Caste and Race in India c5.109.3

c5.109.3

He observes about the Barhai or carpenter caste of Hindustan that its seven sub-castes "are so distinct from one another that they hold no direct social intercourse with each other, either by marriages, or by eating or smoking together". ⁵ Further, some of the sub-castes have such a distinctness about their cultural items, as for example among the Vellalas, that it is not possible to give a general account of the marriage and other customs applicable to all the sub-divisions. While some of them recognize freedom of divorce and re-marriage and even polyandry, others follow strictly the Brahmanic rules.⁶ The remark of Gait that "as a rule the prohibition of intermarriage between members of the different sub-castes is far less rigid than it is between members of different castes, and when the rule is broken, the penalty is usually not expulsion, but merely some form of atonement, after which the member of the higher of the two sub-castes concerned, and possibly his or her parents, take rank in the lower " ⁷ may be urged as a potent reason why sub-castes should be treated as strictly subordinate to a caste.