Page 78 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 3: Marriage

Whatever be the origin of cousin marriage, the question today is: Should cousin marriages Notes
be practised in this age? This question first drew the attention of people in India in 1959
when a news item appeared in the national papers that a Hindu boy and a girl who were
related as cousins and wanted to marry flee to Pakistan, converted themselves to Islam and
married according to the Muslim rites. The Illustrated Weekly of India (Bombay) at that time
invited opinions of people and published them for weeks together as “Letters to the Editor”.
The main arguments given for and against cousin marriages were biological, social,
psychological, and cultural. Broadly, the arguments against cousin marriages are: (i) it will
lead to biological degeneration of family because parental defects will be transmitted to their
children; (ii) it will create clandestine relations between primary kins in the family and thereby
lead to immorality; and (iii) it will be against our religious dictations. The arguments in
favour of cousin marriages are: (i) one’s property will remain in one’s own family; (ii) it will
create strong bond of love between brother and sister; and (iii) with the breakdown of joint
family, cousins no longer live together in the same house. If social changes like giving right
of divorce to a person, giving a share to daughter in her father’s property, and imposing
restrictions on giving and taking dowry can be accepted, what is the harm in accepting the
social practice of cousin marriage?
The counter arguments against the arguments given against cousin marriages are: (i) Muslims
practice cousin marriage but their community has not disorganized. How do then we say
that practising cousin marriage will disorganize the Hindu society? (ii) The argument that
cousin marriages will lead to the decay of families because parental defects will be transmitted
to their children is ludicrous. Even in marriages where boys and girls are unknown and not
related to each other, there is no practice of medical examination before marriage. What is
then the guarantee that in such marriages, the parental defects will not be transmitted to
children? (iii) The argument that cousin marriages should not be practised because they are
not permitted by religion is also illogical because social practices need not be linked with
religion. What was not good in early period may be good in the present times. We should
change our social practices only by considering their functional and dysfunctional aspects.
Besides, there are many social practices which are not permitted by our religion yet we practise
them today because they are found functional, for example, widow remarriage, divorce,
abolition of sati practice, and so forth.
It may, therefore, be held that in an age in which individual choice of a partner in marriage
has come to be recognized as necessary and desirable even by the older generation, any
artificial shackles in the form of exogamous restrictions are outmoded. Removing unnecessary
restrictions which have no cultural, social or biological significance will widen the area of
mate selection and increase the possibility of selecting a mate of one’s own choice and leading
a happy married life. Further, if at all any generational restriction is to be imposed, the limit
should be three generations only, since in the modern age, the family is rarely a unit of more
than three generations.
3. Hypergamy
Hypergamy (anuloma) is a social practice according to which a boy from upper caste can marry a
girl from lower caste and vice-versa. For example, Khatris (a caste) are divided into four
hypergamous groups: Dhaighar Charghar, Baraghar, and Bawanjati. A boy of Dhaighar can marry
a girl not only from Dhaighar (according to the rule of endogamy) but from any of the three lower
groups of Charghar, Baraghar and Bawanjati (according to the rules of hypergamy); but a girl from
Dhaighar has to marry a boy of Dhaighar only. Similarly, Kannauj Brahmins are sub-divided into
three sub-groups of Khatkul, Panchdhari and Dhakra. According to hyper-gamous rules, a Khatkul
boy can marry a Panchdhari or a Dhakra girl but a Dhakra boy can marry only a Dhakra girl.
Though hypergamy was sanctioned yet marriage of a Sudra girl with a higher varna/caste boy
was condemned. Manu (cf. Kapadia, 1972: 102) has also maintained that twice-born men who in
their folly wed wives of a low varna/caste soon degrade their families and their children to the
state of a Sudra. The gods will not eat the offerings of the men who perform rites in their honour
chiefly with a Sudra wife’s assistance.

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