18 Kinship Studies in India

Dr. Jaspreet Kaur

Contents of this unit

(I) Introduction

(II) Kinship usage (In general)

(III) Definition by different Anthropologists

(IV) Degree of Kinship

(V) System of Kinship in India

(VI) Kinship terminology

(VII) Kinship in India Kinship Organization in India by Irawati Karve

(VIII) Importance and changes of Kinship in India

(VIII) Conclusion

Objectives

(I) To study the concept of Kinship.

(II) To determine the kin terms, kin terminologies and kinship system.

(III) To study the Kinship System and Organization in India.

Introduction

Kinship is a cultural by universal. It is the fundamental relationship between human beings. Kinship relationships arise out of two different kinds of bonds that cement people together. They are;
- Consanguineal kinship (it forms the family of orientation).
- Affinal kinship (it forms the family of procreation).
Relationships based on the consanguineal bond of birth are called descent and relationships based on the affinal bond of sex and marriage is called alliance. The mutually conditioned interplay between the two constitutes kinship.
A kinship system is the structured system of different relationships where individuals are bound together by complex interlocking and ramifying ties.
Study of kinship is very useful to understand the elements of social organization. According to Radcliffe Brown, W.H.R. Rivers, Kroeber; they mentioned that there is a high correlation between social organization and kin terminology. Also, according to Raymond Firth, Kinship is the road on which one learns throughout the life.
Significance of Kinship in pre-industrial society is more pervasive and systematic than in modern industrial society. Kinsmen play important roles in social, economic and political spheres.

Kinship Usage (in General)

The study of kinship is not only based on description of relation between kins or on the basis of their classification or general forms of Kinship Behavior. There is certain special kinship usage, which holds special significance in respect to the non-literate societies.

Avunculate: It resembles the relation between the mother’s brothers and his sister’s children. In many societies, like in matrilineal societies; maternal uncle fulfill the duties of a father as a matter of convention. Her children become the property holding members of his uncle’s property.
EXAMPLE: Trobriand Islanders of Malenesia, African tribes and Nayars of South India.
Amitate: This type of relation is found among Patrilineal societies, more or less similar to Avunculate and in this case, father’s sister gets great importance and respect. She’s more than a mother to her nephew and has the authority on him.
This is due to the prevention of neglectance of father’s sister in a social mechanism, especially when she’s driven off from her in-laws house.

EXAMPLE: Polynesian Tonga, Todas of South India.

Couvade: This shows the relationship between the wife and his husband. Whenever his wife gets pregnant, he has to undergo an austere life and also maintaining a proper diet and number of taboos. According to Anthropologists; this resembles a symbolic representation of establishing paternity on a child.

EXAMPLE: Toda and Khasi community of India.

Avoidance: In most of the societies, the usage of avoidance acts as an incest taboo. For instance: relation between mother-in-law and son-in-law. This is actually a protective measure to avoid those relations who remain face-to-face in everyday life.

Joking Relationship: This relationship can be put in contrast to avoidance. This is specially aprivileged relationship where kins indulge in teasing each other by different kinds of jokes including vulgar sexual jokes.

This can be seen between a man and his wife’s younger sisters or between a woman and her husband’s younger brother.

Anthropologists show the importance of Kin terms as it helps to distinguish the relatives as well as also indicate the form of families, rules of residence, rules of descent, etc.

Different Definitions of Kinship by Different Anthropologists

W.H.R. Rivers (1924) defines Kinship as the “social recognition of biological ties”.
Radcliffe Brown (1950) defines Kinship as “a social relationship based on descent”.
According to Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes, Lucy Mair and several anthropologists Kinship is defined as a relationship based on culturally defined principle of consanguinity.
Claude Levi Strauss as well as Louis Dumont defines Kinship as a totality of relationship governed by the rules of consanguinity and affinity.
According to Miller, Kinship refers solely on the relationships based on descent and marriage.
Howard says that Kinship means “social relation based on cultural recognition by descent and marriage.
Rlys Williams defines Kinship as “socially defined and affined relationships that link individual in order to provide continent between and within generations which also serve in important ways to regulate and maintain social order”.

