Caste and Race in India c8.94

c8.94

Fick summarizes the evidence of the Jātakas thus: "Marriage within one's own 'jāti' (caste) was the rule. Everywhere in the Jātakas we meet with the effort to keep the family pure through marriage confined to people of one's own standing and profession, and not to allow it to degenerate through mixture with lower elements. When the parents desire to marry their son they seek a maiden of the same caste for him." Yet there are instances in the Jātakas where the barriers of caste against intermarriage are surmounted. Endogamy was rather a universal custom than a rigid rule of caste.¹