Indian Caste Customs

The effect of the rule is that the women of the highest of a number of groups have a narrower circle within which to marry than the women of lower groups who can marry men of any of the groups above them as well as of their own group. [...] The inequalities of the caste system and the basic fact that a man's place in the social sphere is unalterably fixed by the accident of birth are justified to the Hindus by their belief in metepsychosis or the transmigration of souls cobined with the doctrine of Karma which asserts that each rebirth is the direct result of a man's actions in a previous existence. [...] Just ouside the village are the houses of less reputable castes; and in the fields still further removed from the village site cluster the huts of degraded castes like the Paraiyan (more familiar to the British in the form of Pariah). [...] Another caste which is also known by the name of one of Manu's varnas is that of the Sudras of Eastern Bengal and of Sylhet in Assam which has a very different origin for it is composed of the descendants of the household slaves of Brahmans and Kayasths. [...] The position of the headman is not only one of honour but also of considerable authority: among some castes in the Central Provinces even when the headman happens to be a child (as may be the case if the post is hereditary in a particular family) the decision of the caste council is submitted to him as a matter of form for ratification.' As a rule he does not act indpendently of the council