What is inter-caste marriage? Why is this topic causing so many conflicts in our country? What are its pros and cons?
Let’s start by answering the basic question, what is inter-caste marriage? When a person marries another person from a different caste is known as intercaste marriage.
Why it is causing so many conflicts? For answering this question, we have to know what ‘caste’ is.
In Hinduism, there are four varnas, which we now know as caste. In the four varnas, the first category is of Brahmins (who become priests, teachers and intellectuals). The second category is the Kshatriyas (who usually become warriors, kings or administrators). The third category is the Vaishyas (who become traders, agriculturists, farmers), and the last category is the Shudras (who work as labourers, artisans etc.).
It is believed by many scholars that inter-caste marriage was not at all taboo in the Vedic times because at that time, there was no discrimination among various castes and everybody was considered equal and important to the functioning of society. The varna system classified people according to their jobs and this is the reason a bride has to change her surname if she marries someone from another caste.
For example, if a woman who belongs to another varna marries a king (a Kshatriya), then she becomes the queen of the kingdom. And since only Kshatriyas can be queens according to the varna system, her surname would have to change. But this doesn’t mean that one has to marry in order to change their caste.
The varna system believed in the choice of one’s occupation, so if you change your occupation, you can simply change your caste/varna accordingly. However, this was not a popular practice because people usually didn’t change their jobs at that time. After all, their jobs were their family’s legacy, and the knowledge and skills of their jobs were supposed to be passed on from generation to generation.
Inter-caste marriage became such a taboo because people started discriminating against others on the basis of their caste. They started treating the Shudras as untouchables and suppressed their existence by humiliating them without knowing their importance in society and their lives.
If the Shudras didn’t exist then, the chances of living a life in a clean and healthy environment would be almost zero because according to the varna system, the Shudras are the ones who keep the environment/kingdom/society clean. Because the Shudras were doing the ‘dirty’ work, people started considering them untouchables. They also isolated the Shudras from towns and restricted them to use anything belonging to the rest of the town/village population. This included the wells, ponds, etc.
Due to this inhuman behaviour, everybody started considering their caste ‘upper’ and the Shudras as the ‘lower caste’. Previously, one’s caste was defined by their family’s occupation but after this inhuman activity, a person’s caste started being defined by the family background one belonged to. People’s beliefs started becoming rigid. Later, this concrete opinion turned into a stereotype of almost every person and was passed down from generation to generation.
They started telling that it is against one’s religion and community/society but neglected the fact that there is no such thing called an ‘upper caste’ and ‘lower caste’ because religion was made to treat all the people equally and maintain unity among them. But it looks like the people were the ones who don’t want to be united.
So, if a person wanted to marry someone from another caste, they had to go against the will of their parents, family and community. Parents would say that by practising intercaste marriage, their reputation in their family and society would be gone. The family questions the person that there are many people from one’s own caste to whom they can get married. Society manipulates you into not going ahead with an intercaste marriage in the name of being your well-wisher.
So whom to listen and whom to not? Parents (who fed you, educated you and always thought of your good since their childhood), your family (which is your identity) or the society (where you belong)? You should always listen to yourself because at that point in time, your parents and family will keep their reputation in priority and the community doesn’t care what you do. Their job is to poke their nose into everyone’s matters to seek some gossip so that they can make fun of them. So you should be the one making the decision consciously or else a single wrong move can break the bonds of each other in the family.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of Intercaste Marriages?
Pros of intercaste marriage
Both the families of the husband and wife would know each other’s culture and rituals. The child of the couple would receive love from both the communities. The taboo of intercaste marriage would not come up in that particular family.
Cons of intercaste marriage
There may be many conflicts between the families regarding their beliefs and ideologies. The conflicts can undermine the unity of the family. A single wrong decision can divide the family into pieces.
So, it is totally dependent on you and your partner to choose and live with the cons or the pros in their lives. Be a good person and choose a good partner if you want to set an example that there is nothing wrong with an intercaste marriage until you become the reason for a dispute in your family.
At the end of the day, you will realise that there is no such thing as an inter-caste marriage because if you see the big picture, you will notice that ultimately, there is only one person marrying another person, or you may say that a human marrying another human. And nobody should have any problem with that until the person is underage (below 18), unable to fulfil the basic needs of the other person (unemployed/jobless), already married to someone else, or an alien.
I hope you understand my point and I also hope that this essay helped you to change your perception of inter-caste marriages.