Dear Scribblingpad
Thanks for the comment.
I think you may have missed my point. It is not my case that inter-caste marriages did not take place or work in the past. I was expolring the question as to how caste may have become such an important factor in match-making and how that arrangement may have evolved and become stable. What I postulated was that caste-matching may have become a way of improving chances of compatibility because it (caste) was so closely linked so many other aspects of day-to-day life. I am not advocating the superiority or inferiority of any one type match-making. Just amnalysing how and why caste may have become an important  consideration on the process.

Regards

You make some good points, the convenience can be for the sake of money, power, caste, prestige, for NRI's a legal status or any other things but I think this institution will stick around for a long time.

Anneshwa
I am not really talking about 'arranged'  Vs 'love' here. Just thinking aloud about what may  made caste based match-making work in the past, atleast in most cases.
Thanks for the comment.

Regards

Hi! Keshav
Yes, that is what I was trying to say, caste need not be a good match-making tool anymore.
I was thing more along social and cultural factors rather than biological factors. But in a sense a Darwinian kind of interpretation would be possible even for such non-biological factors.

Regards

Dear friend,
   Even those days, women married out of their castes. Of the two the higher one would follow the lower. The higher was always ostracised and thrown out to follow the lower. BReak mostly never occured. Concept of break or divorce is a new concept in our society and not caused by caste discrimination. IT is women's lib, freedom , modernity, grwoing  intolerance to eachother/ inability  to work out and adjust mutually that leads to incompatability. plz...zzzzzzzz revise yr post!
scribbly

Its not so important how the alliance was done, based on love or arrangement, the things that's important is the journey called life after marriage.

Hi Synaptic,
That was interesting. Match-making continues, whether it is through the organised way of arranged marriage or through 'love marriages'. Caste as a parameter was convenient because in those days, like you said, everything else was determined by caste. Now we look at things like educational qualification, job / profession, possesions, etc

Going further back, doesn't this run into the Darwinian theory of selection? The animals will select their mates by eliminating weaker contenders.

cheers,

Keshav