matrilineal society, also called matriliny, group adhering to a kinship system in which ancestral descent is traced through maternal instead of paternal lines (the latter being termed patrilineage or patriliny). Every society incorporates some basic components in its system of reckoning kinship: family, marriage, postmarital residence, rules that prohibit sexual relations (and therefore marriage) between certain categories of kin, descent, and the terms used to label kin. A lineage is a group of individuals who trace descent from a common ancestor; thus, in a matrilineage, individuals are related as kin through the female line of descent.
Matrilineage is sometimes associated with group marriage or polyandry (marriage of one woman to two or more men at the same time). Anthropologists have provided different perspectives and interpretations about kinship and its role in society. With a perspective based in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, some 19th-century scholars, such as Johann Jakob Bachofen and Lewis Henry Morgan, believed that matrilineal societies predated patrilineal ones and represented an earlier evolutionary stage. Accordingly, patrilineal systems were also considered more “civilized” and advanced than matrilineal systems. Writing within the framework of the evolutionary thinking developing at the time, Morgan also argued that matrilineal systems would progressively evolve into patrilineal systems. Over time, that view gained popularity far beyond anthropological and ethnological circles.
The “matrilineal puzzle”
Scholars have often analyzed matrilineal norms and practices within the framework of the “matrilineal puzzle,” a term that was introduced to kinship theory by the British anthropologist Audrey Richards. It arose from structural functionalism—which was most strongly associated with the work of social anthropologist A.R. Radcliffe-Brown—and, by the mid-20th century, replaced Bachofen and Morgan’s kinship theories as the dominant analysis model in social anthropology. Working within a structural-functionalist framework—which viewed social structures such as institutions, relationships, and norms in terms of their roles in the functioning and continuance of a society—Richards was puzzled by the position of men in matrilineal societies. The issue at question was whether, in practice, a matrilineal system in which men have ambiguous roles and dual loyalties could work. The debate that followed also focused on what it was that made matrilineal societies different from what was seen as “normal” patrilineal systems.
In the study of kinship and matrilineal versus patrilineal systems, a basic normative assumption is that the essential family unit consists of father, mother, and children. A closely linked assumption has been that one sex is dominant and the other “weaker.” According to scholar David M. Schneider, in classic kinship theory, it was assumed that men had authority over their wives and offspring; thus, that authority was considered a constant. As a consequence, anthropological debate and analysis also assumed that constant. Schneider also noted that in patrilineal societies authority and kinship were passed on through patrilineal descent, but in matrilineal societies males did not pass their status to their sons. Men’s authority would be based only on their position in the matriliny. The salient roles of the male, therefore, would be that of brother and uncle instead of husband and father. The fundamental assumption was that the demotion of the “normal” patriarchal role was unnatural.
Under that interpretation of the structures and norms of all societies, male dominance, assumed as a given in patrilineal societies, did not translate into a corresponding female dominance in matrilineal societies. Under the assumed normative “principle of male authority,” in a matrilineage, descent passed from a woman’s brother to her son and from him to her sister’s son. That meant, to some scholars, that the core structures of matrilineal groups were the positions of uncle and brother. In the practice of virilocal residence (in which a woman moves into her husband’s home), the in-marrying wife will presumably adapt to a dependent role (as in a patrilineal society) but also occupy a significant role as the mother of children, particularly of sons who will perpetuate the patriliny. In matrilineal societies, although in-marrying men may be deemed necessary and useful as husbands, fathers, and human resources for labour, their function becomes part of the puzzle; in the context of assumptions about male authority, their roles may seem to be effete or ambiguous.
Examples of matrilineal societies
Matrilineal societies are found in various places around the world, such as in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and India. Specific cultural practices differ significantly among such groups. Though there are similarities, matrilineal practices in Africa differ from those in Asia, and there are even differences in such practices within specific regions.
The Asante, or Ashanti, of Ghana are one of the few matrilineal societies in West Africa in which women inherit status and property directly from their mothers. The Minangkabau of Sumatra, Indonesia, are the world’s largest matrilineal society, in which properties such as land and houses are inherited through female lineage. In Minangkabau society, the man traditionally marries into his wife’s household, and the woman inherits the ancestral home. Matrilineal societies in India are typified by the Khasi in Meghalaya state and by the traditional Nayar in Kerala.
