Many of the great clans are now split up into a number of branches. The
most important of these were according to locality, the different
_sachae_ or branches being groups settled in separate areas. Thus
the Chalukya or Solankhi had sixteen branches, of which the Baghels
of Rewah or Baghelkhand were the most important. The Panwars had
thirty-five branches, of which the Mori and the Dhunda, now perhaps
the Dhundele of Saugor, are the best known. The Gahlot had twenty-four
branches, of which one, the Sesodia, became so important that it has
given its name to the whole clan. The Chamar-Gaur section of the Gaur
clan now claim a higher rank than the other Gaurs, though the name
would apparently indicate the appearance of a Chamar in their family
tree; while the Tilokchandi Bais form an aristocratic section of the
Bais clan, named after a well-known king, Tilokchand, who reigned in
upper India about the twelfth century and is presumably claimed by
them as an ancestor. Besides this the Rajputs have _gotras_, named
after eponymous saints exactly like the Brahman _gotras_, and probably
adopted in imitation of the Brahmans. Since, theoretically, marriage
is prohibited in the whole clan, the _gotra_ divisions would appear
to be useless, but Sir H. Risley states that persons of the same clan
but with different _gotras_ have begun to intermarry. Similarly it
would appear that the different branches of the great clans mentioned
above must intermarry in some cases; while in the Central Provinces,
as already stated, several clans have become regular castes and form
endogamous and not exogamous groups. In northern India, however,
Mr. Crooke's accounts of the different clans indicate that marriage
within the clan is as a rule not permitted. The clans themselves
and their branches have different degrees of rank for purposes of
marriage, according to the purity of their descent, while in each clan
or subclan there is an inferior section formed of the descendants of
remarried widows, or even the offspring of women of another caste,
who have probably in the course of generations not infrequently got
back into their father's clan. Thus many groups of varying status
arise, and one of the principal rules of a Rajput's life was that he
must marry his daughter, sometimes into a clan of equal, or sometimes
into one of higher rank than his own. Hence arose great difficulty
in arranging the marriages of girls and sometimes the payment of a
price to the bridegroom; while in order to retain the favour of the
Bhats and avoid their sarcasm, lavish expenditure had to be incurred
by the bride's father on presents to these rapacious mendicants. [469]
Thus a daughter became in a Rajput's eyes a long step on the road to
ruin, and female infanticide was extensively practised. This crime has
never been at all common in the Central Provinces, where the rule of
marrying a daughter into an equal or higher clan has not been enforced
with the same strictness as in northern India. But occasional instances
formerly occurred in which the child's neck was placed under one leg
of its mother's cot, or it was poisoned with opium or by placing the
juice of the _akra_ or swallow-wort plant on the mother's nipple.