- Iravati Karve (1953) provides us the comparative analysis of four cultural zones in India i.e. Northern zone, Southern zone, Eastern zone and Central zone, keeping in view the linguistic, caste and family organization.
- Karve studied the process of acculturation and accommodation in context of kinship.
- Karve’s comparative study takes the following points into consideration i.e list of kinship terms in Indian languages, mainly focused on the difference between Sanskritic North and Dravidian South.
- In spite of these factors, she also analyzed the caste endogamy and incest taboo.
SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE NORTHERN ZONE OF INDIA
(I) NORTHERN ZONE
- · It lies between the Himalayas to the North and the Vindhya ranges to the South.
- · Indo- European or Sanskritic speakers can be found in Northern region.
- · The Northern region persists some of the systems which can be explained as follows;
(a) Gotra and Clan system : Gotra(Sanskrit: “cattle shed”), lineage segment within an Indian caste that prohibits intermarriage by virtue of the members descent from a common mythical ancestor, an important factor in determining possible Hindu marriage alliances. Gotra is originally referred to the seven lineage segments of the Brahmans (priests), who trace their derivation from seven ancient seers: Atri, Bharadvaja, Bhrigu, Gotama, Kashyapa, Vasishtha, and Vishvamitra.
(b) Hypergamy and Kulinism
- Hypergamous stratification can be found in India and also found among all caste clusters.
- Hypergamy can be seen in India in many castes which claim to be either Kshatriyas or Vaishyas.
- They are generally Endogamous.
Kulinism
The Custom in which a man marries a girl of slightly lower status referred to a phenomenon called Kulinism. In this, Kulin groom can demand a very high price from the Kulin bride’s family, it shows the elevation in social status of that individual in his society and a man can marry more than one woman to further elevate his social status. Brief description of Kinship organization of India Zonal Wise, in a Tabular Form, is given below:
NORTHERN ZONE
· In north zone, there are four basic features of Kinship;
(1) Territoriality,
(2) Genealogy,
(3) Incest taboos, and
(4) Local exogamy.
· There are terms for consanguineal relations and terms for affinal relations. There are primary terms for three generations of immediate relations and the terms for one generation are not exchangeable for those of another generation. All the other terms are derived from the primary terms.
· RULES OF MARRIAGE: The Rule of sasan is the main feature to all marriage alliances, i.e., a person must not marry in his patrifamily and must avoid marriage with sapinda kin. Four-gotra (sasan) rule, that is, avoidance of the gotras of father, mother, grandmother and maternal grandmother is generally practised among Brahmanas and other upper castes in north India. However, some intermediate and most of the lower castes avoid two gotras, namely, that of father and mother.
· DISTRIBUTION: Areas of the Sindhi, Punjabi, Hindi (and Pahari), Bihari, Bengali, Assamese and Nepali speaking groups.
SOUTHERN ZONE (Comprises Five regions i.e. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the regions of mixed languages and people).
- In the southern zone, Caste endogamy and Clan exogamy is followed, similar to the northern system.
- It is called as ‘Bedagu’ or ‘Bedaga’ or ‘Bali’ in Karnataka. The Kotas of Nilgiris call it ‘Keri’, the Kottai Vellals call it ‘Kilai’, the Koyas name it ‘Gotta’ and the Kurubas call it ‘Gunpu’. Some Telugu people call it ‘Inti-peru’, and the Malayalis mention it ‘Illom’. In Travancore, it is referred to as ‘Veli’. The word ‘Gotra’ is also widely used. The main symbols used for clans are of silver, gold, axe, elephant, snake, jasmine, stone, etc.
- The southern zone possesses both types of features i.e. Patrilocal and Patrilineal systems (mainly found in Karnataka, Tamil nadu and Andhra Pradesh), also Matrilineal and Matrilocal systems.
· RULES OF MARRIAGE: Age, and not generation, is the main consideration in the southern kinship system. Marriage is outside the exogamous kin group called Bali or Begadu or Kilai. The rules of marriage are: one must marry a member of one’s own clan, and a girl must marry a person who belongs to the group older than self, and also to the younger than the parents.
· DISTRIBUTION: The Nayars, the Tiyans, some Moplas in Malabar region and the Bants in Kanara district have matrilineal and matrilocal family, and it is called tharawad. It consists of a woman, her brothers and sisters, her own and her sister’s sons and daughters. No affinal relation lives in the tharawad. Same consanguines are excluded (children of the males). There is no husband-wife, father-children relationship in a tharawad.
