Write short notes with a sociological perspective on the following in about 150 words : Types of kinship systems in India. (2014)
India has no single kinship system. It has a set of systems that differ by the rule of descent, the rule of residence, the rule of marriage and the terminology that records them, and these vary regionally in a patterned way first mapped by Irawati Karve in Kinship Organisation in India (1953).
Classification by organising principle
| Basis | Types | Indian illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Descent | Patrilineal (agnatic); matrilineal (uterine); bilateral; double descent | Patriliny covers most of India. Matriliny: Nayar of central Kerala (taravad, karanavan), Khasi, Garo and Jaintia of Meghalaya, Mappila of Lakshadweep. Double descent is essentially absent in India |
| Residence | Patrilocal/virilocal; matrilocal; neolocal; avunculocal; duolocal | Virilocal in the north; duolocal among the classical Nayar, where spouses never co-resided; the Garo bring in the nokrom son-in-law |
| Marriage rule | Exogamy (village, gotra, sapinda) versus preferential in-marriage | North: village plus gotra exogamy, extended by the four-gotra rule. South: preferred cross-cousin and, among some Tamil, Telugu and Kannada groups, uncle-niece marriage |
| Terminology | Descriptive versus bifurcate-merging | North distinguishes chacha from mama and bua from mausi; Dravidian merges kin into marriageable and non-marriageable categories |
| Authority | Patriarchal; avuncular | Matriliny is not matriarchy: among the Khasi the khadduh inherits while u kni, the mother’s brother, commands |
Karve’s four zones
- Northern (Himalayas to the Vindhyas, Indo-Aryan): maximise social distance. Multiplied exogamy, no cross-cousin marriage, hypergamy (anuloma), the bride severed from natal kin.
- Southern (Dravidian): minimise distance. Marry back into known kin; wife-givers and wife-takers are not permanently ranked.
- Central (Vindhyas to the Godavari — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra): transitional. Northern gotra exogamy retained alongside mother’s brother’s daughter marriage among many Marathi and Gujarati castes, and among Gonds and Bhils.
- Eastern: Munda and Mon-Khmer speakers; Karve herself denied it was a single zone, variation between neighbours being as wide as between zones.
The types are not static
- Matriliny is contracting for legal and economic reasons: the Madras Marumakkathayam Act 1933 and the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act 1975 broke the taravad into individual shares, and salaried work made the conjugal household the earning unit.
- Among the Khasi, the Syngkhong Rympei Thymmai movement now campaigns for a shift to patriliny, arguing that matriliny disadvantages men.
Conclusion
The types are not a taxonomy for its own sake. Descent decides inheritance, residence decides a woman’s bargaining position, and the marriage rule decides whether she keeps her natal kin. Read that way, the typology is really a map of how much freedom of movement a woman has in each system — which is what makes it sociology rather than classification.