[42] Thus the fact is clear that the son of a Brahman even by a Sudra woman had a certain status of legitimacy in his father's caste, as he could marry in it, and must therefore have been permitted to partake of the sacrificial food at marriage; [43] and he could also inherit a small share of the property.
16.

Hypergamy.
The detailed rules prescribed for the status of legitimacy and inheritance show that recognised unions of this kind between men of a higher class and women of a lower one were at one time fairly frequent, though they were afterwards prohibited.

And they must necessarily have led to much mixture of blood in the different castes.

A trace of them seems to survive in the practice of hypergamy, still widely prevalent in northern India, by which men of the higher subcastes of a caste will take daughters in marriage from lower ones but will not give their daughters in return.

This custom prevails largely among the higher castes of the Punjab, as the Rajputs and Khatris, and among the Brahmans of Bengal.