The presumption of marriage arising from long cohabitation can be rebutted by circumstances that weaken or destroy it.

SADASIVAM, J.:- Appellant Ponnamma filed the suit O.S. No.41 of 1962, on the file of the Subordinate Judge's Court, Nagarcoil, for partition and separate possession of a half share in the estate of Adhikesavaperumal Pillai on the ground that she is his legally wedded wife. She impleaded Kumara Pillai, the legitimate son of Adhikesavaperumal Pillai, through his first wife, as the first defendant in the suit, and he was represented by his guardian Kamalamma, as he was found to be a lunatic. The second defendant Kesava Pillai is the son of Kumara Pillai. The third defendant is the Advocate-receiver appointed to manage the properties of Kumara Pillai. The defendants contested the claim of the appellant that she was the legally wedded wife of the deceased Adhikesavaperumal Pillai. On a consideration of the oral and documentary evidence in this case, the learned Subordinate Judge, Nagarcoil, has found that the appellant has not proved that she is the legally wedded wife of Adhikesavaperumal Pillai and in the result, dismissed the suit with costs. Hence she has come forward with the present appeal.

2. Adhikesavaperumal Pillai belonged to Nanjanad Vellala community and he owned extensive properties. He married one Bagavathi, who died only a few months prior to his death. Kumara Pillai, the only son of Adhikesavaperumal Pillai, was 48 years old at the time when the suit was filed. The appellant-plaintiff claims to have married Adhikesavaperumal Pillai, 45 years prior to suit, in 1092 M.E. that is in 1918, when she was 24 years old and Adhikesavaperumal Pillai was 28 years old.

3. Appellant Ponnamma is a member of the eighth gudi entitled to do service in kudipravarthi in the Suchindram temple. There were 32 families doing Kudipravarthi in Suchindram temple. Admittedly, appellant Ponnamma was employed in Suchindram temple after she was initiated by the usual formal ceremony in her seventh year. She stated that tali was tied round her neck by the brahmin in Vattapalli Madam before Suchindram Thanumoorthy when she was seven years old.

4. The learned Subordinate Judge of Nacarcoil has referred to the passages in the Travancore State Manual by Nagam Iyer, 1906 Vol.II at page 383, the Travancore State Manual by T.K. Velu Pillai, 1940 Vol.II at pages 723 and 724 and Dr. K.K. Pillai's thesis on Suchindram temple and found that the kudipravarthi system of Suchindram temple can be equated to Devadasi system in Tamilnadu; the kudipravarthi was abolished in the Travancore State in 1105 M.E. The learned advocate for the appellant did not dispute the finding of the trial Court about the status of the appellant Ponnamma as a kudipravarthi woman. But he argued that it is open to even such a woman to take to a respectable married life and that when it is shown that she lived with Adhikesavaperumal Pillai and cohabited with him continuously for over four decades, it should be presumed that there was a valid marriage between them.

5. In Balasundaram v. Kamakshi Ammal, ILR (1937) Mad 257 : (AIR 1936 Mad 958). Wadsworth J. has held that, if a dancing girl eschews the calling of her community and adopts the ordinary life of a respectable married woman and acquires property, that property would devolve in accordance with the ordinary rules of Hindu law, in spite of the fact that she belongs to the dancing girl caste, and such property is impressed with a character which it cannot lose by passing on her death into the hands of a dancing girl practising the calling of her caste and the devolution of property acquired during her widowhood by such a dancing girl after she reverts to what may be described as an immoral life, would not be different, since any subsequent lapse from conjugal virtue would not give her any character other that of an unchaste married woman. In Saraswathi Ammal v. Jagadambal 1953-1 Mad LJ 697 : (AIR 1953 SC 201), the Supreme Court has held that in the absence of proof of existence of a custom governing succession to the estate of d