Types of Family: Lineage, Authority, Location and the Conjugal Unit
Chapter Seven
Syllabus topic 1.3, "Types of family based upon lineage, authority structure, location, and number of conjugal units"
Pages 37 to 41 of 477
In one line
A family is described on four separate questions at once: whose line you belong to, who decides, where you live, and how many married couples are under the roof.
The four axes, and why they are four
MU's syllabus prints the classification in this order, and gives the types under each:
| Axis | The question it answers | The types MU names |
|---|---|---|
| Lineage | Through whom is descent traced | patrilineal, matrilineal |
| Authority structure | Who holds power in the household | patriarchal, matriarchal |
| Location | Where does the couple live after marriage | patrilocal, matrilocal |
| Number of conjugal units | How many married couples are in it | nuclear, extended, joint, composite |
The reason this is a classification and not a list is that the four are logically independent. A family can be matrilineal and still patriarchal. It can be patrilineal and neolocal. Nothing about tracing descent through the mother tells you who runs the household.
That independence is the single point an examiner is testing when the question asks for the difference between patriarchal and matriarchal, or between patrilineal and matrilineal. Answer the axis, not the word.
Lineage: patrilineal and matrilineal
Lineage, or descent, is the rule that decides which line a person belongs to for the purposes of name, membership of the kin group, and inheritance.
Patrilineal. Descent is traced through the father. A child belongs to the father's line, takes his family name and gotra, and inherits in his line. This is the rule of the great majority of Hindu communities, and it is the rule the Mitakshara coparcenary is built on: the coparcenary in Module II consists of a man and his male descendants, and it could not exist under any other rule of descent.
Matrilineal. Descent is traced through the mother. A child belongs to the mother's line and inherits in it, and the significant male in a child's life is often the mother's brother rather than the father, because he is the senior male of the child's own lineage.
Matrilineal descent is not an anthropological curiosity in Indian law. It is expressly recognised in statute. The Marumakkattayam and Aliyasantana systems of Kerala and coastal Karnataka, and the Nambudri system, are named in the Hindu Succession Act, and the tarwad, tavazhi, kutumba, kavaru and illom, the property-holding units of those systems, appear in section 7 of that Act. They are taken in the chapter on the matrilineal joint family in Module II.
Authority: patriarchal and matriarchal
Authority is about power in the household, and specifically about who manages the property, makes decisions for the group and represents it.
Patriarchal. Authority is in the senior male. In the Hindu joint family this is the karta, whose position, powers, privileges and obligations are the subject of a whole chapter of Module II. His authority is not merely social: he can bind the family by alienation for legal necessity, he manages the property, and he represents the family in litigation.
Types of Family: Lineage, Authority, Location and the Conjugal Unit
Matriarchal. Authority is in the senior female. Genuine matriarchy, in the sense of a society where women systematically hold authority, is rare and disputed, and an honest answer says so rather than treating matriarchy as the mirror image of patriarchy.
That is the heart of the most frequently asked question in these papers. Matrilineal societies are common; matriarchal societies are not the same thing and are not common. In a matrilineal family such as a Kerala tarwad, descent and property pass through women, but management of the tarwad lay with the karanavan, its senior male member, usually the eldest maternal uncle. Descent through the mother, authority in a man.
So the difference between patriarchal and matriarchal is a difference about who exercises authority, while the difference between patrilineal and matrilineal is about through whom descent and property pass. Write both sentences and the answer is complete.
Location: patrilocal and matrilocal
Location, or residence, is about where a couple lives after marriage. MU names two; a third is worth knowing because it is what has actually happened in Indian cities.
Patrilocal. The couple lives with or near the husband's family. This is the ordinary Hindu pattern, and it is the residential fact that produces most of the law in this course: the wife enters a household that is not hers, which is the situation the shared household provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 were written for, and the situation in which dowry demands are made.
Matrilocal. The couple lives with or near the wife's family. It is the pattern in matrilineal communities and in some others.
Neolocal. The couple sets up a separate household of its own. MU does not print the word, but it is the direction of change described in [Sanskritization, Westernization and Modernization], and it is what turns a joint family into a set of nuclear ones without any partition of property.
Number of conjugal units: nuclear, extended, joint and composite
A conjugal unit is a married couple. This axis simply counts them, and the four types MU names form a sequence.
Nuclear family. One conjugal unit: a husband, a wife and their unmarried children. It is the smallest complete family and is now the ordinary residential unit in Indian cities.
Extended family. A nuclear family plus other relatives who are not themselves a second conjugal unit: a widowed parent, an unmarried sibling, an aunt. There is still one married couple; there are simply more people.
