[youeseh]

Certainly, I hope anyone commenting on this will take note of the publishing date being more than 100 years ago.

Who your kids end up marrying is mentioned as a big driver of caste in the article. I think that holds true today as well. All things being equal, your professor / lawyer / doctor parents probably don't want you to marry a janitor.

And, I'm pretty sure this is true everywhere.

In a highly competitve place (mostly due to population), they'll say something like, "he's from the janitor class, but thats okay, because he's a doctor" to justify marrying outside the caste.

[the_omegist]

> And, I'm pretty sure this is true everywhere. In a highly competitve place (mostly due to population), they'll say something like, "he's from the janitor class, but thats okay, because he's a doctor" to justify marrying outside the caste.

Well, I don't think there is a concept of "janitor class" "everywhere"...

Of course social classes exist everywhere, but I think your example just shows what a caste system is : if a son-of-janitor becomes a doctor the in-laws in most modern societies will see a doctor, whereas in a caste system they will see a (son-of-) janitor.

[unmole]

> Certainly, I hope anyone commenting on this will take note of the publishing date being more than 100 years ago.

That's irrelevant when discussing the mechanism, genesis and development of a system that goes back millienia.

> they'll say something like, "he's from the janitor class, but thats okay, because he's a doctor"

What are you basing this on? Exogamy between castes remains very low, even between different high castes.

[mohanmcgeek]

> Exogamy between castes remains very low, even between different high castes.

What are you basing this on?

[genghizkhan]

Not the GP, but I can anecdotally confirm this. Breaking caste barriers remains unusual in most of India. The Indian HN community is biased towards Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay where rates of exogamy amongst the upper middle class are far higher than in practically all other parts of India.

[pkphilip]

The Caste survey conducted in 2018 found that only around 5.8% of all marriages in India are intercaste:

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/in...