Is the Caste System Really All That Bad

[Johny Joe Hold]

There is a common narrative about the cast system that goes like this: India has a caste system, bad. U.S.A. has no cast system, good.

We need to reflect on this a little. In a caste system, people marry within their cast. People are happiest that way. Then there is the social life, different casts aren't forced to mix and made to feel uncomfortable.

In Freehold, we don't claim we have a caste system, but people of the same race marry. People from strong upper income levels marry others with the same incomes. Frankly, I would not be disappointed it someone said Freehold is based on a caste system. It is a good one.

Caste doesn't just exist in India or in Hinduism – it is pervasive across many religions in South Asia and the diaspora (religionnews.com)

[MitzaLizalor]

Re: Is the Caste System Really All That Bad

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/

The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank.

There are all sorts of "theories" about this of course. Dating incursions to around the time of King David, for example, is vulnerable to evidence from archaeologists when an earlier spoked wheel or whatever is dug up. The history of Hinduism is older than that and Northern Indians from the Himalayas may well be disowned if they marry a Ceylonese, say. Whether skin tone is a factor remains moot because generally wealth or influence are paramount. A high caste, regardless of religion, marrying another high caste but one caste lower down as it were may do so. The children will be legitimate in one sense (legally, perhaps) but were a second wife to eventuate of the same caste as the husband i.e. the higher caste, that child would have greater legitimacy.

M is a high caste male. His father is a general maybe or an ambassador or even a businessman. I suppose he could be all three, if a general were appointed Ambassador and found import/export opportunities he'd previously been unaware of. Anyway, M has influence (which is always more useful than money) but got hitched to the cyan wife during his wilderness years whose name is β-wife. She is very good looking with a keen interest in the lower part of the body. Z, who does not appear in the diagram, despises β and will not accept her as a daughter-in-law. β is the "love bride" and Z will not allow her into her house, because if she did she'd effectively become β's son's grandmother which enables him to be known as "Young M" albeit informally and Z ain't gonna let that happen. Perhaps a son could take M's name in a legal sense but even though a high caste Indian by birth, #1 is a lower caste than M, i.e. the same caste as β.

Z is clearly pivotal here. She has a gimlet-eyed dragon lined up for M of his own caste and, since the general is off doing some import/export activities, has effective control of the pursestrings, much to β's disgust who is frank and forthright in her opinion of Z. Nevertheless, several plutonium credit cards keep her occupied while M is manipulated into marrying the green bride who becomes wife number one. He can have as many love brides as he likes and the children will be legitimate but Alpha's son will be "Young M" and inherit everything. Just as well M senior is the Ambassador and can busy himself in Singapore or Alaska. Actually he's heard good reports of Tokyo and might transfer himself there, just to be on the safe side.

Extrapolate that system out over several millennia and you'll see how the present caste system would arise. If β's cyan children followed her example they'd never advance. If they follow M's example there'd soon be millions of them in a race to the bottom. The benefits a Godly congregation enjoys, Landover for instance, have not just dropped off a tree – there has been much pain endured over time, risks taken, rewards earned and shared exactly as Jesus commanded us to do, all those years ago.