· TABOOS: However, there are taboos on marrying of younger sister’s daughter, levirate, and mother’s sister’s daughter. Maternal uncle and niece marriages and cross-cousin marriages result in double relationships. A cousin is also a wife, and after marriage a cousin is more of a wife than a cousin
CENTRAL ZONE (comprises the linguistic regions of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh also), Gujarat and Kathiawad, Maharashtra and Odhisha with their respective languages, namely, Rajasthani, Hindi, Gujarati and Kathiawadi, Marathi and Oriya.).These languages persists the Sanskritic Origin
The central zone shows the influence of Northern zone and also Eastern zone.
· The central zone follows these rules:
- Cross-cousin marriages are common which are not witnessed in the north zone.
- Many castes are divided into exogamous clans like the north zone.
- In some castes, exogamous clans are arranged in a hypergamous hierarchy.
· But it is not guaranteed that these features can be found in all over the regions. For instance, In Rajasthan, Jats follow two-gotra exogamy along with village exogamy; Banias practise four-gotra rule; and Rajputs have hypergamous clans, and feudal status is an important consideration in marriage alliances.
· EXAMPLE OF RAJPUTS: Rajputs put a lot of emphasis on purity and nobility of descent. Status of mother on either side is also a factor in marriage alliances. Also, mythological origin comparable with Rajputs is also claimed by the Marathas. Their names are also similar to that of Rajputs. The rule of exogamy is, however, not dependent on the clan name but on the symbol connected with the clan. The symbol is called devaka. No two people having the same devaka can marry. The clans and the devaka both play a significant role in marriage.
EXAMPLE OF GUJARAT AND KATHIAWAD: In Kathiawad and Gujarat, northern practices can be found. Some castes allow cross-cousin marriages, others allowed marriages once a year, and some others permitted once every four, five, nine or twelve years. When the marriage year arrives, it is announced from village to
village and there is a rush to perform marriages. The practice of ‘Nantra’ (levirate) exists even today.
· EXAMPLE OF TRIBES: Cross-cousin marriage among the Kathi, Ahir, Ghadava Charan and Garasia castes is quite common. Kolis and Bhils, allow cross-cousin marriages.
· According to Irawati Karve, Maharashtra is an area where Sanskritic northern traits (languages spoken are Gujarati, Rajasthani, Himachali and Hindi) and the Dravidian southern traits (mix of Sanskritic languages) can be seen showing the dominance of the former. Therefore, Maharashtra kinship structure is a little different from both southern and northern zones.
· EXAMPLE OF MARATHAS in comparison to KUNBIS: The Marathas and Kunbis together form about 40 per cent of the population. They call themselves Kshatriyas. Maratha-Kunbi complex has been a ruling clan. Even today headman or patil is a Maratha in a village.
· Kunbis are divided into exogamous clans. Some practise levirate; other consider cross-cousin marriages as a taboo; but some others do not prohibit such marriages.
· Marathas have as many as 96 clans. Among these, there are concentric circles of mobility and status. Ethnically, there is no homogeneity. There are panchkula, a cluster of five clans, then there are ‘seven clans’, and all are hypergamous divisions. No taboo is attached to bilateral kinship like north zone.
· TABOOS OF MARATHAS: No parallel-cousin marriages are allowed. There is also taboo on paternal-cousin marriages. Generally, preference for a man’s marriage is with his maternal cross-cousin. Sisters can and do marry the same man. Brothers generally avoid marrying two sisters.
· EXAMPLE OF BRAHMANS IN ODHISHA: Aranyaka Brahmanas and Karans (Kayasthas) do not allow cross-cousin marriages. Some agricultural castes allow cousin-marriages, but others prohibit. Junior levirate is found among the poorer classes.
EASTERN ZONE
In eastern zone, Mundari and Monkhmer languages are spoken and also northern languages also exist
The main communities are Korku, Assamese, Saka, Semang and Khasi.
· People speaking Mundari languages have Patrilineal and Patrilocal families. Mundari people are different from the rest of the India by not having the feature of Joint Family.
· HO AND SANTHAL: Cross-cousin marriage is practiced. But till the father’s sister or the mother’s brother is alive, they cannot marry their daughters. This condition makes cross-cousin marriage a rare phenomenon.
· HO AND MUNDA: They have separate dormitories for bachelors and maidens and they indulge in pre-marital sexual relationships.
Sometimes these relationships result into marriages but quite often the marriage mate is different from the mate of the dormitory days. All these people are divided into exogamous totemistic clans.
· Clan exogamy is followed.
· BRIDE PRICE: Money is given for procuring a bride. Service by the would-be-husband in girl’s father’s house is also considered as bride price. After marriage one establishes his separate household, but may keep his younger brother and widowed mother, etc., along with him in his newly established house.
· KHASIS OF MEGHALAYA (Matrilineal society): Speaks Mon khmer language. The Khasis have joint family with common worship and common graveyard, but the husband and wife live together in a small house of their own. After death the property goes to mother or youngest daughter.
