SOC 201 Chapter 12: Chapter 12.5
Document Summary
Recently, as some of the former untouchables have sought to claim their legal rights, these informal sanctions have tended to be quite violent. In the city, it"s possible to get past some of the constraints of the caste system because of the anonymity of urban life. In the countryside, however, everyone knows who belongs to each caste, and the caste system still has a great deal of power. This is a good example of how enduring and how difficult to change social institutions are. It seems that social institutions will resist changes as long as participants believe in legitimating principles. As in a caste system, a person"s place in the hierarchy of an estate system is determined at birth. Contacts between members of different estates are permitted, though generally this contact is fairly impersonal (as between a boss and an employee). So, for example, marriage between people of different estates is generally forbidden by law.
