therefore
differences of occupation or social status are not primarily
responsible for the subcastes, because in the majority of cases
no such differences really exist. I think the real reason for their
multiplication was the necessity that the members of a subcaste should
attend at the caste feasts on the occasion of marriages, deaths
and readmission of offenders, these feasts being of the nature of
a sacrificial or religious meal. The grounds for this view will be
given subsequently.

48. Exogamous groups.

The caste or subcaste forms the outer circle within which a man must
marry. Inside it are a set of further subdivisions which prohibit the
marriage of persons related through males. These are called exogamous
groups or clans, and their name among the higher castes is _gotra_. The
theory is that all persons belonging to the same _gotra_ are descended
from the same male ancestor, and so related. The relationship in the
_gotra_ now only goes by the father's side; when a woman marries
she is taken into the clan of her husband and her children belong
to it. Marriage is not allowed within the clan and in the course of
a few generations the marriage of persons related through males or
agnates is prohibited within a very wide circle. But on the mother's
side the _gotra_ does not serve as a bar to marriage and the union
of first cousins would be possible, other than the children of two
brothers. According to Hindu law, intermarriage is prohibited within
four degrees between persons related through females. But generally
the children of first cousins are allowed to marry, when related
partly through females. And several castes allow the intermarriage of
first cousins, that of a brother's daughter to a sister's son and in a
less degree of a brother's son to a sister's daughter being specially
favoured. One or two Madras castes allow a man to marry his niece,
and the small Dhoba caste of Mandla permit the union of children of
the same mother but different fathers.

Sir Herbert Risley classed the names of exogamous divisions as
eponymous, territorial or local, titular and totemistic. In the body of
this work the word clan is usually applied only to the large exogamous
groups of the Rajputs and one or two other military castes. The small
local or titular groups of ordinary Hindu castes are called 'section,'
and the totemic groups of the primitive tribes 'sept.' But perhaps
it is simpler to use the word 'clan' throughou