Unlike the tribes of the Great Plains which grounded their security system in band exogamy and the merging of mutually exclusive status positions, villages in district of Uttar Pradesh of Northern India grounded their security in village exogamy thereby classifying each village as "family" in the same way the Kiowa Apache  classified the band as "family."  The Rule of Exogamy meant your classmates in school were classified as "brothers" or "sisters." To marry someone from the same village would be an incestuous act worthy of death.

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Mahatma Gandhi is often quoted as having said: “Real India lives in its villages.”  "In Uttar Pradesh, the average size of the village is 1,224 people."  And more specifically,

"Members of the same village do not intermarry. People of a village consider

themselves as brothers and sisters. Therefore, people of one village take a bride

from another village. For example, in Rani Khera a village in Aligarh District of Uttar Pradesh, 266 married women had come from about 200 different villages averaging between twelve and twenty-four miles away; 220 local women had gone to 200 other

villages to marry. as a result of these exogamous marriages, Rani Khera, a village of

150 households, was linked to 400 other nearby villages."

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But the question seeking an answer is: Why does this large area of Northern India compromising more than 400 villages spread throughout this mountainous area compel their young people to find spouses in other villages?  The answer appears to be either a), the more villages with whom one can exchange sons and daughters in marriage, the better one's chances for preventing inter-village warfare and having positive relationships, b), alliances are formed between two or more villages to counter a common adversary, or c), both a and b.

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Since the rule of village exogamy serves as part of their Defensive System against anxiety  it is assumed that there existed a time when the villages of Uttar Pradesh lived in a state of constant strife and warfare over boundaries and use of land. SOCIAL EXISTENCE demanded a solution. Their solution? To stave of and prevent inter-village warfare, they formed alliances symbolized in the interchange of sons and daughter through marriage.

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By classifying all persons in the same village as  "brothers" and "sisters,"  villages of the district of Uttar Pradesh were able to compel young people to find spouses in other villages. Marrying, for example, an unrelated schoolmate would be classified as being  an  “incestuous act” worthy of death. This was no empty threat.  Village sentiment is:  “We people believe people who commit incest should be killed.”

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A Missiological Problem

If SOCIAL EXISTENCE in a particular environment is the medium for determining what constitutes a "family," then the contextualizers are right when they say: The missionary “must accept and work within structures and processes of others that are different from one’s own social game.” 

 

But for missionaries working in areas that practice village exogamy rather than nuclear family exogamy, they will have trouble explaining to their hearers why Jesus, the Son of God, should not be classified as being a "bastard."

 

How does one “accept social structures and processes” that according to their “social game,” classify Jesus as an “illegitimate” child, the child of an incestuous relationship because both Joseph and Mary had failed to find a spouse in another village?  According to their "social game," Jesus' parents were “brothers” and “sisters.”  And by playing their "social game," the missionary has no Good News to proclaim.

 

Convictions

1. In proclaiming that Jesus was an "exact representation" of God on earth, the missionary cannot avoid the Rule of Village Exogamy and how it negates his essence as the "Son of God."

2. When the people of Northern India finally hear and read the Gospel of Luke and discover that Mary and Joseph both lived in the village of Nazareth and that Jesus was a “Nazarene,” they will immediately wonder why the elders of the village did not put Mary and Joseph to death like they would have, after all, the relationship was incestuous because they were classified as being “brother” and “sister.” 

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