LOCAL GOVERNING AGENCIES. 467 



what forms part of itself.&quot; In answer to my inquiries, the 

 writer of this essay has given me a mass of detailed informa 

 tion, from which I extract the following : 



&quot; A Hindoo joint family signifies (1) that the members all mess together ; 

 (2) and live in the same house ; (3) that the male members and un 

 married girls are descended from a common ancestor ; and (4) that the 

 male member s put their incomes together. . . . The integral character 

 of the family is destroyed when the joint mess and common purse cease 

 to exist. However, the branches thus disunited continue to observe 

 certain close relations as gnatis up to some seven or fourteen generations 

 from the common ancestor. Beyond that limit they are said to bo 

 merely of the same gotra.&quot; 



Passing over the detailed constitution of a caste as consist 

 ing of many such gotras, and of the groups produced by their 

 intermarriages under restrictions of exogamy of the gotras 

 and endogamy of the caste passing over the feasts, sacrificial 

 and other, held among members of the joint family when 

 their groups have separated ; I turn to the facts of chief 

 significance. Though, under English rule, inheritance of 

 occupation is no longer so rigorous, yet 



&quot; the principle is universally recognized that every caste is bound to 

 follow a particular occupation and no other. . . . The partition of the 

 land, or the house as well, is governed by the law of equal succession ; 

 and as fresh branches set up new houses, they are found all clustered 

 together, with the smallest space between them for roadway. . . . But 

 when, as in bazaars, men take up houses for commercial purposes, the 

 clustering is governed either by family and caste-relations, or by 

 common avocations [which imply some caste-kinship] and facility of 

 finding customers.&quot; 



In which facts we may see pretty clearly that were there 

 none of the complications consequent on the intermarriage 

 regulations, there would simply result groups united by 

 occupation as well as by ancestry, clustering together, and 

 aaving their internal governments. 



Eeturning from consideration of these facts supplied by 

 other societies, let us now observe how numerous are the 

 reasons for concluding that the gild, familiar to us as a 

 union of similarly-occupied workers, was originally a union 

 of kindred In the primitive compound family there was 

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