If the institution of marriage was thus originally based on the forcible transfer of a woman from her own to her husband's clan, certain Indian customs become easily explicable in the light of this view.

We can understand why a Brahman or Rajput thought it essential to marry his daughter into a clan or family of higher status than his own; because the disgrace of having his daughter taken from him by what had been originally an act of force, was atoned for by the superior rank of the captor or abductor.

And similarly the terms father-in-law and brother-in-law would be regarded as opprobrious because they originally implied not merely that the speaker had married the sister or daughter of the person addressed, but had married her forcibly, thereby placing him in a position of inferiority.

A Rajput formerly felt it derogatory that any man should address him either as father-or brother-in-law.

And the analogous custom of a man refusing to take food in the house of his son-in-law's family and sometimes even refusing to drink water in their village would be explicable on precisely the same grounds.