Which Gotra? Whose Gotra

This blog comes after the recent 'same gotra marriage' crisis that has erupted in Haryana and after reading today's TOI report on Navin Jindal and the explanations he has given. Traditionally people belonging to one particular gotraor clan are said to have a common ancestor and India as such has numerous gotras. Those who do not know there gotra are assimilated into the KASHYAP gotra. As far as marriage was concerned, children were never married in the gotra of the father. My paternal grand father went far ahead to issue a diktat that he would marry his children neither into the gotra of father nor the mother. You might be surprised to read this. He was a doctor and as children share the genes of both the parents, he said, they should not be married into either of the gotras. The new entrant into the family should come from a different gotra so that the children would not inherit genetic defects.
This sounds a reasonable explanation. My father tried to follow the same principle and he was successful as far as my brother's marriage was concerned. By the time of my marriage, he had to bend this rule. And the rule was lost as I chose my life partner. Now you might wonder if I kept the whole idea of gotra in mind or not. Being a woman and supposedly the person to carry tradition on her shoulders, I knew my gotra but my husband did not know his. And when you are in love with someone, gotra is the last thing that comes to mind. I thank God that my husband comes from a different gotra, else a Khap like situation would have sprung at home!
Jindal is right when he says that in urban areas we do not care what kind of a marriage or relationship a person is in - something which may be a huge issue in rural areas and may lead to honour killings and excommunication of families. But it again does not seem plausible to declare illegal a practice accepted by the courts! Let people, to be specific the persons getting married decide.
At this juncture comes to my mind a story I read in the English reader 'Gulmohar' when I was in Grade four or five. It was about a girl whose marriage was about to be solemnized and suddenly it was found that her gotra and the groom's gotra was the same. To over come this situation, the girl's maternal uncle adopted her and finally the marriage took place. If gotra is something that can be changed with adoption, now wonder today's educated youngsters do not wish to follow it. Similarly it is said that a woman's gotra changes after her marriage. How can this happens? The blood and the genes that are in a person's body can not change automatically after marriage. It is high time the so-called leaders and heads of the Hindu religion gave a reasonable and plausible explanation for various practices in stead of just dumping those practices on the younger generation!