FOXNews.com - In rapidly modernizing India, clashes with ancient marriage rules often lead to bloodshed

FOXNews.com - In rapidly modernizing India, clashes with ancient marriage rules often lead to bloodshed: "Ravinder Gehlaut and Shilpa Kadiyan were wedded in March of last year. Their families had arranged their marriage in the traditional way: each had checked out the other's caste, status and wealth. Everything had seemed fine.

But weeks later the whispers began. Village elders began dropping in on Ravinder's father's home in the village of Dharana, in Haryana state, saying the couple had violated a social taboo forbidding the marriage of people belonging to the same 'gotra,' a vague term connoting clan.

Soon, the village's 'khap panchayat,' or caste council, a powerful watchdog group of older men, declared the village had been dishonored. They gave the couple an ultimatum: get divorced, and in Shilpa's case, marry another man approved by the council.

When a mob threatened to kill them if they did not obey, they fled the village."

"In rural north India, residents of neighboring villages were traditionally seen as clanspeople, and thus siblings, which is why the caste council also demanded that Gehlaut and Kadiyan declare themselves brother and sister, even though the clans consist of tens of thousands of people and the couple couldn't possibly be called blood relatives."

"Defiance carries a high price. Couples are separated, ostracized, or even killed — more than 100 last year in Haryana state alone, according to government figures."