Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s6.7

c8.s6.7

The guilds of the Middle Ages remind us in some of their customs of certain similar features in antique organizations. Yet who would venture to claim that the former are the direct heirs of the latter? Customs which had only survived the domination of an entirely new set of morals and ideas at the cost of losing their real identity and significance in the public mind, gradually crept back. I am willing to admit the patronage of a saint to be the reflection in the guilds of the eponymy of the ancient heroes, and the meals, which on certain solemn days brought their members together, to be a relic of the family meal. Yet there is from the one type to the other no continuity of transmission or immediate derivation. Nothing in the guilds corresponds to the solid cohesion of the family-corporation. They are not only open to all comers, provided that the requisite conditions are fulfilled, but they furthermore impose no restrictions on the civil and private life of their members. The resemblances then are to some extent accidental and fragmentary. It is possible that the repasts which in our country still gather the relations and friends of the deceased together after a burial are not unconnected with the funeral feasts of antiquity. What does it matter if in its long journey the usage has lost its original significance?