· A woman enjoys a great amount of freedom. If there are no female relatives, widow gets half of the property if she opts not to remarry. A Khasi husband is incorporated into his bride’s home as a stranger.
· The Khasis have clan exogamy. Marriages of parallel cousins are not allowed. Cross-cousin marriage is also quite rare.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN NORTHERN ZONE AND SOUTHERN ZONE
Irawati karve provides us the well explained differences between the kinship organization of both the Northern zone and southern zone which can be understand in tabular form;
| Northern Zone | Southern Zone |
| Village exogamy is a widely accepted. · Gonds do not observe village exogamy. The only principle is that of exogamy or illom or veli · There is a distinction between the Family of Birth and Family of marriage. · In the north, terms for blood relatives and affinal ones are clear. · Phupha-Phuphi for father’s sister’s husband and father’s sister and Mama-Mami for mother’s brother and his wife are used in the North · There are the ‘extended family of birth’ and the ‘extended family of marriage’ · Special terms for affinal relatives are used in the North. | · There are inter-marrying clans in the same village. · Preferential marriages with elder sister’s daughter, father’s sister’s daughter, and with mother’s brother’s daughter are particularly prevalent in maintaining unity and solidarity of the ‘clan’ and upholding of the principle of return (exchange) of daughters in the same generation. · There is no distinction between the family of birth and the family of marriage. · In the South many terms do not indicate this distinction clearly. · In the South Attai is used for both Phuphi and Mami. Mama is used for both Phupha and Mama. · There is no such distinction in the South. · No special terms are used for affinal relatives in the South. Same relatives appear in two successive generations in the South. · There are words for ‘younger’ and ‘older’ brothers and sisters. A number of terms are used in common for (1) Father and elder brother (Anna, Ayya), (2) Mother and elder sister, (3) Younger brother and son (Pirkal), and (4) Younger sister and daughter (Pinnawal). · These terms denote respect to the elders and not to the actual blood relationships. The point of reference is the ego. |
Thus, Kinship is a complex phenomenon, and its role is important even in modern organizations. Migration, mobility and education have weakened the kinship systems and rules of clan organization because people are now shifting from joint family to Nuclear family.
Second Answer for comparision of North India and South India Kinship
In addition to the practice of polygyny and hypergamy, marriages in North India are marked by a higher status given to the bride receivers than the bride givers, thereby giving the man’s family a higher social status than a woman’s family that has resulted in a general degrading of women in society, where the mother of a son receives more prestige than the mother of a daughter and the birth of a daughter is viewed as a lowering of rank of her entire family. Among the status conscious Rajputs of North-Western India, it is this status consciousness that is one of the reasons for widespread female infanticide as the father of a daughter feels socially degraded. This is also the reason why there is no preference for women exchange, rather women preferably move in the same direction, that is it is preferred that sisters be married to a set of brothers rather than an exchange of siblings take place as it is done in Bengal, in the custom of Palti Bodol, where to save on dowry, siblings can be exchanged if they are otherwise properly matched. Since the practice of exogamy is done at the village level, entire villages stand in relations of bride givers and bride receivers with appropriate rankings and taboos. Thus a person from a bride giving village will not accept even water from a bride receiving village.
In South India there are two distinct differences, the first is the separation of the cross and parallel siblings of the parents and a merging of the grandparents
generation in terms of kinship terminology that had led the south Indian kinship terminology to be labelled as “bifurcate-merging’, the second is the practice of
what was referred to as the practice of cross-cousin marriage by those following the ‘descent school’ in kinship studies. In South India it is preferred that a boy
marry his mother’s brother’s daughter or his father’s sisters daughter, neither of which categories is referred to as a ‘sister’ and the father’s sister and mother’s
brother are also referred to by the same term as used for mother-in-law and father-in-law.
Louis Dumont in his analysis of kinship on what he calls as the principle of affinity, takes a different theoretical stand. According to Dumont, where there exists
positive marriage regulations, that is some categories of kin are ear marked for marriage, the following criteria apply;
1) Marriage becomes part of an institution of marriage alliance, which spans the generations. This is in opposition to the descent theorist’s views that marriage
relations are confined to one generation and only descent runs through generations.
2) The concept of affinity should extend so as to include not only those who are related to a ego by marriage, but also to people who inherit such a relationship
from their parents. Thus a son will inherit an affinal relationship in the form of his mother’s brother from his father who already has an affinal relationship
of wife’s brother to him. Thus where there is prescribed cross cousin marriage, the mother’s brother and father’s sister are never consanguines, but always
affines, as inherited from the parents.
3) In terms of kinship terminology such relationships will have an affinal content. Thus the Dravidian kinship terminology can be described as one where there is
one term for all males and all females in the grand parent’s generation. The two terms in father’s generation, namely father and mother’s brother are not simply
different but denote two classes of relatives; one consanguineal and the other affinal. Thus father and mother’s brother are brothers-in-law to each other, or
linked to each other through the mother.
