Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s3.5

c6.s3.5

These terms, however wide they may be, demand a mass of commentaries and limitations in order to achieve exactitude. The anthropological sciences have within recent years created certain technical terms, somewhat uncouth but too convenient and already too widespread for me not to ask permission to introduce them here. They will save us from confusing periphrases. The custom which imposes marriage within the fixed circle has been called *endogamy*, and the law which ordains marriage outside a fixed circle *exogamy*. Now, with us there is only a law of exogamy—that which forbids marriage within the radius of degrees of close consanguinity.