Monday, July 31, 2006

Brahminism vs Biology

My view is that the concept of Gothram when used in matrimonial calculations, takes a drastically opposite stand to basic biological theories.
Brahmins belonging to one gothram are not supposed to marry Brahmins belonging to the same gothram - the reason is that they two people in contention are direct descendants of the same rishi and therefore are like siblings.
Give me a break.
The fundamentals of genetics tell us how the chromosomes of a male and a female come together. How attributes from both strands of the chromosome join to form the final entity. So basically,the offspring is only a combo of the male and female genetic traits.
If that be the case, then a person belonging to one Gothram - u belong to your dad's gothram - cannot marry person belonging to the father's gothram (the standard rule) and also the mother's gothram before her marriage.
Extrapolating this over many many generations, we will find that any Brahmin is ultimately 1/8th Kashyapa, 1/16th Kauntinya, 1/7th Bharadwaja, 1/11th Harita, 5/13th Sankrithi, 1/19th Viswamitra and the balance fraction of any other Rishi.
So technically, no brahmin can marry any other brahmin, provided you accept Biology.
Thats your call.

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