Caste in Fiji
"...the influence of caste was, in three ways, still apparent in 1951. In the first place, marriage was based on the endogamy of castes. People gave no very clear reasons for wanting to marry their children within the caste. Some said that different castes had different ways of life, and that a girl going into a strange household would not be able to adapt herself. But few such differences appeared to exist. In the traditional system, it is true, fundamental differences of custom often distinguished castes.
One caste, for example, might consist of vegetarians; another might allow its members to eat goat and mutton, and a third might permit the consumption of game as well. These differences were important because varying degrees of purity were associated with these diets, and inter-marriage was therefore possible. But in Fiji the differences were as much between individuals as between castes; a traditionally low-caste group in Vunioki contained both meat-eaters and vegetarians, both drinkers and teetotallers.
The preference for caste endogamy appeared to be founded on feelings of difference, therefore, rather than actual difference, feelings which might well have stemmed from the initial desire of India-born parents to order marriages as they had done in India, though the customs which had supported the former marriage patterns might have changed or disappeared... Though caste endogamy was desired...a significant number of inter-caste marriages were made. Fourteen such cases were recorded in the three settlements. Many of these could not have been avoided, and concerned people without eligible partners of their own caste in Fiji- or at least in the surrounding settlements...Most of these marriages were hypergamous- that is, they involved marriages of higher caste men with lower caste women...hypogamous marriages- in which upper caste women went to lower caste men- were far rarer. Hypergamy was preferred because the children belonged to the father's caste and so had higher status, whereas in the hypogamous match they were lower than one of their parents."
-Peasants in the Pacific by Adrian C. Mayer