Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.647

c7.647

Affinity still regarded as a hindrance to marriage in India. The prohibition of marriage within forbidden degrees of propinquity, particularly inside a *gotra*, is mentioned even by Alberuni 2,155 and is now universally observed, at least among the Brahmans, Rajputs and other higher castes. Thus among the various Brahman sects of Madras marriage between persons of the same *gotra* is never allowed.¹ Among the Brahmakṣatris of Puna marriage cannot take place if the *gotras* are the same but if the surnames are same it is no hindrance to marriage²; but also in those places of Bombay where the similarity of the surname or *devak*, i.e. the insignia or fetich, is regarded as a hindrance to marriage, it is to be traced back to the same principle, for many *gotras* are denoted by the same surname or the same insignia.³ In the N. W. Provinces and Oudh marriages within the *gotra* are universally forbidden.⁴ The Soti Brahmans of eastern Tirhut keep accurate family registers for their whole sect and produce evidence at the marriage that the bride and the bridegroom are not related to each other in any way that may be a hindrance to their marriage. Those relations among whom marriage is not possible are mentioned in a Behari proverb which declares all the descendants of the uncles and the aunts of the father's side as well as of the mother's side as ineligible to matrimony; yet it is doubtful for how many generations this prohibition continues to be in force⁵. It is a universal rule in Lahore that no man can marry a woman of his *got*. Among the Rajputs of Gurgaon in the Punjab, marriage even with the relations of the mother or the grandmother of the paternal side is forbidden as well as with any such person who may be proved to be a relation of the paternal side⁶. The exogamy perhaps first came into fashion among the Rajputs (Kṣatriyas), among whom, in Rajputana, as Sir A. Lyall has beautifully described it¹, it may be studied in its primitive character in connection with the modern mock abduction and the former practice of carrying away women by force and also in connection with the family constitution.