Page 94 - DSOC402_SOCIOLOGY_OF_KINSHIP_ENGLISH

Sociology of Kinship

Notes 2. Presence of more than one husband or wife in the family creates the problem of adaptability
and increases the mental tension. For the stability of the social structure it is necessary to
escape from family tensions and frictions.
3. In many societies there is a custom of bride-price. It is difficult to make money for buying
and maintain more than one wife. Thus custom of monogamy is followed.
4. In order to maintain peace and calm in the family and to get rid of the problems arose due
to polygyny, monogamy is considered the best.
Monogamy is mostly found in the societies where polygyny or polyandry is popular because to
maintain more than one spouse is difficult. Merits and demerits of monogamy are as following-

Merits of Monogamy
1. Families composed of monogamy are comparatively more stable.
2. There is a good status of wife in monogamous family.
3. In a monogamous family nurturing, socialization and education of children are done in a
suitable manner.
4. In a monogamous family, mental tension is less due to lack of struggle.
5. Life-style of a monogamous family is better.
6. Due to less number of children in a monogamous family, the family is small and happy.

Demerits of Monogamy

1. Due to monogamy, sometimes sexual immorality increases and it increases the corruption.
This leads to provide opportunity to make extra-marital relation to male and female.
2. The lack of sexual liberty increases the sexual crimes. Nature of monopoly is found in a
family produced by this marriage and women are exploited.
In comparison to the demerits of monogamy there are more merits. Therefore, in modern period
monogamy is preferred in all the countries of the world.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:

1. Monogamy is considered the best to _______________ the problems arose due to polygyny.
2. Number of ________________ is found less in a monogamous family.
3. There are more merits in ________________ to the demerits of monogamy.

2. Polygamy
When more than one male or female get tied in a bond of marriage, such marriage is called
polygamy. There are four main forms of polygamy- Polyandry, Polygyny, Bigamy and Group
Marriage. We will discuss here in brief.

(a) Polyandry

Dr. Reverse writes defining polyandry, “Marriage relation of a woman with many husbands is
called Polyandry”.

88 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY