The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c7.s5.6

c7.s5.6

B. C., and is probably due to the influence of a cognate custom prevailing among the non-Aryans, which interdicted marriages among the worshippers of the same totem. The prohibition first appears in the Gṛihya Sūtra literature and is subsequently accepted by later writers. A *sagotra* marriage was very seriously viewed by Smṛiti and Nibandha writers, who could never think of validating it by the theory of the *factum valet*. The modern law courts also regard it as illegal. There is however no point in continuing this ban now; *gotras* were originally merely surnames and members of the same *gotra* have no real tie of consanguinity. And even if we suppose that there originally existed such a tie, it would be hardly rational or eugenic now to prohibit marriages on that account. For, members of any particular *gotra* existing to-day are removed by hundreds of generations from its original founder.