According to Hindu law, intermarriage is prohibited within four degrees between persons related through females.

But generally the children of first cousins are allowed to marry, when related partly through females.

And several castes allow the intermarriage of first cousins, that of a brother's daughter to a sister's son and in a less degree of a brother's son to a sister's daughter being specially favoured.

One or two Madras castes allow a man to marry his niece, and the small Dhoba caste of Mandla permit the union of children of the same mother but different fathers.
Sir Herbert Risley classed the names of exogamous divisions as eponymous, territorial or local, titular and totemistic.

In the body of this work the word clan is usually applied only to the large exogamous groups of the Rajputs and one or two other military castes.