Patrilineal systems

In the patrilineal descent systems of Northern India, a boy at birth becomes a member of his descent group, and a coparcener (partner) in a joint estate. A girl, by contrast, is only a residual member of her natal group at marriage she is incorporated into her husband’s descent group and ultimately (i.e. after her death) offered worship by their male descendants. Residence, is usually patrilocal.

Immovable property such as land and housing is inherited in the male line only^[2]. Whereas daughters are given goods, cash and jewellery as ‘dowry’ at the time of marriage. The descent group has an inbuilt authority structure based on generation and age. Senior members have the authority to settle disputes within the kin group, and to represent the group in its dealings with outsiders.

A number of social practices testify to the fact that a woman’s only legitimate roles are those of wife and mother. Spinsterhood and widowhood are inauspicious and uneviable conditions. A girl is regarded as merely a guest in her natal home and, initially at least, as a rather threatening outsider in her marital home. The poignancy of the transition between these two locales and these two statuses is captured in folklore and folksongs with which you are probably familiar.

The patrilineal systems of the south are not so markedly patriarchal as those of the north. Also a woman after marriage continues to have materially and psychologically important relations with members of her natal group. This is more so with her parents and her brothers and the residual right to maintenance in their estate in adverse circumstances. And in many other patrilineal systems, the mother’s brothers have significant ritual and social roles in the lives of their sister’s children, and an especially tender and affectionate relationship with them.

Further modifying the starkly ‘patriarchal’ picture a number of social anthropologists, speaking comparatively, have also drawn attention to the fairly substantial property that devolves on a daughter at her marriage. Others, however, insist that this property cannot be considered as a daughter’s ‘inheritance’, comparable to that of the son, since the greater portion of it is neither owned nor controlled by the girl in her own right. It is really a form of ‘bridegroom price’, that is, an enticement to the groom’s family as part of the settlement of the marriage contract.

Okka of coorgs -  An illustration of patrilineal descent system

Okka is a patrilineal grouping as mentioned earlier. Srinivas writes, “A group of agnatically related males who descended from a common ancestor and their wives and children” constitute an okka. Only by birth one can become a member of the okka. In the society at large, individuals are generally identified by their okka.

Each okka has ancestral immovable property which is normally not divided. A person is prohibited from marrying within the okka. In other words, marriage is generally a bonding of two unrelated okka. The ancestral house of the okka is fairly large and has many rooms. Members of the okka live and grow together. They perform many rituals in unison, especially the rituals to propitiate the ancestors of the okka.

There are several occasions when, according to Srinivas (1978:125) “the unity and solidarity of an okka find expression in ritual.” Let me elaborate one such occasion, i.e. marriage. A Coorgs marriage involves two important rites. They are the murtha and sammanda rites. Murtha is nothing but an auspicious occasion (time). The murhta is also indicated by rites performed by all relatives to the subject, groom or bride as the case may be.

A Coorgs marriage has the murhta, performed on the most auspicious time of the auspicious day. At the centre of the murtha rite lies the offering of milk by the relatives to the bride or groom in a kindi (a special type of vessel). If the mother of the groom or bride is not widowed, she is the first to offer milk. After the elaborate murtha rite is performed thrice, comes the sammanda ritual. The first two murtha rites bring at one place the groom/bride and his/her kindred. The third murtha rite brings the groom and bride’s kindred together for participation in marriage rituals.

The sammanda ritual marks the transfer of an individual from one okka to another. A person can be a member of only a single okka at a time. After marriage, the bride leaves her native okka and acquires the membership of the conjugal okka. If she becomes a widow, again a sammanda ritual may be performed and her membership transferred back to the native okka. The sammanda ritual comprises an elaborate system of rites. In a nutshell, it is a pledge undertaken publicly by two okka, involved in marriage, under the eyewitness of two friendly okka.

Apart from marriage, there are several other festivals, feasts of village-deities, and occasions when ancestors of the okka are propitiated. During these celebrations, a complex set of rituals are performed, which express and strengthen the solidarity of the okka.

