KINSHIP, MARRIAGE & FAMILY

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"To live and to cause to live, to eat food and beget children, these were the primary wants of men in the past, and this will be the primary wants of men in the future as long as the world lasts." All animals mate, but only human beings marry. Thus marriage is a feature only of human societies, and every society makes some regulations and provisions for this relationship between the sexes. In the early years, anthropologists were of the opinion that human beings lived in a state of promiscuity where individual marriage did not exist. In such a society all the men had access to all the women and the children thus, born were the responsibility of the society at large. This slowly gave rise to group marriages to bring regulation and general order in the society where either many men were married to several women or several men were married to a single woman and vice- versa.

However, later on monogamy marriages were introduced to restore harmony in the society. George Peter Murdock (1949) has defined marriage as a universal institution that involves residential co-habitation, economic co-operation and the formation of the nuclear family. Westermarck had emphasized on marriage as a recognized union between a man and a woman, that the spouses live together and that the couple have clearly recognized mutual sexual rights. Kathleen Gough (1959) in her study of the Nayars has defined marriage as a ‘relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum’.  This definition took into account polyandry which was not covered by the earlier anthropologists. William N. Stephens defined marriage as ‘a socially legitimate sexual union, begun with public pronouncement undertaken with the idea of permanence, assumed with more or less explicit marriage contract which spells out reciprocal economic obligations between spouses, and their future children’.

Prescribed & Preferential Marriages

All societies have certain rules & regulations with respect to marriages. While selecting one’s mate one has to follow certain rules and choose the bride/groom within these norms. A man/woman might be prohibited from acquiring a mate who does not fall under the suitable category as for example in the Hindu society a woman belonging to a higher caste cannot marry a man belonging to a caste lower than her. Such, rules when strictly followed even though when very few members of the suitable category are available is termed as prescribed norms. The rules which are preferred but not strictly followed are known as preferential norms. Cross cousin marriage in many societies is seen as a preferential norm. Incest taboo is a universal norm for almost all societies, which pertains to restrictions in marriage and sexual relations among certain categories of close relatives generally related by blood like father and daughter, mother and son and sometimes also parallel cousins.

Endogamy refers to marriage within a group, while exogamy means marriage outside the group. Endogamy encompasses marriage within the believers of the same faith or religion, caste in Hindu society and within members of the same tribe. In societies where endogamy is prevalent parallel cousin marriage is the preferential norm. Among such societies marriage between first cousins is permitted, though where the rule of lineage exogamy is practiced cousin belonging to different lineage is preferred. In many of the Islamic societies a man marries his father’s brother’s daughter known as parallel cousin marriage which is a very rare form of endogamy. Levirate is a marriage form, in which after the decease of an elder brother the younger brother is obliged to marry the widow.

Types of Marriages

Monogamy is a form of marriage in which the practice is to have only one spouse at one time. In the western world the divorce rate is increasingly higher and serial monogamy is witnessed. Polygamy is a term derived from the Greek word polys gamos meaning often married. It is a form of marriage in which an individual has more than one spouse at any given time, or married to more than one individual. Polyandry type of marriage a woman is married to more than one man. Polygynandry another variety of polygamy pertains to a marriage where several men are married to several women or a man has many wives and a woman has many husbands at any given time. Such marriages were prevalent among the Marquesans of Polynesia and also among the Todas of the Nilgiri hills and the Khasas of Jaunsar Bawar of India.

Functions of Marriage

<ul>
<li style=”margin-left:8px”>The most important function of a marriage is to beget children.</li>
<li style=”margin-left:8px”>Marriage leads to an economic co-operation between men and women ensuring the survival of every individual in a society.</li>
<li style=”margin-bottom:13px; margin-left:8px”>Marriage is the way to forming a family. A marriage sanctions the status of both husband and wife in a society and thus, they are also collectively accepted by society as husband and wife. In many societies there are norms where only a married person can take part in the rituals.</li>
</ul>

KINSHIP, MARRIAGE & FAMILY I ANTHROPOLOGY CONCEPT SERIES I ARTICLE – II

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