It would be interesting to hear an orthodox brahman upon Mrs. Besant's
claim to have had a previous Hindu existence as a Sanscrit pandit. What
sin did the pandit commit, would be his natural reflection, that he was
born again a Feringee, and a woman?

[Sidenote: Unpardonable offences.]

But the offence of the fifth sin, marrying below one's caste, or the
marriage of widows, seems as rank as ever. Upon these points, rather,
the force of caste seems concentrating. The marriage of widows will be
considered when we come to discuss the social inferiority of woman in
India. To marry within one's caste promises to be the most persistent of
all the caste ideas. The official observation is that "whatever may have
been the origin and the earlier developments of caste, this prohibition
of mixed marriages stands forth now as its essential and most prominent
characteristic. The feeling against such unions is deeply engrained."
And again, a second pronouncement on caste: "The regulations regarding
food and drink are comparatively fluid and transitory, while those
relating to marriage are remarkably stable and absolute."[16] The
pro-Hindu lady, already referred to, also agrees. "Of hereditary caste,"
she says, "the essential characteristic is the refusal of
intermarriage."[17] Even Indian Christians are reluctant to marry below
their old caste, and value a matrimonial alliance with a higher. To that
residuum of caste, when it becomes the residuum, one could not object.
The Aryan purity of the stock may be a fiction, as authorities declare
it to be in the great majority of castes and in by far the greater part
of India; but given the belief in the purity of blood, the desire to
preserve it is a natural desire. If one may prophesy, then, regarding
the fate of the caste system under the prevailing modern influences,
castes will survive longest simply as a number of in-marrying social