Types of Family: Lineage, Authority, Location and the Conjugal Unit
Joint family. Two or more conjugal units related lineally, living together, typically a man and his wife with their married sons and their wives and children, holding property and hearth in common. In Hindu law the joint family is more than a residential arrangement: it is a property-holding institution with a karta, and that is Module II.
Composite family. Two or more conjugal units related collaterally rather than lineally, most obviously where two or more brothers live together with their wives and children after the parents' death. The word is also used where the plural conjugal units arise from polygyny, one man with more than one wife each forming a unit.
The distinction between joint and composite is the distinction between vertical and horizontal: a joint family is generations, a composite family is siblings.
Holding the four axes together
An answer that describes a single family on all four axes shows the classification is understood, and it is worth practising.
The ordinary north Indian Hindu joint family is patrilineal in descent, patriarchal in authority, patrilocal in residence, and joint in the number of conjugal units. All four line up, which is why students assume they always must.
The Kerala tarwad is matrilineal in descent, not matriarchal but managed by the karanavan, matrilocal in residence, and joint in structure. Two axes point one way and one points the other, which is the example to give when asked to distinguish lineage from authority.
The couple who marry in Mumbai and rent a flat are patrilineal in descent, neolocal in residence, and nuclear in structure, and the question of authority hardly arises because there is no group to have authority over. That is the direction of travel and it is what the last part of this topic is about.
A worked example
A question asks for the difference between a patriarchal and a matriarchal family, and for the kinds of family.
First, say that the classification runs on four independent axes. A family is placed on each of them separately, and the answer that treats them as one is the answer that goes wrong.
Lineage. Patrilineal, descent and inheritance through the father; matrilineal, through the mother. This decides membership and inheritance, and it is the axis the marumakkattayam tarwad sits on.
Authority. Patriarchal, authority in the father or senior male; matriarchal, in the mother or senior female. True matriarchy is rare, which is exactly why the matrilineal tarwad was still managed by the karanavan, its senior male.
Location. Patrilocal, the couple lives with or near the husband's family; matrilocal, with the wife's; and neolocal, in a new home of their own, which is where the cities have gone.
Types of Family: Lineage, Authority, Location and the Conjugal Unit
Number of conjugal units. Nuclear, one couple and their children; extended, one couple plus other relatives; joint, two or more couples related in a line, as father and sons; composite, two or more side by side, as brothers.
Then answer the examiner's question directly. Patriarchal and matriarchal are about authority; patrilineal and matrilineal are about descent. A society may be matrilineal and patriarchal at once, and the tarwad was.
What it does NOT mean
Matrilineal is not matriarchal. Descent is one axis, authority another.
Patrilocal is not patriarchal either. Residence is a third axis.
A joint family is not simply a large family. It is two or more conjugal units in a line.
A composite family is not a joint family. Its units are side by side, as brothers, not in a line.
An extended family is not a joint family. It is one couple plus relatives, not two couples.
Nuclear is not modern by definition. It describes a structure, not a period.
Quick revision
- Four independent axes, and a family is placed on each separately.
- Lineage: patrilineal or matrilineal; it decides membership and inheritance.
- Authority: patriarchal or matriarchal; true matriarchy is rare, and the matrilineal tarwad was managed by the karanavan, its senior male.
- Location: patrilocal, matrilocal, and neolocal.
- Conjugal units: nuclear, one; extended, one plus relatives; joint, two or more in a line; composite, two or more side by side.
- The examiner's question: patriarchal and matriarchal are about authority; patrilineal and matrilineal are about descent.
Test yourself
1. What is the difference between a patriarchal and a matriarchal family? The difference is one of authority. In a patriarchal family authority rests with the father or the senior male; in a matriarchal family it rests with the mother or the senior female. It is not the same as the difference between patrilineal and matrilineal, which is about the line through which descent and inheritance are traced.
2. What is a patrilocal family? One in which the married couple resides with or near the husband's family. A matrilocal family is one in which they reside with or near the wife's family, and a neolocal family is one in which they set up a household of their own.
3. Distinguish the nuclear, extended, joint and composite family. A nuclear family is one conjugal unit, a couple and their unmarried children. An extended family is a nuclear family together with other relatives. A joint family consists of two or more conjugal units related in a line, as a father and his married sons. A composite family consists of two or more conjugal units side by side, as married brothers.
Types of Family: Lineage, Authority, Location and the Conjugal Unit
4. Can a family be matrilineal and patriarchal at the same time? Yes. The marumakkattayam tarwad traced descent and property through women but was managed by the karanavan, its senior male member, so it was matrilineal in lineage and patriarchal in authority.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.