Types of Family among Indian Tribes: Regional Patterns and Economy

Most Indian tribes have families that are patrilineal, patrilocal, patriarchal and patronymic (taking the father's name). Most are monogamous and nuclear, though joint and extended families are also common among settled agricultural tribes. The main exceptions are the matrilineal Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya, some tribes of Kerala such as the Kurichiya, and the matrilineal islanders of Lakshadweep, along with the polyandrous Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar and Toda of the Nilgiris. L. P. Vidyarthi and B. K. Rai showed that family form is closely linked with economy: hunter-gatherers have small nuclear families, while settled agriculturists have the widest range of nuclear, joint and extended families.

This note surveys family types among Indian tribes region by region, relates them to economic types, and discusses recent change, for the UPSC Anthropology Optional. It belongs to Paper II (tribal India: social organisation) and draws on Paper I topic 2.4 (Family) in the Anthropology Optional syllabus.

Key points at a glance

• General pattern: patrilineal, patrilocal, patriarchal, patronymic, monogamous and nuclear.
• Matrilineal tribes: Khasi and Garo (Meghalaya); Kurichiya and Kunduvadiyan (Kerala); Lakshadweep islanders.
• Matrilineal is not matriarchal: even among the Khasi and Garo, men such as the mother's brother hold much authority.
• Polyandry: Khasa (Jaunsar-Bawar, Uttarakhand) and Toda (Nilgiris), at the two ends of India.
• Polygyny: allowed among many tribes, practised mainly by wealthy or powerful men (Ho, Gond, Baiga, Naga chiefs).
• Unusual descent: the Dimasa Kachari have separate male and female clans, often described as double descent.
• Family and economy: foragers have nuclear families; agriculturists have nuclear, joint and extended families; wage labourers in tea gardens, mines and industry have neolocal nuclear families.
• Source: the regional survey follows L. P. Vidyarthi and B. K. Rai, The Tribal Culture of India (1976).

The general pattern

Families in most Indian tribes have four features, often summarised as the four "Ps":

• Patrilineal: descent and clan membership pass through the father.
• Patrilocal: a wife moves to live with or near her husband's family.
• Patriarchal: the father or eldest male holds authority.
• Patronymic: children take the father's clan or family name.

The matrilineal tribes are sometimes described by four "Ms": matrilineal, matrilocal, matriarchal and matronymic. This needs care. Among the Khasi and Garo, descent, residence and property follow the female line, but authority is shared with or held by men, especially the mother's brother. They are matrilineal societies, not true matriarchies.

Most tribal families are monogamous. Polygyny is permitted in many tribes but is practised mainly by wealthy men, headmen or men whose first wife is childless. Polyandry is rare.

Regional survey of tribal family types

L. P. Vidyarthi divided tribal India into regions: the Himalayan region (north-western, central and north-eastern), middle India, western India, southern India and the islands. Family forms are best examined region by region.

North-western Himalaya

• Gujjars (mostly Muslim pastoralists of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh), Gaddis (Hindu shepherds of Himachal Pradesh) and Pangwals (of the Pangi valley, Chamba, Himachal Pradesh) are patrilineal and traditionally live in joint families. Joint families are now breaking up into nuclear families at an increasing rate.
• Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar (Dehradun district, Uttarakhand) are patrilineal and practise fraternal polyandry: brothers share a wife, and the eldest brother is the head. D. N. Majumdar studied them in Himalayan Polyandry (1962).
• Tharu of the Terai (Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal) are patrilineal, but women have a notably high status and a strong role in managing the household.

North-east India

• Khasi (Meghalaya): matrilineal. All members of a clan (kur) claim descent from a common ancestress. Children take the mother's clan name. The youngest daughter (khadduh) inherits the ancestral house and cares for her parents. The husband traditionally lived in his wife's house. The mother's brother (kni) has important authority in his sister's family.
• Garo (Meghalaya): matrilineal and matrilocal. The parents choose one daughter as heiress (nokna), whose husband (nokrom) comes to live in her parents' house. Property belongs to the lineage (machong), and the husband manages it.
• Karbi (formerly called Mikir, Karbi Anglong, Assam): patrilineal. Children belong to the father's clan (kur), and sons inherit property. They are generally monogamous; polygyny is permitted but rare, mainly among the well-off.
• Mizo (Mizoram): patrilineal and patriarchal. By customary law the youngest son inherits the parental property and cares for his parents (ultimogeniture).
• Dimasa Kachari (Assam): have both male clans (sengphong) and female clans (julu or jadi). Sons belong to the father's male clan and daughters to the mother's female clan. Property also divides this way: a father's property to sons and a mother's to daughters. Indian textbooks usually call this double descent; strictly, sons and daughters following different lines is closer to parallel descent.
• Naga groups and Arunachal tribes (Adi, Apatani, Nyishi and others): patrilineal and patrilocal, with clan exogamy. Polygyny was practised by chiefs and the wealthy, notably among the Nyishi and Konyak.

