Membership in caste involves strict rules about marriage, where marri…

Membership in caste involves strict rules about marriage, where marriage is restricted to members of the group. This is known as:

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 2

The correct answer is Option (2) → Endogamy

Option (1) Polygamy — Incorrect. Polygamy is marriage to more than one spouse at a time; Muslim social reformers actively debated it, along with purdah. It is about the number of spouses, not about marrying within one’s own group.

Option (2) Endogamy — Correct. Endogamy is the practice of marrying within one’s own group. Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage: caste groups are ‘endogamous’, i.e. marriage is restricted to members of the group. This practice has remained largely unaffected by modernisation.

Option (3) Exogamy — Incorrect. Exogamy is the opposite rule: marriage outside one’s own group.

Option (4) Monogamy — Incorrect. Monogamy is marriage to only one spouse at a time. Like polygamy, it is about the number of spouses, not about marrying within the group.

Note: The concepts in Option (3), ‘Exogamy’, and Option (4), ‘Monogamy’, are not in NCERT (2025-26); explained here for the benefit of the students.

NCERT (2025-26): “3.1 Caste and the Caste System … The most commonly cited defining features of caste are the following:

1. Caste is determined by birth – a child is ‘born into’ the caste of its parents. Caste is never a matter of choice. One can never change one’s caste, leave it, or choose not to join it, although there are instances where a person may be expelled from their caste.…
2. Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage. Caste groups are ‘endogamous’, i.e. marriage is restricted to members of the group. 3. Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing. What kinds of food may or may not be eaten is prescribed and who one may share food with is also specified. 4. Caste involves a system consisting of many castes arranged in a hierarchy of rank and status. In theory, every person has a caste, and every caste has a specified place in the hierarchy of all castes. While the hierarchical position of many castes, particularly in the middle ranks, may vary from region to region, there is always a hierarchy. 5. Castes also involve sub-divisions within themselves, i.e., castes almost always have sub-castes and sometimes sub-castes may also have sub-castes. This is referred to as a segmental organisation.…”

“…Not surprisingly, it was in the cultural and domestic spheres that caste has proved strongest. Endogamy, or the practice of marrying within the caste, remained largely unaffected by modernisation and change. Even today, most marriages take place within caste boundaries, although there are more intercaste marriages.…”