Among those groups, the main difference is observed in matrilocal, duolocal, and neolocal residence patterns. The pattern of duolocal residence (the husband and wife occupy different homes) exists among the Asante, the Minangkabau, and the Nayar. The Khasi generally follow the matrilocal residence pattern (the husband moves in with his wife’s matrilineal kin) or neolocal residence pattern (the couple sets up home in a new residence in or around the wife’s maternal residence).
Alternat Answer : What is or was the matrilineal puzzle?
The term ‘matrilineal puzzle’ was coined by Richards (Richards, 1950) and treated in a variety of both theoretical and ethnographic studies (e.g. Fuller, 1976; Gough & Schneider, 1961; Needham, 1971; Weiner, 1988). Essentially, the ‘puzzle’ is better described as a conflict arising from the general design of matrilineages: being based on both a principle of female descent and masculine control, a matrilineage generates a direct competition between in-marrying husbands/fathers and maternal brothers. Where is the family to live? Who has authority over the children? As Gough and Schneider (1961:29) claim, the matrilineal group is very unlikely to persist if the husband gains to much authority over wife and children. Several solutions to this dilemma can be found in the literature as well as in ethnographic studies four of which I focus upon in the following. Let me, however, introduce the underlying concepts in the introductory paragraph.
A matrilineal or uterine descent group traces its descent to a common ancestress through a series of female links. The formal difference to patrilineages or cognatic descent groups merely consists of the focus on female links rather than male in the case of patrilineages and male or female for cognatic groups. The complication for matrilineages arises from the fact that a descent group is normally characterised by exogamy (Keesing, 1975:42) and the rule of male-authority. The latter distributes power over discipline, rituals and life-cycle decisions such as marriage among the men rather than the women of a matrilineage. From these presumptions follows a potential conflict over both post-martial residence in particular and authority in general. How is it possible to combine the continuity of the lineage through females with the principle of male control? An instantaneous clash between the husband and the wife’s brothers seems pre-programmed. Fox (Fox, 1984) describes four patterns in which this conflict takes place. Members of a lineage either all live together (natolocal), locality is common for only female (matrilocal) or male (avuncolocal) members or the organisations allows for a complete dispersion of its members.
In the first instance, husbands are only sexual companions that do not live with the women. Both wife and children stay under the authority of the wife’s brothers. This solution is the strongest support for the matrilineal organisation. Richards calls it the matriarchal solution that was most prominent among the Nayar in India. Fuller (1976) provides an account of the latter’s organisation that raises questions about the ‘realness’ of the theoretical argument. Originally, the Nayars were indeed living in matrilineal joint families called taravads. Members of a taravad formed an economic unit that shared its property and a place to live whereas husbands were only visiting. A women could as such have several ‘lover-relationships’, called sambandham.[1] The authority over the children was executed by the head of the taravad, the so-called karanavan. An ideological bias that favoured “the congruence of the household and the property group” (71) was the leading principle that kept the taravad together as a matrilineage. This order gave way to something that much more resembles a patrilineal organisation on the first glance – although still being crucially different. With the abandonment of the Nayar army, the influence of industrialised capitalism and the resulting importance of individual rather than collective property, the relationship between husband and wife began to grow in importance. The husband simply was at home more often. An increased emphasize was put on “stable, monogamous marriage” (ibid.:55) and a second category of property that was hold individually arose (ibid.:65). The modern household is not focused on the taravad any longer, but on the nuclear family. The heavy dependence of the matrilineal system on weak ties between wife and husband had to give way to an decline of importance of kinship ties.[2]
[…]
[1] Much debate has been on the matter whether those relationships constitute marriages qualifying the Nayar as a peoples of polygny (see Fuller, 1976:104ff). This does not concern the matter of matrilineages further in the way treated here.
[2] It is important to note, that no single determinant can be made responsible for this change. As I tried to point at, there were several decisive factors – abandonment of the army, industrial revolution, development of private property – but they formed altogether with particular contextual features the context for the change. Similarly, no ‘evolutionary tendency’ should be interpreted into this change. The logical conclusion is not the abolition of family property and the matrilineage. What we saw in the case of the Nayars was solely a thorough weakening of the structures. The importance of matrilineal groups have “not diminished to the level typical in the modern West” (Fuller, 1976:148) and a patrilineal ideology is not in place.
