilities. An Ahom woman does not suffer, as such
social customs do not exist in Ahom society. A woman does not loose claim on the household
authority after the loss of her husband, rather she assumes the headship of the family unless
disabled by old age or physical disabilities. In society too a widow is never treated as outcaste
and never have to observe the austerity measures in food, dress or in associating herself in social
functions. Widows were and are not considered liability in the Ahom society, as it is among the
Caste Hindu society. Earlier Ahom women moved about without having any covering on their
head. Even today in some interior villages Ahom women go bare head. The observance of
purdah was unknown to them.
Sihab-ud-din Talish when he was in Upper Assam in 1662-63 was surprised to see this to
remark,
“Neither the women of the Rajah, nor those of common people, veil themselves; they go
about in the bazaars without head-coverings”.
This practice was applicable to all women, even to the widows as well.
B. C. Allen writes “
The Ahom, …held their women folk in honour, and even at the present day, the purdah
and all that it implies, is almost unknown in the country inhabited by the Assamese”.
(Gazetteer pf Assam, Vol. VI, Nowgong District, 1905, p. 51).
Ahom women go for fishing, which is a very common sight in the Ahom villages during the
rainy season, take the hoe, rear cocoon, ducks and chickens, weave clothes, plant paddy, cut
paddy when ripe, raise kitchen garden, tether cows and goat, and help their men folk in a variety