Middle India

In middle India the roots of patriliny are deep.

• Major tribes: the Santal, Munda, Oraon, Ho, Gond, Bhil, Kol, Kharia and Bhumij are patrilocal, patrilineal, patriarchal and patronymic. They are generally monogamous, and nuclear families are most common, though joint and extended families are found in significant numbers.
• Ho: wealthy and powerful men may marry more than one wife. The Ho are known for a high bride price (gonong), which delays marriage for many.
• Gond: allow polygyny; a poor groom may serve in his father-in-law's house to earn his bride (lamsena, service marriage). The Muria Gond of Bastar have the ghotul youth dormitory.
• Baiga: polygyny allowed.
• Minor tribes: the Birhor, Korwa and Parhaiya have the four Ps with nuclear, monogamous families. The Birhor, traditionally nomadic hunters and rope-makers, have small nuclear families that join in bands (tanda).
• Odisha: major tribes such as the Kondh and the Saora (Savara) have patriarchal families.

Western India

The patriarchal family predominates in western India.

• Bhil: the most populous tribe of the region. Most Bhil groups follow inheritance and succession broadly in line with Hindu custom, with the father as head and priest of the household.
• Other tribes: families among the Mina (Meena), Mahadev Koli, Warli, Kokna, Thakar, Katkari (Kathodi), Koli Malhar, Koli Dhor, Dubla and Gamit are also patriarchal.

South India

South India has both patrilineal and matrilineal tribes. Many tribes of Kerala were once matrilineal, but most now follow patrilineal rules.

• Matrilineal (marumakkathayam): the Kurichiya of Wayanad, known for very large matrilineal joint households, and the Kunduvadiyan. The Malayarayar of central Kerala are also reported to have followed matrilineal inheritance.
• Flexible or mixed rules: among poorer forest groups such as the Kadar, Irula and Paliyan, there is little property to inherit, and rules of descent and inheritance are loose, combining patrilineal and matrilineal elements or treating both sides equally.
• Polyandry: the Toda of the Nilgiris practised fraternal polyandry, with social paternity assigned through the pursutpimi (bow-and-arrow) ceremony.
• Foragers: the Chenchu of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Cholanaikan of Kerala live in small nuclear families.

The islands

• Nicobarese: the household is a property-owning kin group (tuhet). After marriage the two families decide where the couple will live, according to the number of members in each. If the girl's family has fewer members, the groom, with the elders' consent, lives with her family. He then loses his share in his own family's property and gains a full share in hers. This is bilocal residence chosen by need.
• Lakshadweep islanders (Muslim and Scheduled Tribes): matrilineal. Leela Dube's study of Kalpeni (Matriliny and Islam, 1969) described households built around a mother and her children and her matrilineal kin, with the husband as a socially approved "visiting husband" who comes at night and lives in his own mother's house. The pattern is reported from Kalpeni, Chetlat and other islands.
• Andaman Islanders (Onge, Jarawa, Great Andamanese): hunter-gatherers living in small nuclear families within bands.

Regional summary table

Family form and economic type

Vidyarthi and Rai classified Indian tribes by economic type: forest hunters and gatherers, hill and shifting cultivators, plains agriculturists, simple artisans, cattle herders, agricultural and non-agricultural labourers, and skilled white-collar workers and traders. They found a strong correlation between economic type and family form. On the whole, the family functions as an economic unit.

The pattern of polyandry and matriliny at the two ends of India

The polyandrous tribes are found at the two geographical extremes of India: the Khasa in the far north and the Toda in the far south. The same is true of matrilineal communities: the Khasi and Garo in the far north-east, and a few tribes of Kerala and the Lakshadweep islanders in the far south-west. Neither practice is found in the patrilineal heartland of middle India.

Agricultural tribes: the widest range of family forms

As the economy moves from foraging to hill cultivation to settled agriculture, the range of family forms widens. Agricultural tribes have many forms of family, a clear case of structural adaptation to economic activity: land and labour can support larger households. But even among them, nuclear families are the most numerous, and joint and extended families together remain a minority.

• Bhil: the usual household is small: father, mother and children. But married sons with their wives and children often live under one roof with their parents to form joint or extended families, and the presence of married sisters or daughters is not unusual. Residence is usually patrilocal or virilocal, but a son-in-law sometimes lives with his wife's family (patri-uxorilocal residence).
• Santal: the nuclear family is the rule, and extended and joint families are not uncommon. In the ghardi jawae form of marriage, a groom with no means comes to live in his wife's father's house and works for the family, an uxorilocal arrangement within a patrilineal society.
• Khasi: matrilocal. Besides nuclear families, many households are vertically extended: grandmother and grandfather, mother and father, children and grandchildren, centred on the youngest daughter who inherits the house.