Alternate Answer:
This paper analyses the relationship between descent and authority through the analytical
category of the corporate descent group in matrilineal societies. Schneider’s theoretical
framework on the distinct features of matrilineal descent groups is invoked, and the concept of
“the matrilineal puzzle” is introduced and elaborated in reference to it. Anthropologists proposed
that in response to the matrilineal puzzle, matrilineal societies evolved specific patterns of
residential organization. The three pertinent solutions of residence are discussed in detail.
Among these probable solutions, natolocal residence was regarded as the most tenable. Although
rare, natolocal residence was a prominent feature in the traditional kinship practices of the
Nayars of Central Kerala. Thus, the Nayar case is outlined as an illustration of the theoretical
arguments established earlier. The conclusion offers a comment on the contemporary existence
of matrilineal societies, and provides a brief critique of the theoretical framework applied in the
paper.
The Matrilineal Puzzle: Authority Relationships among the Nayars of Central Kerala
Away from popular idiom and common everyday usage, the term descent has a specific
meaning in anthropological scholarship. According to Schneider (1961), descent refers to the
socially stipulated rule by which a unit of consanguineally related kinsmen is culturally
distinguished. When the rule for the affiliation of the members of a descent unit is based on a
single sex, such that kinsmen related through one sex are included and those related through the
opposite sex are excluded, it is called the unilineal principle of descent. The unilineal principle
gives rise to two possibilities: patrilineal descent, in which descent is traced through the male
line; and matrilineal descent, in which descent is traced through the female line.
An analytical category that serves to explain the interplay between descent and authority
is the corporate descent group. This group is a type of descent unit, or a portion of it, which holds
property and office in common. Like a corporation, continuity of the group is ensured by the
inheritance of property and succession to office between generations. Since (1) the mobilization
of jointly-held resources, and (2) the imposition of sanctions against non-conformity to group
norms both require reaching and enforcing decisions, the corporate descent group is a decisionmaking group in which authority is differentially distributed among members. Authority
relationships so formed provide the framework within which members enjoy rights, duties,
privileges and statuses vis-a-vis fellow members. Therefore, authority is a crucial element in
determining the structure of corporate descent groups. Hence, the corporate descent group
becomes a useful tool for exploring the relationship between descent and authority.
This paper attempts to look at authority relationships in matrilineal descent groups. The
choice of exclusive focus is justified by the fact that matrilineal descent groups provide a special
combination of descent and authority as opposed to patrilineal descent groups. This fact leads to
4
the peculiar problem of “the matrilineal puzzle” (Richards, 1950). The first section is an
elaboration of the matrilineal puzzle. The second section looks at solutions evolved by
matrilineal societies in response to this puzzle. The third section provides an illustration of one
solution through a case study of the Nayars of Central Kerala. The final section comments on
the contemporary state of matrilineal societies and consists of a brief critique of the theoretical
arguments employed in this paper.
The Matrilineal Puzzle
Under the sway of evolutionism, nineteenth-century anthropologists postulated that
matriliny was a precursor to patriliny in the grand scheme of sociocultural evolution. Apart from
this, there was also the belief that matrilineal societies were matriarchal, such that both the line
of descent and the line of authority ran through females. The most famous statement of this
notion was made by J.J. Bachofen in Das Mutterrecht (1861) where he argued in favour of
“mother right” in matrilineal societies.
However, as anthropology moved from the arm chair to the field, it became increasingly
evident that neither were matriarchy and matriliny synonymous, nor could the latter be subsumed
under the former. In fact, matriarchy was a thing of myths and legends, in contrast to matrilineal
societies which did exist in the real world.
The interest in matrilineal societies continued among anthropologists of the succeeding
generations. Many were interested in comparative analysis that would underscore the features of matrilineal societies in contrast to patrilineal societies. A widely accepted theoretical framework
in this regard was the one proposed by Schneider (1961). Schneider’s scheme outlines the
constant features of matrilineal descent groups, notwithstanding cultural and ecological
variations. This framework presupposes that sex-role differentiation in all types of societies is
given: the primary responsibility of women is to take care of children, while adult men have
authority over women and children. Premised on this assumption of universal male dominance, it
proposes that matrilineal and patrilineal societies are not precise mirror images of each other.
