Page 104 - DSOC402_SOCIOLOGY_OF_KINSHIP_ENGLISH

Sociology of Kinship

Notes place. According to Medieval commentators, marriage is prohibited among seven generations
to paternal side and five generations towards maternal side.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
1. Even Manu had not considered sin to __________________.
2. At the time of lighting the flame of fire for Havana, __________ pronounce the name of their
famous ancestor sages.
3. ‘Pravar’ indicates to a community of a culture or ____________ to which a person is related.
According to Jimutvahan, the founder of the division of paternal property, ‘Pinda’ means the
balls of the barley or rice flour which are gratified to the deceased persons on the bank of river or
pond at the time of death or funeral. The persons gratifying such ‘pinda’ to a same ancestor are
called ‘Sapinda’ and they don’t marry among themselves. There is a contradiction that people
of how many generations should be called ‘Sapindi’. Vashishtha banned to marry the people
of seven generations of father and five generations of mother where as Gautam had prohibited
eight generations of father and six generations of mother to marry among themselves. Gautam
had also said to remorse and to oust from the caste to the ‘Sapinda’ people marrying among
themselves.
But the rules of ‘Sapinda’ were not followed always. Sri Krishna had married to her mater-
nal sister Rukmani and Arjuna had married to her maternal sister Subhadra. Sri Krishna had
also married to girl of fifth paternal generation Satyabhama. Kapadia writes that the traditions
of marrying to fifth, sixth and probably fourth generation was popular in Yadavas also. De-
varn Bhatt and Madhavacharya had supported to marry to maternal sister. In Karnataka and
Mysore, even today it is popular to marry to the daughter of the sister and in south India with
the maternal sister. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 had recognized Sapinda Exogamy. The mar-
riage is banned among ‘Sapinda’ of three generations of mother and father. Even though, if any
custom and tradition do not consider it prohibited then such marriage is legitimate.

D. Village Exogamy

In northern India, mainly it is near Punjab and Delhi that a person should not marry in his
own village. In the villages of Punjab, it is prohibited to marry among the persons of the vil-
lages which have a common border. The reasons behind this prohibition have been the limited
population of village, inhabitants of one gotra, dyanasty or family in the village etc. This practice
came into existence due to ban in Sagotra and Sapinda marriage. In villages, this exogamy is
termed as Khera Exogamy.

E. Totem Exogamy
The rules regarding such this type of marriage is popular among Indian tribes. Totem may
be any animal, bird, plant-tree or any non-living substance, which is looked with respect or
faith by the people of one Gotra, relates themselves spiritually. One ‘Gotra Kaas’ is a totem and
people considering one totem are brothers and sisters together. Thus they cannot marry among
themselves.
Some people follow direction exogamy. The direction in which one’s daughter is married, they
do not bring daughter-in-law from the same direction. In North India a saying is popular that
‘daughter from east and son from west’ means the daughters-in-law are got from the village of
east direction.

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