Page 68 - DSOC402_SOCIOLOGY_OF_KINSHIP_ENGLISH

Sociology of Kinship

Notes Our country has a variety of cultures. Thus, the kinship of the North is totally different from the
kinship of the South. The nature of kinship is different in both the parts. There has been a lost
of important work in social Humanology related to kinship system. Yet, amongst the promi-
nent work, two are worth mentioning. Long time back, Eravati Karve presented an authorised
study (for the Indian Kinship system) in her book “Kinship Organisation in India.” 1965. Eravati
Karve has been a well known Social Humanologist. By any viewpoint, this book is an important
document on kinship. Dividing the Indian society into four regions—Northern, Central, South-
ern and Eastern, she has described the forms of kinship. By doing so, she has vividly described
the inter-relations between geographical regions, language, state and forms of cordial relations.
Some other studies were conducted after the studies by Erawati Karve. Amongst those who
conducted studies in the Northern region, A.C. Mayar and T.N. Madan need special mention. In
the southern region, the contribution of Catheline Guff, Lovie duomon and Willam Mackormac
is significant. But these studies are limited to their regions only. They were related to only one
region or a few villages.
Eravati Karve mentions the diversity of four regions of the country while Lovie duomon men-
tions the equality in a limited area. The other book which we would like to mention regarding
the studies of kinship, is the book, “Families, Marriages and Kinship in India,” (Rawat, 1966,
Jaipur) by Shobhita Jain. By profession, Shobhita is an expert in Humanology. She had effec-
tively studied the Patrilineal and Matrilineal Kinship in her book, through the Hindi language.
It is true that there is complexity in the Kinship of the North and the South. But it is also true that
there is a very big similarity too, in the two systems of kinship. For example, in both the regions,
preferential marriage is accepted. This means that there are some kin with whom marriage is
preferred.
Secondly, sibling marriage (brother-sister) is prohibited in both the North and the South. Apart
from these similarities, there are differences in the systems of kinship. For example, in the North-
ern region, Patrilineal and Patrilocal, system is extensively prevalent while in the south, despite
the Patrilineal system being chiefly prevalent, there are some communities where Matrilineal
and Matri-Local system is dominant. In the South, the joint family system is found in ‘Tharvad’.
In the Tharvad system of the Naires, the Descent runs on the Lineal customs started by the
female ancestors. A Tharvad takes into account all the dead and alive member. When a Thar-
vad expands, it is split into ‘Tavazhi’. The word-meaning of Tavazhi is, “Mother’s custom, i.e.,
family unit based on mother” or “mother and her children”. The members of Tavazhi separated
from the Tharvad cannot marry amongst themselves. At the time of birth and death, they ob-
serve all the related rules equally.

10.1 Rule of Descent

That ideology or the synthesis of ideologies, on the basis of which an individual’s kin are deter-
mined, are technically called the rules of descent or inheritance. Descent has three fundamental
rules:
Patrilineal
Matrilineal
and Bilineal
According to the rules of Patrilineal Descent, every individual naturally becomes a member of
his father’s consanguinal kinship group, but he is not the member of his mother’s consanguinal
kinship group.
In Bilineal system, an individual is the inheritor of some of the consanguinal kin of his father’s
lineage, but not all. Similarly, he is the inheritor of his mother’s consanguinal kin too. The fact
is that no society is entirely based on Bilineal Descent. Similarly, no society is entirely unilineal,
in case, we think one can be ignored on account of the other. (Matri-Local or Patri-Local). If on

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