tion in the society of China, and this is probably due to the same feeling of respect for learning.
The sectarian castes in India owe their existence to the same mental attitude which people of different religions have regarding intermarriage. Mohammedans and Christians do not intermarry. Even the adherents of different churches have been prohibited from intermarrying. In the Roman Catholic Church the prohibition of marriage with heathens and Jews was soon followed by the prohibition of marriage with Protestants, Protestants also originally forbade such unions.
If the psychological reasons for caste are the same for the Hindus as for other peoples, why is it, we may ask, that the people of India have so tenaciously held to those customs and other people have dropped them?
We must remember that India, unlike other countries, has kept the custom of early marriage still in vogue. There is no choice in the marriage arrangements. If young men and young women were to marry for themselves, the caste restrictions would become much shaken. The feeling of love would have become an incentive to break the rules. But as the marriages are arranged by the parents, the force of this feeling is not available. The feelings, notions, and calculations of the parents being the controlling factors in the Indian marriages, the custom of marrying within the caste is retained.
Something must be due to the nature of the people themselves. The people of India were for many centuries unprogressive and trying to live up to the ideal past. For their guidance they do not depend on their own intelligence but on the intelligence of the people
