Chapter V

Exogamy.

All that we know at present about the evolution of the Brâhmanical tribal system tends to confirm this theory. At any rate, whatever may be the origin of these Brâhmanical gotras, it must be remembered that the system extends to all respectable Hindus. As soon as a caste rises in the social scale a compliant priest is always ready to discover an appropriate gotra for the aspirant, just as an English brewer, raised to the peerage, has little difficulty in procuring a coat-of-arms and a pedigree which links him with the Norman conquest. It is obvious in such cases that the idea of common descent from the eponymous founder of the gotra becomes little more than a pious fiction. But among many of the Râjputs who have been promoted at a later date, and in particular with more recent converts to orthodox Hinduism from the forest tribes, with a comical disregard for the theory of gotra exogamy, we find the sept enjoying only a single gotra, and this is very often that of Bhâradvaja, which is a sort of refuge for the destitute who can find no other place of rest. As has already been shown, some of the sectional titles are eponymous, like those of the gotras named after the famous Rishis; others like the Durgbans Râjputs take their name from an historical personage; others, again, are totemistic, and others purely territorial.

Exogamy among the lower castes. 4. Passing on to the inferior castes, such as those of the agriculturists, artisans, and menials generally, we find very considerable differences in their internal structure: some are divided into regular endogamous sub-castes, which again are provided with exogamous sections, or, where these are absent, practise a special exogamous rule which bars intermarriage by reckoning as prohibited degrees seven (sometimes more or sometimes less) generations in the descending line. But it is obvious that, as in the case of Brâhmans, this rule which prohibits intermarriage within the section, is one-sided in its application, as Mr. Risley remarks:—“In no case may a man marry into his own section, but the name of the section goes by the male side, and consequently, so far as the rule of exogamy is concerned, there is nothing to prevent him from marrying his sister’s daughter, his maternal aunt, or even his maternal grandmother.” Hence came the ordinary formula which prevails generally among the inferior castes that a man cannot marry in the line of his paternal uncle, maternal uncle, paternal aunt, maternal aunt. But even this formula is not invariably observed. What the low caste villager will say if he is asked regarding his prohibited degrees, is that he will not take a bride from a family into which one of his male relations has married, until all recollection of the relationship has disappeared. And as rural memory runs hardly more than three generations, any two families may intermarry, provided they were not connected by marriage within the last sixty or seventy years. It is only when a man becomes rich and ambitious, begins to keep an astrologer and Pandit, and to live as an orthodox Hindu, that he thinks much about his gotra. To procure one and have the proper prohibited degrees regularly worked out is only a matter of money.

The present survey has given indication of the existence of totemistic sections among at least twenty-four tribes, most of whom are of Dravidian origin.

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