This might appear to be the case when only the line of descent is considered as a distinguishing
feature. However, when the line of authority is also accounted for, it becomes evident that in
matrilineal descent groups, while line of descent runs through females, the line of authority runs
through males. This incongruence does not exist in patrilineal descent groups, where both the
line of descent and line of authority run through males. Schneider’s model considers this fact to
be the fundamental structural difference between matrilineal and patrilineal descent groups, and
all other differences as consequences of it.
One crucial implication that follows is the special situation of “the matrilineal puzzle”
(Richards, 1950). When descent is through females but authority is vested in men, special
tensions arise due to built-in strains in the relationship between a woman’s brother and her
husband. A conflict based on authority results from the desire of both men to control the woman
and her children. In patrilineal societies, the woman’s husband has authority over the woman and
children, while the brother has authority over his wife and children. In matrilineal societies,
however, the mother’s brother has interest in controlling his sister and her children because the
sister is the source of membership in the group while the children perpetuate the group. For
similar reasons, inner conflict results from the need of men to control wife and his children as
husband and sister and her children as maternal uncle. The matrilineal puzzle is thus the unique
situation in which “male authority comes into conflict with itself” (Stone, 2010, p. 121), both
externally and internally.
Solutions to the Matrilineal Puzzle
Anthropologists studying matrilineal societies interpreted patterns of residential
organization in matrilineal societies as possible solutions to the potential conflict between the
authority of the woman’s brother and her husband (Stone, 2010). The three types of patterns of
residence recognized as solutions (Fox, 1967) are elaborated in the following paragraphs.
The first solution is matrilocal residence, in which the male members of the matriline are
dispersed while the female members stay together. Upon marriage, a man moves into his wife’s
residential unit. This means that the woman’s husband moves into his wife’s natal home, while
her brother moves out to live with his wife. Thus, in this case, men as husbands are able to exert
control over women and children, but not over the women and children of his matriline. This
then becomes only a partial solution to the puzzle because here the woman’s brother’s authority
is threatened by the woman’s husband’s authority. Another problem is that the men who manage
the property of the corporate descent group are taken away from it. An adaptation is to have
nucleated and compact settlements which allow lineage members to maintain contact. The
mother’s brother can periodically return to discuss matters of the matrilineage and keep an eye
on his sister and her children.
The second solution is patrilocal residence, in which the males stay back while the
females leave to go live with their husbands. Here, the woman’s brother has control over
property, but stands to lose control over the next generation of male matriline members who will
inherit authority in the future. This then also becomes an incomplete solution. An adaptation is to
have avunculocal residence in which the woman’s son returns to live with his maternal uncle
either at puberty or marriage. This too, however, addresses the problem only partially, because
the son is under the father’s influence during his growing up years and only later comes under
the authority of his maternal uncle.
The final solution is natolocal residence in which the male and female members of the
matrilineage stay together as a domestic unit. The husband visits the wife from time to time for
purposes of sex, companionship, and procreation, but stays with his sister. The same is true of
the woman’s brother, who stays with his sister and visits his wife from time to time. From the
perspective of the stability and continuity of the matrilineage, this solution is the most tenable
one. The precedence of the descent bond over the marital bond implies that while the elementary
family is broken up, the corporate descent group is kept intact: the women of the group bring up
the next generation of members, while the men exert control over the women and children. The
men of the matriline also face no difficulty in controlling property and taking decisions because
the matrilineage stays together. For the same reason, women too enjoy higher influence and
status here than in the patrilocal case (Fox, 1967, p. 112).
Although regarded as the most complete solution (Fox, 1967, p. 111), natolocal residence
is found in very few societies. The traditional kinship practices of the Nayars of Central Kerala,
however, serve as a typical example. The following section deals with this particular case of the
Nayars to provide empirical support to the theoretical exposition developed so far.
Case Study: The Nayars of Central Kerala (1342-1792)
Traditional Nayar kinship refers to kinship traditions that were prevalent in the period
between 1342 and 1792, before the British assumed the government of Malabar (Gough, 1952).