Matrilineal Descent

Matrilineal descent systems, of which there are several well-known examples in south-western and north-eastern India, have their own distinctive characteristics. Matrilineal systems that are an exact inverse of the patrilineal-patriarchal model are rarely found. Also, though rights in property might be determined by the principles of matrilineal descent for instance, passing from mother to daughter or from mother’s brother to sister’s son rather than from father to son as in patrilineal societies), major property is usually controlled (if not actually owned) by males.

For obvious reasons, residence arrangements are problematic in matrilineal societies. A man may not have authority over his own children, who belong to his wife’s descent group and who may also reside after maturity with their mother’s brother. Conversely, in cases where the husband customarily resides with his wife and children, he may have difficulty managing the property in which he has an interest by virtue of descent, and in exercising authority over his sister’s children. In other words, there seems to be some sort of contradiction in matrilineal kinship systems, brought out in the dilemma over residence, between a man’s role as father and his role as mother’s brother. His natural love for his own children might easily  come into conflict with his special jural responsibilities towards his sister’s children.

Nayars of Kerala: An Illustration of matrilineal descent system

Among the matrilineal Nayars of Kerala, formerly, men resided in large and matrilineally recruited joint families, called taravad, along with their sisters, sister’s children and sisters daughters children. They visited their wives in other tarvad at night (this is why the system has been popularly called the ‘visiting husband’ system). Their own children resided with their mother in their mother’s taravad. In this system the bond between brother and sister was strongly emphasized, and the bond between husband and wife correspondingly de-emphasized, the more so because Nayar women could legitimately have a number of visiting husbands (polyandry), provided they were of the correct status (i.e. higher status Nayars or Namboodiri Brahmans). Also, Nayar men can have a number of wives (polygyny). In fact, the marital bond was so minimised among the Nayars that anthropologists have debated endlessly whether Nayar society had the institution of marriage at all. Indeed, the unique institutions and  customs described by the anthropologists no longer exist and have not existed for generations,

Other Matrilineal Communities

There are many other matrilineal communities in India whose kinship organisation is rather different to that of the Nayars. For instance, the Khasis of Assam are matrilineal in descent, inheritance and succession, and practise matrilocal residence. The youngest daughter is the heiress, and lives in her mother’s house alone with her husband and her children. The older daughter, however may move out of the matrilineal household on marriage and make new nuclear families; their husbands have great independent authority than does the husband of the youngest daughter still residing matrilocally. The Garo, also of Assam, have yet another arrangement. Marriage is matrilocal for the husband of the daughter who becomes the head of the household and its manager. A rule of preferential cross-cousin marriage ensures that a man is succeeded in this position by his sister’s son in an ongoing alliance relationship between the two linked lineages.

In the Nayar case it appears that the decline of the Nayar taravad over the last century has given rise to a wide variety of residential patterns in the area, and it has become exactly like the patrilineal groups in their neighbourhood.

Rules of inheritance tend to coordinate with the  reckoning of descent in most societies, but not necessarily in a one-to-one manner. In fact, it is quite often  the case that certain types of property pass from father to son, and other types from mother to daughter. In most parts of India, in the past, immovable property such as land and housing, was inherited only by sons. In the absence of sons, except under rare circumstances, by the nearest male relatives on the father’s side. On the other hand, movable property in the form of cash and jewellery was given to the daughter at the time of her marriage, with a certain amount of jewellery also passing from the mother-in-law to the daughter-in-law.

In addition to property of various kinds, rights and obligations, esoteric knowledge, crafts and skills, etc. might be passed on in accordance with kinship roles, succession to office to chieftainship, kinship, etc. and to other social roles and statuses, is also very often determined by kinship criteria. In such cases, the individual’s status is said to be ‘ascribed’, not ‘achieved’. It is commonly asserted that ascriptive status is a characteristic of primitive, tribal or premodern societies, and  achieved status of modern, industrial societies. There is a great deal of truth in this statement, but one should not underestimate the importance of kinship connections in modern societies too. Most of the Indian women who have been successful in the political domain are either daughters, sisters or wives of peoples who have been active in politics. One such example is the Nehru family of India.