It will now be seen that the four means by which numerical disparity between the two sexes is conveniently maintained are: (1) Burning the widow with her deceased [pg 87] husband; (2) Compulsory widowhood—a milder form of burning; (3) Imposing celibacy on the widower; (4) Wedding him to a girl not yet marriageable. Though, as I said above, burning the widow and imposing celibacy on the widower are of doubtful service to the group in its endeavour to preserve its endogamy, all of them operate as _means_. But means, as forces, when liberated or set in motion create an end. What then is the end that these means create? They create and perpetuate endogamy, while caste and endogamy, according to our analysis of the various definitions of caste, are one and the same thing. Thus the existence of these means is identical with caste and caste involves those means. This, in my opinion, is the general mechanism of a caste in a system of castes. Let us now turn from these high generalities to the castes in Hindu society and inquire into their mechanism. I need hardly promise that there are a great many pitfalls in the path of those who try to unfold the past, and caste in India to be sure is a very ancient institution. This is especially true where there exist no authentic or written records, or where the people, like the Hindus, are so constituted that to them writing history is a folly, for the world is an illusion. But institutions do live, though for a long time they may remain unrecorded and as often as not customs and morals are like fossils that tell their own history. If this is true, our task will be amply rewarded if we scrutinize the solution the Hindus arrived at to meet the problems of the _surplus man_ and _surplus woman_. Complex though it be in its general working the Hindu Society, even to a superficial observer, presents three singular uxorial customs, namely:— (i) _Sati_ or the burning of the widow on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. (ii) Enforced widowhood by which a widow is not allowed to remarry. (iii) Girl marriage. In addition, one also notes a great hankering after _sannyasa_ (renunciation) on the part of the widower, but this may in some cases be due purely to psychic disposition.