Page 127 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes ignoring one or more fundamental criteria of distinction between kins, for example, criterion of
sex (cousin refers to both male and female), generation (bhai ignores ego’s own generation as well
as first ascending or descending generation), affinity (whether kin related through blood or
marriage), collaterality (consanguineal relative of same generation, for example, brother and
cousin), bifurcation (whether kin is secondary, tertiary or distant, for example, pitamaha), age
(whether younger or older for example, bhai) and decedence (whether alive or dead).

5.2 Importance of Kinship

After the family, kinship group plays a very crucial role in the daily life, rituals and social ceremonies
of Hindus. People turn to their kin not only for help in exigencies of life but even on regular occasions
too. The kinship group may consist of four to five families or as many as twenty-five to thirty families.
The important kinship groups after the family are vansh (lineage) and gotra (clean).

Lineage is an extension of family. It is a consanguineous unilateral descent group
whose members trace themselves from a known (and real) common ancestor.

A lineage is based on more precise and specific genealogy. It may be either patrilineal or matrilineal.
It is an exogamous unit.
The lineage members are treated as brothers and have fraternal allegiance to each other. Lineage ties
lapse after several generations but the number of obligated generations is not usually specified clearly.
The lineage fellows who live in the same neighbourhood or same village exchange economic aid,
pool labour at harvest, help in dispute settlements, and co-operate with each other almost on all
important occasions.
A main link among the families of a lineage is common participation in ritual functions. They
participate together in each other’s life-cycle observances like birth, death, etc. They worship the
same deities and follow the same restrictions. Lineage fellows also co-operate for economic purposes.
When the British came to power in the eighteenth century, they too made the headman of the lineage
responsible for land revenue and maintenance of the order. In the nineteenth century, the system of
land tenure changed which impaired the power of the ruling lineages. Today, the lineage relations
continue to be important and powerful.
The vansh (lineage) passes into gotra (clan) which is also a unilateral kin group but is larger than the
lineage. It has a mythical ancestor and is exogamous. Each person inherits the gotra of his father.
According to T.N. Madan (1965: 225), the separation of a lineage is usually a gradual process and
comes about through the slow, piecemeal relinquishing of mutual exchanging—sometimes under
protest and sometimes mutually accepted—rather than in an abrupt, explosive break. The exogamous
principle is, however, not relinquished, even after abandoning lineage co-operation.

What do you mean by Tertiary kins?

When lineage relations are limited in time and space, the gotra relations endure through time and
across space. The members of a gotra usually have an origin story linking all of them to the same
supernatural or mythical source. Co-operation within the gotra depends on economic factors as well
as distance in place of residence. Today, the functions of gotra are minimal. Its chief function now is
to regulate marriage.
Man’s relations with his feminal kin, that is, kin related through his mother, his married sisters, his
wife and his married daughters, are equally important in his life. The exchange of gifts, periodic

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