Caste and Race in India c12.106

c12.106

The endogamous nature of caste has remained almost the same with this difference that whereas formerly marriage outside one's caste was not to be even thought of, to-day many educated young men and women are prepared to break through the bonds of caste if mutual love or attraction demands it. In Bombay we have known many examples, mostly members of younger generation, who have managed their own matrimonial affairs, the parties to which belong to two different castes. A large majority of such marriages, known as inter-caste or mixed marriages, is formed by couples where the female partner belongs to a caste lower than that of the male partner. Yet the opposite variety, where the male partner belongs to a lower caste, is not altogether rare. As for the older generation, it may be said without exaggeration that, in spite of the talk about social reform, it has made very little advance in its ideas on the subject of intermarriage. When, therefore, elderly persons arrange the marriages of their wards they hardly ever think of going beyond their caste—even though it be a section of a large group—from which to select a bride or a bridegroom. If they venture to ignore the limits of the narrowest division—if for example a Chitpavan Brahmin selects a girl from the Karhada Brahmin for his son, in the Maratha country—he is looked up to as a reformer. It would be hard to point out examples of marriages between members of outright separate castes arranged for their wards by the elderly guardians. It is the recklessness and enthusiasm of youth alone that is prepared to transgress the bounds of caste for the purpose of marriage.