In this period, Central Kerala comprised the former kingdoms of Calicut, Walluvanad, Palghat,
and Cochin (Gough, 1961) and was stratified into numerous castes. At the top of the hierarchy
were the Nambudiri Brahmans, and below them were the Nayars. The Nayar caste was further
subdivided into the ruler, village chief, commoner or retainer sub-castes, and below these were
the menial and polluting sub-castes. The Nayar men of the retainer sub-caste served in the
military as soldiers. This section exclusively pertains to kinship among the Nayar retainer caste.
The Nayar retainer caste lived in villages with other castes, but in their own
neighbourhoods with fellow caste people. They were divided into exogamous matrilineal clans
which were further divided into matrilineages. Smaller segments of the matrilineage were called
property groups (Gough, 1961). These were economic units established in a single household,
such that its members jointly owned an estate and cooperated in the production and distribution
of goods.
The property group when spoken of in its own right was called taravad, and when spoken
of as a segment of the lineage was called tavari (Gough, 1961, p. 334). The taravad was the
mound on which the ancestral house was built, and so the property group itself came to be
known by the same name of the land-and-house unit. Members of the taravad were related
within a depth of three to six generations. The taravad provided representation to its members in
legal, administrative, and ceremonial affairs. The oldest male member was the karanavan who
“organized economic affairs of the group, exercised legal authority over its members, and was a
member of the local sub-caste assembly” (Gough, 1952, p. 72). The other male members worked
on land and livestock which was managed and controlled by the karanavan. While powers over
property and junior male members were a part of the karanavan’s de jure authority, control of
the women and children was part of his de facto authority. In the latter, his formal control was
aided by the informal authority of the oldest woman, who managed domestic tasks and organized
the women’s labour.
The matrilineal puzzle met its seemingly “ideal solution” (Stone, 2010, p. 123) in the
kinship practices of the Nayars. The taravad was a “consanguineal household” (Fox, 1967, p.
100) where women of the matriline, her children, and her brothers lived in their natal house
throughout their life. But apart from natolocal residence, the marriage system of the Nayars also
ensured the unity, stability, and continuity of the matrilineage.
The Nayar marriage system consisted of the tali-kettu kalyanam (“tali-tying” ceremony)
and sambandham (“joining together” relationship). The tali-tying ceremony brought together
girls and boys from allied lineages—called enangars—to perform a symbolic ritual in which the
groom tied a gold ornament (tali) around the bride’s neck. After the tali rite, each couple was
kept in seclusion in the ancestral house for three days. On the fourth day, the ritual husband
departed, severing connection with the bride (Gough, 1952) and ending mutual personal
obligations (Gough, 1961).
The tali around the girl’s neck formally announced that the girl was now mature enough
to bear children and perpetuate her lineage. After this ceremony, a woman was free to enter into
sexual unions with other men of her local caste group or of an appropriate higher caste (Gough,
1961). These men were considered to be the woman’s husband through sambandham, which
although was unmarked by a ceremony, designated the “joining together” of the man and woman
as socially acceptable. The husband visited his wife’s taravad at night and sexual privileges were
the only obligation that his wife owed him. While it was possible for the ritual husband to also be
a visiting husband, it was not necessary.
Nayar women were impregnated by the visiting husband (Fox, 1967). When a Nayar
woman became pregnant, one or more of the visiting husbands were obliged to acknowledge
possible biological paternity by giving gifts to the wife and midwife immediately after the birth
(Gough, 1961). Although this ritual legitimized the children, the visiting husband was not
granted social paternity. If they knew him, the children referred to the ritual husband as the father
or appan, while the visiting husband was acchan or “lord” (Gough, 1961, p. 358). The only
other obligation of the visiting husband towards his wife was to give her gifts on the three main
festivals of the year—Vishu, Onam, and Tiruvadira (Gough, 1961). This too was required only
for as long as the relationship lasted, as both the woman and man were free to terminate their
relationship at any time (Stone, 2010).
Nayar women and her children, regardless of biological paternity, observed ritual
pollution for fifteen days after the death of the ritual husband, who was also considered the social
father. Yet, the ritual husband had no legal rights over the woman and her children. Even the
visiting husband did not enjoy these rights.