Degree of Kinship

Any relationship between two individuals is based on the degree of closeness or distance of that relationship. This can be seen as in the form of degree of kinship, which demonstrated in tabular form:

System of Kinship in India

The system of kinship plays a central role in all human societies.
Radcliffe-Brown (1964) designated the study of kinship system as a field of rights and obligations and viewed it as a part of the social structure
Evans-Pritchard’s study of the Nuer of the southern Sudan (1951) focused on kinship groups, based on male descent groups from common ancestor; recognized recruitment, perpetuation and functioning of such groups.
Morgan called them gens (clans). However, Morgan’s view along with that of McLennan and Sir Henry Maine, about the Kinship system should be equated with evolutionary law is not in favour with contemporary anthropologists.
Different Anthropologists emphasized on Kinship system in their own way. Like Meyer Fortes, he mainly emphasized on the interpersonal relations between individuals and groups in the kinship system.
This, ultimately suggests that we should look at society as a whole which helps in finding how it works.
According to Levi-Strauss (1969), members are recruited to kinship groups in kinship system through marriage, such as Female can be seen as a wife, daughter-in-law and Male can be seen as a husband, son-in-law of his wife’s parents.
Robin Fox (1967) writes: “The study of kinship is the study of what he (man) does and why he does it and the consequences of the adoption of one alternative rather than another”. Fox further says: “The study of kinship is the study of what man does with these basic facts of life such as mating, gestation, parenthood, socialization, siblingship, etc.”

The four basic principles outlined by Fox regarding kinship are as follows:

1. The women have children.

2. The men impregnate the women.

3. The men usually exercise control.

4. Primary kins do not mate with each other i.e. Incest taboo.

According to Fox, kinship can be defined as the relation between ‘kins’, i.e., persons related by real, putative or fictive consanguinity. Difficulty arises to define the real consanguinity. It can be defined according to the society as an individual related by real or supposed blood ties. But, genetically, it doesn’t seem like this.
There are many cases where this definition can be denied. For instance, in case of adoption, a child can be treated as consanguine. A female becomes a consanguine after her marriage as soon as she bears a child. Consanguinity is thus a socially defined relations.
John Beattie (1974): According to him; identifying and ordering of social relation are the basis of kinship system, and also provides distinction between the people.
Thus, Kinship categories are more social than jural or economic. Social ordering takes place in many different ways. It can be enacted in favour of social relationships i.e. their social behavior and particular patterns of expectations, beliefs and values.
Also, it can be expressed on the basis of authority and sub-ordination, of economic exchange, of domestic cooperation or of ritual or economic nature.
Kinship in Indian villages resembles the term ‘factions’ in correspondence to caste, sub-castes, clan and even lineages. It shows the phenomenon of succession, inheritance of property, bifurcation; irrespective of the levels of their technological and industrial advancements.
Therefore, to understand the kinship system of any society; we should know the language, behavior and values of people.
Malinowski (1954): According to him, kinship system can be referred as a complex and elaborate one; and he referred it as ‘KINSHIP ALGEBRA’.

Kinship in India follows the principle of ‘clan exogamy and caste endogamy’.

It can be understand on the basis of clan and lineages. Generally; a caste has several clans and clans have several lineages.

There’s a distinction between common ancestor of lineage members and common ancestor of clan. In lineage; it is an actual, remembered person but in clan, it is typically a legendary, supernatural entity.

In conclusion, it can be observed that kinship plays the role of maintaining social organization; i.e. it shows the division in regard to succession and inheritance of property. But, it is also the basis of conflicts and rivalry between siblings.

Kinship organization in India by Iravati Karve

Iravati Karve (1953) provides us the comparative analysis of four cultural zones in India i.e. Northern zone, Southern zone, Eastern zone and Central zone, keeping in view the linguistic, caste and family organization.

Karve studied the process of acculturation and accommodation in context of kinship.

Karve’s comparative study takes the following points into consideration i.e list of kinship terms in Indian languages, mainly focused on the difference between Sanskritic North and Dravidian South.
In spite of these factors, she also analyzed the caste endogamy and incest taboo.

SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE NORTHERN ZONE OF INDIA

(I) NORTHERN ZONE

It lies between the Himalayas to the North and the Vindhya ranges to the South.

Indo- European or Sanskritic speakers can be found in Northern region.

The Northern region persists some of the systems which can be explained as follows;

(a) Gotra and Clan system

Gotra(Sanskrit: “cattle shed”), lineage segment within an Indian caste that prohibits intermarriage by virtue of the members’ descent from a common mythical ancestor, an important factor in determining possible Hindu marriage alliances. Gotra is originally referred to the seven lineage segments of the Brahmans (priests), who trace their derivation from seven ancient seers: Atri, Bharadvaja, Bhrigu, Gotama, Kashyapa, Vasishtha, and Vishvamitra.

(b) Hypergamy and Kulinism

Hypergamous stratification can be found in India and also found among all caste clusters.

Hypergamy can be seen in India in many castes which claim to be either Kshatriyas or Vaishyas.

They are generally Endogamous.

Kulinism

The Custom in which a man marries a girl of slightly lower status referred to a phenomenon called Kulinism.

In this, Kulin groom can demand a very high price from the Kulin bride’s family, it shows the elevation in social status of that individual in his society and a man can marry more than one woman to further elevate his social status.

Brief description of Kinship organization of India Zonal Wise, in a Tabular Form, is given below:

DISTINCTION BETWEEN NORTHERN ZONE AND SOUTHERN ZONE

Irawati karve provides us the well explained differences between the kinship organization of both the Northern zone and southern zone which can be understand in tabular form;

Thus, Kinship is a complex phenomenon, and its role is important even in modern organizations. Migration, mobility and education have weakened the kinship systems and rules of clan organization because people are now shifting from joint family to Nuclear family. Importance and changes of kinship in rural societies

The importance of kinship in tribal/rural societies can be understood from the following discussion

A. Kinship and its Relation to Rural Family, Property and Land

The prime property of any rural family is land. So, land is related to all the kin members of the family. The sons, grandsons and other kins, which are related by blood and marriage, have their economic interests in the land.

Now-a-days, women are becoming aware that they are also entitled to get an equal share from the ancestral property.
The family members also gain political status by the ownership of land.

B. Kinship and Marriage:

Exogamy is commonly followed in most of the villages of India. The members of the villages do not prefer to marry within their own village.
This rule varies on the basis of the severity of rules of marriage.

C. Kinship and Ritual:

The role and importance of the kin members lies in the degree of close relationships among them. Their importance can be observed during the occasions, such as cradle ceremony, marriage and death.

During a naming ceremony, it is the father’s sister, who has to give a name to the newborn. There are certain rituals, which have to be performed by mother’s brother during the marriages of daughters.

BRIDE PRICE: The daughter’s parents make the payment in cash or kind to the son-in-law’s sister, who occupies an important place during a Hindu wedding.
EXCHANGE OF GIFTS: It is obligatory on part of the close kin relatives to offer gifts to the newly wed couples and in the same manner; these close relatives are equally rewarded from both sides (parents of the couple).

OCCASION OF DEATH: During the occasions of death, it is obligatory for the kinsmen to observe mourning for about 11 to 14 days (this period varies from region to region).

Changes in the Kinship Relations in Rural Society

Many changes are taking place in all the institutions of the rural society, including kinship relations. Changes can be seen as demand for ownership titles by women.
Rules of marriage are being challenged and the traditional rules regarding divorce are also getting weakened.

Though some of the aspects of kinship are losing their importance, few others are gaining prominence. Kinship is playing an important role in the field of politics, especially in rural elections like Panchayati Raj.

Favouritisms, in jobs, are being observed among the kinsmen. Due to the emergence of such new forces, kinship may acquire new structure and form.

Summary

Morgan and other early anthropologists tried to explain the distribution of kinship types, correlating with the economic, political and cultural stages in a progressive series.

There is wide range of difference between the Sanskritic North and Dravidian South, extent by Indian Anthropologists.
This provides us the knowledge of heterogeneity of language families making up a unitary civilization of India.
Kinship systems are rather like natural languages which acts as platforms on which many and perhaps all different kinds of economic, political and cultural organization may be built.

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