Clearly therefore differences of occupation or social status are not primarily responsible for the subcastes, because in the majority of cases no such differences really exist.

I think the real reason for their multiplication was the necessity that the members of a subcaste should attend at the caste feasts on the occasion of marriages, deaths and readmission of offenders, these feasts being of the nature of a sacrificial or religious meal.

The grounds for this view will be given subsequently.
48.

Exogamous groups.
The caste or subcaste forms the outer circle within which a man must marry.

Inside it are a set of further subdivisions which prohibit the marriage of persons related through males.