Culture
...hayats increases • caste/community honor mostly appropriated to upper classes • lower castes unable to claim any such honor as weak socio-economically. The only honor they have is in relation to their caste members & their ability to enforce codes within own caste gps. Thus can become hypersensitive in defending honor within their own castes. ( thus instances of violence when 2 people of different but lower castes get married) • concept of honor among both upper & lower castes not extended to incest relations within the family involving senior males & junior females. Also liaisons tend to be overlooked. Marriage affects relationships between gps. & has to be publicly validated through overt transactions & can provide precedent for future arrangements. Rejection of marriages is thus related to the importance of establishing inter-group relationships by the exchange of rights in women. • Marriages, which activate the interconnection between honor & violence, also relate to intra-caste ones which upset traditional taboos like those of gotra & village exogamy. • Emulation of upper castes by upwardly mobile groups.(~to sankritisation) • Rivalry between upper & lower castes for social domination. Upper castes seek to maintain status quo while lower castes with newfound economic strength are more assertive. Thus instances of punishing inter-caste marriage used by upper class to assert their hegemony & to ‘teach a lesson’ to those who wish to challenge them • It is also an assertion by the upper caste seniors of their power & domination over younger men & women • Power base of caste panchayats has been cut by the new legal system based on equality for all while they had been nurtured by the British. • Lower caste women considered to have no honor & are exploited by upper castes...