11. Social rules.
Polygamy is permitted but is seldom resorted to, except for the sake of offspring. Neither widow-marriage nor divorce are recognised, and either a girl or married woman is expelled from the caste if detected in a liaison. A man may keep a woman of another caste if he does not eat from her hand nor permit her to eat in the chauk or purified place where he and his family take their meals. The practice of keeping women was formerly common but has now been largely suppressed. Women of all castes were kept except Brāhmans and Kāyasths. Illegitimate children were known as Dogle or Surāit and called Kāyasths, ranking as an inferior group of the caste. And it is not unlikely that in the past the descendants of such irregular unions have been admitted to the Dūsre or lower branch of the different subcastes.