Artisan and cattle-herding tribes generally live in nuclear families. Tribal wage labourers in tea gardens, mines and industry live in neolocal nuclear families, away from their villages and kin.

Changes in tribal families

• From joint to nuclear: education, wage work, migration and the division of land are turning joint families into nuclear households, as among the Gujjar, Gaddi and Kurichiya.
• Decline of matriliny: most Kerala tribes that were matrilineal have shifted to patrilineal rules. Among the Khasi, some men's groups have campaigned for patrilineal inheritance, while others defend the matrilineal system.
• Hinduisation and Christianity: Hindu influence (Sanskritisation) has brought dowry, the seclusion of women and Hindu-style inheritance to some tribes, such as Bhil groups. Christianity, widespread in the North-East and parts of Jharkhand, has encouraged monogamy and church weddings.
• Bride price to dowry: in some tribes, bride price is giving way to dowry, which has weakened women's position.
• Youth dormitories: institutions such as the ghotul, dhumkuria and morung have declined.
• Law: the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, does not apply to Scheduled Tribes unless the central government directs otherwise (Section 2(2)), so tribal inheritance follows customary law. In Kamla Neti v. Special Land Acquisition Officer (2022), the Supreme Court asked the government to consider extending equal inheritance rights to tribal women. In Sixth Schedule areas such as Meghalaya, autonomous district councils regulate customary law on lineage and inheritance.
• Displacement: mining, dams and industry break up households and kin networks.

For displacement and development in tribal India, see our note on tribal India, PVTGs, displacement and the development-versus-isolation debate.

Generalisations

1. The monogamous nuclear family is the main form among Indian tribes.
2. Major agricultural tribes, where their economy permits, also have a good number of joint and extended families.
3. The family functions as an economic unit, and family form is strongly correlated with economic type.
4. Patriliny dominates; matriliny and polyandry are found only at the geographical margins.
5. Change is moving tribal families towards the nuclear, patrilineal and neolocal pattern.

Using this topic in a UPSC answer

• Start with the general pattern (the four Ps) and its exceptions.
• Organise by region using Vidyarthi's zones, with a summary table.
• Link family to economy using Vidyarthi and Rai's economic types.
• Highlight special cases: Khasi khadduh, Garo nokna, Khasa and Toda polyandry, Dimasa male and female clans, Mizo ultimogeniture, Nicobarese bilocal residence, Lakshadweep visiting husbands.
• Draw a map of India showing matrilineal and polyandrous tribes at the margins and patrilineal tribes in middle India.
• Discuss change and the law on tribal inheritance (Section 2(2) of the Hindu Succession Act; Kamla Neti, 2022).

Likely questions: "Discuss the types of family among Indian tribes." "Examine the relation between economy and family among Indian tribes." "Discuss matrilineal tribes of India." For structure and presentation, see our guide to anthropology answer writing with diagrams, thinkers and case studies.

Frequently asked questions

What type of family is most common among Indian tribes?

The monogamous nuclear family, which is usually patrilineal, patrilocal, patriarchal and patronymic.

Which Indian tribes are matrilineal?

The Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya, the Kurichiya and Kunduvadiyan of Kerala, and the islanders of Lakshadweep. Several other Kerala tribes were once matrilineal but have become patrilineal.

Which Indian tribes practise polyandry?

The Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar in Uttarakhand and the Toda of the Nilgiris, both traditionally practising fraternal polyandry, in which brothers share a wife.

Are the Khasi a matriarchal society?

No. The Khasi are matrilineal and matrilocal: descent, the clan name and the ancestral house pass through women, and the youngest daughter (khadduh) inherits the house. But men, especially the mother's brother, hold important authority, so it is not a matriarchy.

What is unusual about Dimasa Kachari descent?

The Dimasa have both male and female clans. Sons belong to the father's male clan and daughters to the mother's female clan, and property is divided the same way. It is usually called double descent, but it is closer to parallel descent.

How is family form related to economy among Indian tribes?

Vidyarthi and Rai found that hunter-gatherers have nuclear families, settled agriculturists have the widest range of nuclear, joint and extended families, and tribal wage labourers in tea gardens, mines and industry have neolocal nuclear families.

Does the Hindu Succession Act apply to Scheduled Tribes?

No. Section 2(2) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, excludes Scheduled Tribes unless the central government directs otherwise, so their inheritance follows customary law. In 2022 the Supreme Court asked the government to consider giving tribal women equal inheritance rights.

What is the Nicobarese rule of residence?

The Nicobarese decide where a married couple lives according to the size of the two families. If the bride's family has fewer members, the groom lives with her family and takes a share in its property, giving up his share in his own family. This is bilocal residence.