Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s3.2

c6.s3.2

Whatever may have been the rule in earlier times, polygamy is to-day the recognized and authorized system of marriage in India. This does not mean that it is universally or even generally practised. It is kept within bounds by poverty, and also, within a restricted circle, by the slow infiltration of Western ideas. Nevertheless, it exists absolutely in law and often in fact. However, except in particular cases, we may suitably leave it out of account when describing caste, and all the more readily because a special sanctity seems always to have attached to the first marriage, and a superior authority and dignity to have been reserved for the first wife.¹