Kinship

Secondary kin. The primary kin of one's primary kin, who are not oneself: father's father, mother's brother, sister's husband, wife's mother. The usual count is thirty-three.

Tertiary kin. The primary kin of one's secondary kin: father's brother's son, wife's brother's wife. The usual count given is one hundred and fifty-one.

Treat those totals as the conventional figures given in the textbooks rather than as measurements; what is examinable is the principle, that degrees are generated by successive steps from primary kin, and the ability to classify a given relative correctly.

Why degrees matter. Prohibited degrees for marriage are drawn by them; the order of succession follows them; obligations of mourning, of gift-giving and of support are graded by them; and the intensity of the usages below varies with them.

Kinship usages

These are the prescribed patterns of behaviour attached to particular kin relationships. They are the part of the topic most often asked and least often known, and each should be given with a named example.

Avoidance. A rule requiring certain kin to keep apart, or to restrict contact and speech. The most widespread instance in north India is between a woman and her husband's elder brother and, in many communities, her husband's father, involving veiling, not addressing them directly, and not being alone with them. Its function is usually explained as preventing sexual tension inside a household that lives at close quarters, and as marking respect.

Joking relationship. The opposite: a relationship in which two kin are permitted, and sometimes expected, to tease, insult or make free with each other without offence. Commonly between a person and their spouse's younger siblings, or between a woman and her husband's younger brother. Radcliffe-Brown analysed avoidance and joking as a pair, both being devices for managing relationships that combine attachment with potential conflict: extreme respect at one end, licensed familiarity at the other.

Teknonymy. Referring to a person not by their own name but through another, usually a child. A wife who does not utter her husband's name and refers to him as the father of her son is practising teknonymy. It is widespread in India and connects to the norm against a wife speaking her husband's name.

Avunculate. The special prominence of the mother's brother, who has particular rights and duties towards his sister's children, including in some societies authority over them and obligations at their marriage. It is characteristic of matrilineal societies, and among the Khasi and Nairs it is central.

Amitate. The corresponding special role of the father's sister, given particular honour and ritual duties, found in parts of India.

Couvade. The custom by which the husband observes the restrictions of childbirth, taking to bed, following dietary restrictions and abstaining from work as though he were the one confined. Reported among the Toda and the Khasi. It is usually explained as an assertion of the social fact of fatherhood, which is exactly the point in [Marriage: Meaning and Functions] that parenthood is socially assigned and not merely biological.

Kinship and descent

Descent is the rule by which a person is assigned to a kin group and by which membership, name, property and ritual obligation pass.

• Patrilineal descent: through the father. The general Indian rule.
• Matrilineal descent: through the mother. The Nairs of Kerala, the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya.
• Bilateral or cognatic descent: through both parents, which is the general rule in modern urban and legal usage.
• Double or duolineal descent: some rights pass through the father and others through the mother.

Descent groups. A lineage is a group of kin who can actually trace their descent from a known common ancestor. A clan, in India the gotra, is a wider group believing itself descended from a common ancestor without being able to trace the steps. A phratry is a group of clans, and a moiety is one of two halves into which a society divides itself.

The rule that follows from clan membership is exogamy: one may not marry within the gotra, as [Forms of Marriage] explains. This is why descent is not an antiquarian topic even for a lawyer: it determines the prohibited field for marriage in a large part of the country.

A worked example

A wedding card from a north Indian family names the groom, his father, his grandfather, his gotra, and separately the maternal grandfather's family as hosts of one ceremony.

Each element is doing kinship work. Naming the father and grandfather establishes the patrilineage, which is the descent group into which the bride will be received. Naming the gotra publishes the exogamous unit, so that anyone can see the marriage does not breach the rule. Giving the maternal grandfather's family a ceremony of their own recognises the mother's brother, which is the avunculate in a patrilineal setting, where his role survives as ceremonial honour rather than as authority.

