people’s social position visibly recognizable.
The Hindu caste system is another example of a rigid system of hereditary social
stratification defined by descent and craft. Although legally abolished in India,
by means of the perpetuation of endogamy it continues to play a powerful role in
structuring Indian society today, as matrimonial newspaper ads clearly testify
(Figure 10). Caste partitions dominate social interaction in many other ways,
including housing and employment. Sexual assaults and gang rapes of Dalit (or
so-called untouchable) women that occasionally make it into the Western press
are particularly frightful expressions of the cruelty of this atavistic system of
social stratification.
- Matrimonial newspaper ads, Hindustan Times: ‘All Brahmins acceptable’.
The industrial revolution transformed the social order of Western societies and
with it the identity of many people, turning serfs into factory workers. Social