Thread by @FactIndology

[THREAD]
I had written earlier about history of caste in India. In this thread, I will show how caste-like elements were present in other parts of the world. Occupational, birth-based or endogamic groups are not unique to India.
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https://twitter.com/FactIndology/status/1352481123834597376?s=20

In this quest, I will describe primitive societies in Egypt, Western Asia, China, Japan, America, Rome and tribal Europe. Hindu society is always criticized for its caste-like segregation. Let's see how society developed all over the world.
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In ancient Egypt, there were 3 classes - land-owners, serfs, and slaves. The first 2 owned land whereas the slaves didn't.
Source: Ancient Times, A History of the Early World by Breasted p. 67
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Now comes the eerie parallel with Hindu society. During 18th dynasty (1500 BCE onwards), there were 4 classes - priests, soldiers, craftsmen and the serfs. The 1st 2 classes were clearly distinguished from the rest. I'm sure this sounds familiar.
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Occupation was hereditary, people in the lower classes had to take the occupation of their fathers. Inscriptions say, for e.g. that the architect occupation stayed in the same family for 23 generations. Goldsmith, painters, sculptors, everything was hereditary.
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☝️Source: Life in Ancient Egypt by Adolf Erman, p. 460 and Principles of Sociology by Spencer, vol III, p. 430
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One reads about the preferential treatment of the Brahmins in the Smritis. In Egypt, by the time of Ptolemy, persons from priestly families can only become priests. And they exempted themselves from tax.
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☝️ Source: Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol X, p. 299
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Now, to the ancient Sumerian society in 300 BCE. It had the priests and officials who were the aristocrats and free land-holding people were the middle class who cultivated their land with slaves.
Source: Ancient Times by Breasted, p. 119
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In the earlier Sumerian society, there was no inequality between the classes, as far as existing fragments reveal. However, from the code of Hammurabi onwards, the fines and punishments were dependent upon class-position of the offender and offended (not unique to Manusmriti)
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☝️Source: A Contribution to the study of the moral practices of certain social groups in ancient Mesopotamia by Brooks, p. 88
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The occupations were hereditary but didn't stay in the family. How does that work? One can join any occupation, but then needs to be legally adopted into the family that is involved in that occupation.
Source: Code of Hammurabi in Brooks, p. 44
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Next to early Iranian civilization, around 700 BCE. There are 4 classes - priests, warriors, husbandmen (farmers) and artisans. The same class distinction is also mentioned in the Sasanian period, around 226-651 CE, before the advent of Islam in the region.
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Now, another similarity with the Hindu society. The priests are like the head of man, warriors like the hands, the farmers are like the stomach and artisans like the feet. The first class is most important in society and the 4th class the least.
Zoroastrian Civilization p 295
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Initially, all classes could marry into other classes. But gradually the priest class retained the right to marry into other classes while declining to give their daughters to men from other classes. Marriage b/w Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian was condemned.
Source: ibid p 78
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Now to ancient China, where society had always been divided into 4 classes - gentlemen, farmers, artisans and merchants. Gentlemen were the members of the governing class and controlled civil service. The barbers and their sons were pariahs and were debarred from civil service
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☝️Source: Society in China by RK Douglas, pp. 116-146
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Chinese text Thsi-yu says "the sons of officers ought always to be officers; the sons of artisans ought always to be artisans; the sons of merchants ought always to be merchants, and the sons of farmers ought always to be farmers". Clear evidence of hereditary occupations
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☝️Source: Principles of Sociology by Spencer, vol III, p. 430
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In Japan, during the medieval age (1100 CE onwards), society had 5 classes in this order: Samurai/soldiers, No/farmers, Ko/artisans, Sho/traders and a fifth class which had 2 groups called Eta and Hinin, pariahs and outcasts of the society.
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☝️ Source: Japan of the Japanese by Longford, pp. 70-71
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After the revolution in 1800s, Japanese society had 3 classes - nobility/kwazoku, gentry/shizoku, & common people/heimin. Everyone had to put up a sign on their door to indicate name and class of belonging.
