Page 132 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 5: Kinship

Notes
Veena (75)

(58) Beena x Ram (60)

(40) Pradeep x Teena (35)
(15) Meena x Shyam (20)

10. Yet, another feature of marriage and kinship in the south is that marriage is not arranged with a
view to widen a kin group but each marriage strengthens already existing bonds and makes
doubly near those people who were already very near kins.
11. A girl has to marry a person who belongs to the groups older than her, that is, tam-mun, and also
to the group younger than parents, that is, she can marry any of her older cross-cousins. A boy
must marry in a tam-pin group and who is a child of a group of tam-mun.
12. The dichotomy of status and sentiments expressed in such northern terms like kanya (unmarried
girl), bahu (married girl), pihar (mother’s house) and sasural (husband’s house) are absent in
south. This is because in south, a girl after marriage does not enter the house of strangers as in
north. One’s husband is one’s mother’s brother’s son and so on. Marriage in the south, thus,
does not symbolize separation from father’s house for a girl. A girl moves freely in her father-in-
law’s house.
Comparison of Kinship System of North and South India
1. In southern family, there is no clear-cut distinction between the family of birth (that is, family of
orientation) and family of marriage (that is, family of procreation) as found in the northern
family. In north, no member from Ego’s family of orientation (that is, of father, mother, brother
and sister) can also become a member of his family of marriage, but this is possible in the south.
2. In the north, every kinship term clearly indicates whether the person referred to is a blood relation
or an affinal kin but this is not so in the south.
3. In the south, an Ego (person under reference/study) has some kin who are his blood relatives
only and others who are his blood relatives and affinal kin at the same time.
4. In the south, organization of kin is arranged according to age categories in the two groups, that
is, older than Ego (tam-mun) and younger than Ego (tam-pin) (tam is ‘self’, mun is ‘before’ and pin
is ‘after’).

Tam-mun Parents, parent’s siblings, elder brothers and sisters,
older cousins

Ego

Tam-pin Younger brothers and sisters, own children, younger
cousins, children of brothers and sisters

In the north, kin are organized according to the nature of relationship.
5. In the south, kinship organization is dependent on the chronological age differences while in the
north, it is dependent on the principle of generational divisions.
6. No special norms of behaviour are evolved for the married girls in the south whereas in the
north, many restrictions are imposed on them.
7. Marriage does not symbolize woman’s separation from father’s house in the south but in north,
a woman becomes a casual visitor to her parents’ family.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 127