After the marriage the bride enters a set of usages: avoidance of her husband's elder brother and father, a joking relationship with his younger brother, and teknonymy once a child is born.

Every one of those is a social rule with no legal force, and yet a lawyer who does not know them will misread the evidence in a family dispute: who could have been present at a conversation, who would have spoken to whom, and why a particular relative was the one who intervened.

Changes in kinship

Kinship has weakened in scope and altered in content, from the same causes as in [Changing Patterns of the Family]: urbanisation and migration reduce contact; occupational recruitment through kin declines in a formal labour market; obligations to distant kin become discretionary; usages such as avoidance and teknonymy are observed less among the urban educated; and descent has become more bilateral in practice, with the mother's family playing a larger part than a strictly patrilineal rule contemplates.

Two counter-observations belong in a complete answer. Kinship remains decisive in marriage, where caste endogamy and gotra exogamy still operate widely, and it remains important in business and politics, where family firms and political dynasties are conspicuous features of Indian life. Kinship has retreated from the labour market and not from the marriage market.

Quick revision

1. Kinship is socially recognised relationship by consanguinity (blood) and affinity (marriage); fictive kinship is the extension of both to others.
2. Degrees: primary (8), secondary (33), tertiary (151), on the conventional counts. The principle is successive steps from primary kin.
3. Usages: avoidance, joking relationship, teknonymy, avunculate (mother's brother), amitate (father's sister), couvade (husband observes childbirth restrictions; Toda, Khasi).
4. Radcliffe-Brown treated avoidance and joking as a pair, both managing relationships that mix attachment with potential conflict.
5. Descent: patrilineal, matrilineal (Nairs, Khasi, Garo), bilateral, double.
6. Descent groups: lineage (traceable), clan or gotra (believed), phratry, moiety. Gotra membership generates exogamy.
7. Kinship has retreated from the labour market but not from the marriage market, and remains strong in family business and political dynasties.

Test yourself

1. Define kinship and distinguish its two main types. The system of socially recognised relationships between persons based on descent and on marriage. Consanguineous kinship is relationship by blood, that is descent from a common ancestor, and cannot be dissolved. Affinal kinship is relationship created by marriage, both with the spouse and with the spouse's relations, and depends on a marriage which may end. To these is added fictive or ritual kinship, where kin obligations are extended to persons related by neither.

2. Explain the degrees of kinship. Kin are graded by steps from the individual. Primary kin are the eight immediate relations: father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, husband, wife. Secondary kin are the primary kin of one's primary kin, conventionally thirty-three, such as father's father or wife's mother. Tertiary kin are the primary kin of one's secondary kin, conventionally one hundred and fifty-one. The degrees matter because prohibited degrees for marriage, the order of succession and the intensity of obligations are all graded by them.

3. Describe four kinship usages. Avoidance requires certain kin to restrict contact and speech, as between a woman and her husband's elder brother or father, and is explained as reducing tension in a household living at close quarters. A joking relationship licenses teasing without offence, typically with a spouse's younger siblings. Teknonymy refers to a person through another, as a wife calling her husband the father of her son. Couvade requires the husband to observe the restrictions of childbirth, reported among the Toda and the Khasi, and asserts the social fact of fatherhood.

4. What is the avunculate and where is it found? The special prominence of the mother's brother, who holds particular rights and duties towards his sister's children, sometimes including authority over them and obligations at their marriage. It is characteristic of matrilineal societies and is central among the Khasi and the Nairs; in patrilineal north India it survives in attenuated form as ceremonial honour given to the maternal uncle at a wedding.

5. Distinguish a lineage from a clan, and say why the difference matters legally. A lineage is a group of kin who can actually trace their descent step by step from a known common ancestor. A clan, the gotra in India, is a wider group whose members believe themselves descended from a common ancestor without being able to trace the connection. The difference matters because the exogamous unit for marriage in much of India is the clan rather than the lineage, so the prohibited field is far wider than traceable relationship and rests on belief in common descent rather than on proof of it.