Parsi women who bear children from non-Parsi men "biologically", "physically" "defile" the community

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All it takes is one drop of poison

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From: Luhrmann, T.M. "The Good Parsi: The fate of a colonial elite in a postcolonial society". Harvard University Press, 1996

Pages 161

Mixed in with this is the argument, from history, that biological impurity leads to weakness. "History testifies that mixed marriage was one of the main causes for the fall of the once mighty Sassanian empire. Do we want history to repeat itself?"" And religious purity cannot be maintained by the offending outsiders. Asa high priest explained, "A woman marrying outside the community cannot observe the rules of purity as laid down by the Zoroastrian religion. She cannot perform ritual ablutions [padyab kusti] and do prayers [farziyat and bandaj) in a non-Zoroastrian environment. When she bears children of a non-Zoroastrian seed [tokbam] and participates in Zoroastrian ceremonies, this woman does great damage to the Zoroastrian religion."12 Such women, he implies, physically defile the Parsi community.' The argument—elaborated particularly by those drawn to an esoteric interpretation of Zoroastrianism, kshnoom—is that religious prayers have to do with "vibrations," almost physical emanations. Dokhmas can purify bodies only if they have been prepared by certain ritual prayers which can only be performed on Zoroastrians. Thus the non-Parsi defiles the Parsi, and the most powerful of tools in the fight against evil is rendered useless. Zoroastrian prayers, whose aim is to purify, are rendered invalid by the non-Zoroastrian environment in which they are uttered.