Elaborate on the concepts of Family and Lineage. Discuss the relationship between Rules of descent and inheritance of property. (2003)
Family and lineage are the two basic building blocks of kinship. The family unites spouses and their children; the lineage unites people of one line of descent across generations. Descent rules decide which line counts, and therefore largely where property goes. The fit between descent and inheritance is close but never exact.
Family
- George Peter Murdock (Social Structure, 1949) defined the family as a group characterised by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction.
- It combines consanguineal and affinal members: the wife is part of the family but not of her husband’s lineage.
- Irawati Karve defined the Indian joint family by co-residence, a common hearth, common property and common worship. A. M. Shah (1973) separated this kin group from the household.
- The family is short-lived, dividing at partition or death.
Lineage
- A unilineal descent group whose members trace demonstrable links to a common ancestor, patrilineal or matrilineal. A clan (gotra) rests on a putative ancestor.
- For Meyer Fortes (1953), lineages are corporate: they persist beyond individuals and hold land, office and ritual rights. Examples are the Nuer segmentary lineages and the north Indian kul.
- The lineage contains many families; the joint family is its residential, property-holding segment.
Descent and inheritance: the relationship
1. Descent sets the channel of transmission
- Patrilineal: father to son. Under the Mitakshara system, sons acquired a share in ancestral property by birth (coparcenary) and it passed by survivorship. Under Dayabhaga (Bengal), sons inherited only on the father’s death.
- Matrilineal: through women, often mother’s brother to sister’s son. The Nayar taravad was held in common through the female line under a male karnavan. Among the Khasi, the youngest daughter (khadduh) is custodian of ancestral property.
- Double descent: among the Yakö (Nigeria), described by Daryll Forde, land passes through patriclans and movable wealth through matriclans.
2. Property sustains descent groups Unilineal lineages persist where land is held jointly. Where income comes from individual wages they lose that function, which is why William J. Goode (1963) expected the kindred to replace them.
3. Descent and inheritance do not always coincide
- Jack Goody (Production and Reproduction, 1976) identified “diverging devolution” in Eurasian plough societies. Even under patriliny, daughters receive property through dowry as pre-mortem inheritance, which keeps status within the caste.
- In matrilineal societies, ownership passes through women while men manage it, so descent and control diverge.
4. Law is reshaping the link
- Bina Agarwal (A Field of One’s Own, 1994) showed how patriliny and patrilocality keep land from women.
- The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 made daughters coparceners, and Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020) held that this right arises by birth.
- In Ram Charan v. Sukhram (July 2025), the Supreme Court upheld a Gond tribal woman’s equal share in ancestral property.
- The gap persists in practice: women held only 13.87% of operational holdings in the Agriculture Census 2015–16.
Conclusion
The family is a unit of reproduction and daily life; the lineage is a unit of continuity. Descent rules convert this continuity into property rights. Law is making inheritance bilateral, but custom and patrilocality still keep property on the patriline.