HYPERGAMY. The custom of hypergamy forbids a woman of a particular group to marry a man of a group lower than her own in social standing. When, as in India, severe social penalties support this rule, it produces serious effects upon the social order. It allows men to marry women of groups below them and therefore favours the men. It reinforces social distinctions and flourishes in societies where these are numerous, permanent and of the essence of the social order. It restricts the field of marriage in the case of the women of the highest section. It is found in its extreme devel opment in India within castes which are divided into sections based on differences of religious purity, social eminence, political authority or economic superiority. To it are traced female infan ticide (q.v.), the purchase of husbands, and wholesale polygamy.
The same principle is at work in the cases where, as in Africa, a community has been formed by the dominance of a group of alien origin of different physique imbued with a strong sense of superi ority. Women from the inferior conquered subordinate classes are accepted as mates by the ruling class, which does not allow its women to mate with males of the subject people. King Cophetua may wed the beggar-maid, but the princess makes a misalliance.