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☝️ Source: Things Japanese : being notes on various subjects connected with Japan for the use of travellers and others by Chamberlain, p. 95
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The outcasts Eta lived outside the towns and villages. They couldn't marry persons of higher classes. Intermarriage between classes required special permission. Prejudice against this lowest class of people was very high in the society.
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In Mexico, after the Spaniard conquest, society had 3 classes - members of pure Spanish descent, half-breeds and the native Indian population. Each trade in pre-Spanish Mexico had its own guild as a class with its own customs, festivals and deities.
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☝️ Source: Mexico of the Mexicans by Lewis Spence, p. 25
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Similar practices of endogamy, hereditary occupation and class-based societies were found among Kayans and Kenyaks of Borneo, Maoris of New Zealand, Samoans, Hawaiians, Fiji, etc. This was quite common all over the ancient and medieval world.
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Now to the Islamic world of South Arabia. The Arabs had one of the most tyrannical class distinctions in medieval society. There were 2 types of pariahs/outcasts - achdam and shumr. These people were treated brutally.
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The 1st class achdam were servants and menials of the dominant class. They were washers, tanners, butchers and lived in the outskirts. They didn't have the right to visit Arab houses but had the right to go to mosques.
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The lower class, the shumr were found in Yemen. Though they were Muslims, they weren't allowed to enter mosques. They ate meat from rotting carcasses, they cannot marry outside their own groups, and their lowly status was because of their birth in that class, and its fixed.
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☝️ Source : Social History of the Races of Manking, 5th div by Featherman, p. 424
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These were some of the examples of class-based distinctions. I'll write about Roman civilization that produced 'western' values and tribal Europe.
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Now to ancient Rome and Europe. In Rome, the population was divided into 3 classes for a long time - patricians, plebeians and slaves, 1st two classes being free men. Up to Servius Tullius (around 578 BC), the patricians along were the privileged class.
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The patricians could only consult the gods and their marriage was sacred. The plebeians were the artisans and craftsmen and were looked down upon by the patricians
Source: Muirhead Historical Intro to the private law of Rome, p. 6
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Specializations grouped themselves into guilds such that every occupation was hereditary - from senator to waterman. The Theodosian code (300 CE) compelled a youth to follow the employment of his father.
Source: Lambert 2000 years of guild life pp. 12-13
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Marriage was deeply endogamous. A free man couldn't wed a free woman without the permission of the Senate. If the daughter of a baker-caste married a man belonging to a different a group, he had to adopt the occupation of baking.
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☝️Source: Roman society in the last century of the Western Empire, by Samuel Dill, p. 232
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In Anglo-Saxon England, society had 3 classes - nobleman, common freeman and the slave. Position in society was indicated by 'wergeld' - the fixed sum of money with which a person's death was atoned or the fine paid by a person. Noblemen had higher wergeld and slaves had none
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If a slave stole the property of a freeman, he had to pay twice the amount of compensation, but if it was a priest's property, he had to pay nine times the compensation.
Source: The laws of the earliest English kings by Attenborough, p. 5
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By 15th century however, capitalism took such a greater control that those class boundaries got morphed into social distinctions based on wealth. Owning land, property and wealth dictated social classes.
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In middle age Scandinavia, society had 5 classes - highborn men (kingly families), nobles, landed middle class, freed men and slaves. People from one class can rise to higher classes through marriage or accumulation of wealth.
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☝️Source: Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age by WIlliams p. 36
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In the Church cemeteries, the nobles were buried in the most sacred ground, nearest to the Church. People of other classes were buried in descending order of their rank, slaves buried the farthest.
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Now to Germany, where purity of birth had always been a topic, long before völkisch nationalism and Nazism. People were excluded from professional guilds because of impurity of birth and this evil practice was cancelled by legislation in 16th century.
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To sum up, social distinction by birth and later by occupations have been extremely common in almost all major civilizations and primitive societies. Some societies had class mobility, whereas other didn't. Some were strictly monogamous, whereas others weren't.
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Caste is not unique to India and all its evil practices and discrimination are also not an inherently Indian or a Hindu problem. Almost all societies in the world had similar restrictions. The British worsened the barriers terribly which I'll write later in another thread.
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