In the same way the relationship to father’s sister is mediated through the mother, where the brother of one woman is husband to the other.
Such affinal relationships are continued in ego’s generation, become weaker in ego’s son’s generation and disappear fully in the grandchild’s generation. The
basic structure of the system is of fathers on one side, including the father’s brother and mother’s sister’s husband and father’s affines on the other, including
mother’s brother and father’s sister’s husband.
According to Dumont we should differentiate between the immediate or synchronic affine and genealogical or diachronic affines who are affines by virtue of inheriting an affinal tie from the earlier generation. Dumont also demonstrated how the concrete expression to the abstract concept of alliance is given differently in different social systems taking the examples of the matrilineal Kondaiyam Kottai Maravar and the patrilinial and patrilocal Pramalai Kallar.
For the Kallar, the category of brothers is split into two, the brothers, one’s own and the sons of the father’s brothers who are part of one’s local or residential kin group and the sons of one’s mother’s sisters, who are spread in various places, depending upon where the mothers were located after marriage. Thus although they are notionally consanguines, the relationship with such relatives is weak as it is spread over a large geographical area and tends to be forgotten over the generations, unlike the enduring ties with the patrilineal kin. The father’s sister on the other hand is born and remains in the father’s house till she gets married. Thus although terminologically she is an affine, she has an ambiguous position as a weak affine having been treated as a kin before her marriage. The mother’s brother in a patrilineal situation is a strong affine.
The situation is just the reverse in the case of the matrilineal Kondaiam KottaiMaravars, where the opposition between father and mother’s brother is viewed
differently. In the matrilineal situation the father would be an affine and the mother’s brother a kin, therefore the ambiguity attached to the father’s sister in the patrilineal case would be attached to the mother’s brother in this case who will be considered a weak affine, while the father’s sister would be considered a strong affine.
In other words as Dumont puts it, the foremost affine in the upper generation is the affine of the lineally stressed parent, the mother’s brother in the patrilineal
situation and the father’s sister in the matrilineal one.
The distinction between the two categories of relative is also expressed in ceremonials and gift giving. F.G. Bailey in Orissa and A.C. Mayer in Malwa have
noted that there is a lot of similarity in the ceremonial functions of relatives like wife’s brother and mother’s brother, even though the former is an affine and the latter a relative of blood connected through the mother. In a sense both the relatives are similarly situated as the wife’s brother becomes the mother’s brother in the next generation; gifts given by both are referred to as mamere in the local language so that culturally also the two relatives are put in the same bracket. In opposition to mamere is dan. These are the gifts given by those who have taken a woman from the group, the father’s sister’s husband and sister’s husband, in contrast the mamere is given by those who have given a woman to the group. Thus Dumont has pointed out that essentially from the cultural point of view the real difference is between wife giver’s and wife receivers and not between uterine and agnatic kin.
As an example one can take the case of the Sarjupari Brahmins of U.P. who ignore the sa-pinda rule. But adhere to the two rules that; Firstly, a lineage does not ‘take’ a girl from a local lineage to which a girl has been given by them, as the bride receivers are in a permanent position of superiority symbolized in the ritual of ‘pao-pujan’ ( feet worship). Secondly, a man does not marry his sister and daughter (including classificatory ones) into the same family; for this would mean matrilateral cross cousin marriage, not permissible in North India.
However among the lower castes such as Dhobis, such marriages are permitted. Among the upper castes the former rule prohibits reversal of marriage between larger units such as local descent groups and the latter prohibits the repetition of marriage between smaller units such as families. Among the lower castes such repetition leads to stronger community formation at the local level, so necessary for their survival. The lower castes may also practice bride exchange and widow remarriage.
In the study of south Indian kinship it is seen that ceremonial gifts are given by those relatives where the affinal relatives are passed down generations that is by
the mother’s brother, father’s sister or father’s sister’s husband, wife givers in all cases by the rule of prescriptive marriage to the children of parent’s cross sex
siblings.
Among the high status Sarjupari Brahmins the first rule permits repetition of marriage between lineages but in the same direction, thus taking care of caste norms, but not particularly of kinship. In south India marriage rules reflect pure kinship norms. The Sarjupari Brahmins also have the rules of “three houses, thirteen houses, and one lakh (hundred thousand) and twenty-five thousand” houses arranged vertically. Similar rules are seen in Bengal among the Dakhin-Rarhi Kayasthas of the “three houses (Kulin), eight houses and seventy-two houses”, similarly arranged hierarchically in order of preference. Such status is attributional while the status difference between bride-givers and bride-takers is interactional.