The constellation of all these aspects—residence, marriage system, and “ignorance of
paternity” (Schneider, 1961, p. 13)—led to weakening of the marital bond and strengthening of
the descent bond. Nayar society was organized in such a way that several of the husband’s
functions towards women and children were performed by the mother’s brother: protection,
education, transfer of property, and the production and distribution of goods. In return, both the
sister and her children owed respect, obedience and devotion to him. The sister also provided her
domestic services to him. Given the universality of the incest taboo, the only function of the
husband that was prohibited for the mother’s brother was the sexual function (Stone, 2010). As a
result, he surrendered sexual rights to other men—the visiting husbands—but retained the
procreative rights of the women of the matrilineage, because of the interest in its perpetuity
(Gough, 1961). But in this case also, he could dimiss a visiting husband if he chose (Stone,
2010) and often was also involved in selecting the husband for the women of his taravad.
Therefore, Nayar kinship illustrated one way in which the matrilineal puzzle could be
solved in favour of the matrilineage i.e. matrilineally related males could exercise authority over
sisters and their children without interference from husbands. Although the Nayar solution was
more complete than the other solutions (Fox, 1967), it nevertheless represented “a paradigm of
matrilineality taken to its extreme” (Moore, 1985, p. 523). Moreover, anthropologists believed
that irrespective of residential organization, matrilineal societies were unstable and “plagued by
tensions” (Stone, 2010, p. 124). The final section explores this contention.
Conclusion: Matrilineal Societies in Contemporary Culture
According to Stone (2010), matrilineal societies are “seen as beset by special strains, as
fragile and rare, possibly even doomed to extinction” (p. 125). These societies generate
tremendous tensions in the interpersonal relationships between males and females, particularly
those centred on the institutions of marriage and the elementary family. The universality of thes institutions is challenged by matrilineal systems, in which these institutions are weak and
particularly vulnerable to suffer the most under strains. Anthropologists have used this fact to
account for certain observations, for instance, the high rates of divorce in matrilineal societies
and the rarity with which they are found around the world (Stone, 2010). Further, they’ve
postulated that owing to this inherent instability, matrilineal systems in the face of changes
brought about by colonialism and capitalism have become patrilineal or bilateral (Stone, 2010).
With respect to the Nayar case, many authors (Gough, 1961; Mencher, 1962; Fuller,
1976; Arunima, 1995; Kodoth, 2004) agree that very little is left of their matrilineal customs and
practices. Gough (1952, 1961) argues that changes in the political and economic structure
brought about with the British conquest led to the termination of polyandrous and visiting
marriage. Disbanding of the Nayar armies and new occupations created by the capitalist
economy increased the social and spatial mobility of Nayar men. Legal changes, like the Madras
Marumakkatayam Act 1933, led to “the partition and material disintegration of the taravad”
(Kodoth, 2004, p. 7) while also resolving the question of marriage, affirming “the conjugal bond
as the principal property/material relation between men and women and parents (fathers) and
children” (p. 7). Taken together, these transformations meant that wage- and salary-earning
Nayar men could move away from the taravad with their wife and children, and set up nuclear
family units (Stone, 2010). Notwithstanding these shifts in tradition, matrilineal sentiments,
especially among women, continue to remain important (Mencher, 1962), and to suggest that
Nayar matrilineality has completely been replaced by patrilineality is an issue open to debate,
requiring further qualification.
On a concluding note, a brief critique of the theoretical arguments that this paper began
with is due. First, although the formulation of “the matrilineal puzzle” provided anthropology
with great insight—disproving the existence of matriarchy, illuminating the features of
matrilineal systems, and explaining reasons for contemporary trends in these societies, to name a
few—it is crucial to note that it was founded on the assumption of universal male dominance.
This is a point that has been taken up by feminist scholarship (Schlegel, 1972; Poewe, 1981;
Stone, 2010), which has primarily argued for “recognizing polyvocality and multiplicity in
different aspects and domains of social life such as authority” (Abraham, 2017, p. 5). Second,
while this paper uses descent theory for the study of authority relationships among the Nayars, it
should be acknowledged that descent theory is but one perspective through which kinship
practices can be studied. For example, Moore (1985) argues that descent theory does not address
crucial concerns, like segmentation, associated with Nayar kinship. In the same vein, my own
opinion is that much can be learned about Nayar kinship if studied through the lens of caste, or feminism. While constraints of space do not permit a deeper discussion on these issues in this paper, the possibility for further research abound.