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Social and Demographic Correlates of Consanguineous Marriages in South IndiaAuthor(s): EDWIN D. DRIVER and ALOO E. DRIVERSource: Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2, FAMILY IN INDIA AND NORTHAMERICA (SUMMER 1988), pp. 229-244Published by: Dr. George KurianStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41601377 .

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Social and Demographic Correlates of

Consanguineous Marriages in South India

EDWIN D. DRIVER* and ALOO E. DRIVER**

Research on kinship organization in south India has been done for over 100

years, involving such renown anthropologists as Morgan, Rivers, Hocart, Dumont, Leach, and Tambiah (Good 1980: 476). The complexities of kinship organization in south India and how it uniquely differs from kinship organization elsewhere in India or in other societies is still being revealed by researchers. Marriage, one of the* institutions of kinship organization, is often the reference in discussions of this

uniqueness. This is expressed in part by a scholar, renown for her expertise on kin-

ship in India, as follows (Karve 1965: 250-52):

The Dravidian kinship organization is... fundamentally different from that of the northern zone... Marriage strengthens existing bonds. The emphasis is on

knitting families together and narrowing the circle of the kin-group, a policy exactly opposite of the one followed in the north. The whole tone of southern society is different. The south represents the principle of immediate exchange, a policy of consoli- dation, a, clustering of kin groups in a narrow area, no sharp distinction between kin by blood and kin by marriage...

The principle and policies mentioned by Karve are implicit in the rules and

preferences which most castes in the South say ought to govern who marries whom. These preferences, if not their rank-order, are rather clearly defined (Beals 1974: 119; Chekki 1974: 94; Good 1980: 474-75; Karve 1965: 218, 220, 222; Mencher 1966: 164). The usual, first preference is for a marriage between a man and his elder sister's daughter (or, conversely, between a woman and her mother's

brother). The usual, second preference is for a marriage between a man and his father's sister's daughter (or, conversely, between a woman and her mother's brother's son). The usual, third preference is for a marriage between a man and his mother's brother's daugher (or, conversely, between a woman and her father's sister's son). The expression, in behavior, of these preferences serves to insure that the other aspects of kinship organization such as clan exogamy and the age grada- tion of relationships are preserved. In the words of Karve (1965: 250-51):

•Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 0Ю03, U.S.A.

"•Department of Sociology, American International College, Springfield, Massachusetts 01003, U.S.A. Vol. XIX, No. 2 (Summer 1988)



230 Journal of Comparative Family Studies

In the Dravidian kinship organization... the kin in the immediate family is arranged not according to generations sbut according to age categories of 'older than ego' and 'younger than ego'. Marriage is outside the exogamous clan called balli or bedagu or kilai, which have similarities to totemistic clans. Ex- change of daughters is favored... The rules for marriage... are: (1) One must not marry a member of one's own clan. (2) A girl must marry a person who belongs to the group "older than self - tam-muri' and also the group "younger than the parents". Therefore she can marry any of her older cross- cousins, as also the younger brother of her mother.

While there have been extensive studies and construction of theories about kinship rules, preferences, and terminology by Karve (1965) and others (see Chekki 1974: 91-94; Good 1980; Rao 1973), much less attention has been given to the actual patterns of marriage in South India. The few studies done suggest that (a) the actual patterns tend to conform with the rules and preferences as closely as might be expected, given the effects of birth rates and death rates on the availability of preferred kin (Conklin 1973: 55), and (b) that the frequency of consanguineous marriages in south India far exceeds the number reported in studies of marriages done elsewhere in or outside of India (Rao and Inbaraj 1977: 281).

PURPOSE AND METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of consanguineous marriages in South India and to compare our findings with those of other studies of this area. We focus on the demographic and social antecedents and consequences of consanguineous and non-consanguineoüs marriages in a metropolitan area. The antecedents include the facts of marriage (arrangement, ages of the brides and grooms, degree of kinship between brides and grooms), occupations of the parents, and the social class and caste of the families. The consequences are the demographic variables of fertility, infant and child mortality, and family structure and size.

Data for this study are derived from a larger study of social stratification in south India (Driver and Driver 1986), wherein interviews were held with a stratified, random sample of the heads of households (or their spouses) for persons resident in 1966 in metropolitan Madras. Virtually all of the 463 households initially selected and located were found to be responsive to an interview. This paper is based on the 400 households where the spouse of the head of the household had an unbroken, first marriage, and where the interviewee provided the information needed for this paper.

The interview questions provided for open-ended rather than pre-categorized answers. Thus, each interviewee had to mentally formulate and verbally express in her or his own words (in English, Tamil, Telugu, or whatever was the primary lan- guage of the household) information about the marriage, social and demographic characteristics for selves and parents, and how they identified themselves with re- gard to social class and caste. These open-ended responses were placed in sets of



Social and Demographic Correlates of Consanguineous Marriages in South India 231

categories, numerous enough to highlight important social differentiations and yet not so numerous as to obviate meaningful comparisons between consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages.

FINDINGS

Facts of the marriage. The number and per cent of marriages which were un-

equivocably consanguineous are shown in Table 1. Altogether 34 per cent were

consanguineous. Within this category, the most frequent subtype is one which un- ites a woman with her mother's brother (or, conversely, a man with his sister's daughter). Second in frequency is the union of a woman with her mother's brother's son (or, conversely, a man with his father's sister's daughter). These and all other marriages of so-called "first cousins" appear to involve only cross-cousins and never parallel cousins, which conforms to the rules and preferences mentioned

by Karve and others. Of the non-consanguineous marriages, there are several unions defined initially by our interviewees as terminological kin but not as consan-

guineous, i.e., blood, kin. Given the fact that persons in South India sometimes are kin to others in more than one way, it may be that these initial responses would have been supplemented to reveal some ties of consanguinity between mates, ahd we probed further.

Table 1 DEGREE AND KIND OF CONSANGUINITY BETWEEN GROOM AND BRIDE: BY NUMBER AND PER CENT

Kinship of Groom to Bride Number Per Cent Two degrees removed (uncle)

Mo Bro 42 10 Three degrees removed (1st cousin)

Mo Bro Son 19 5 Fa Si Son 35 9 Unspecified 4 1

Four degrees removed (2nd cousin) 4 1 Over four degrees removed 32 8

subtotal 136 34 Non-kin socially related (e.g., Si Hu Bro, Mo Bro Wi Bro, Mo Si Da Husb Bro) 13 3 not socially related 250 63 subtotal 263 66

Total 399 100

Our data, which permit only a cross-sectional analysis of trends, do not reveal any clear-cut trend for consanguineous unions. In Table 2, starting with the earliest marriage cohorts (i.e., women aged 45 years or more),1 one observes that the per

*We have equated age categories with marital cohorts, recognizing that some women in different age categories belong to the same marriage cohort. It is unlikely, however, that there is much such overlap, given that the ages of nuptials for each age category are about the same.




cent of consanguineous marriages fluctuates up and down over the four, broad cohorts.

ТаЫе 2 FREQUENCY OF KIN (CONSANGUINEOUS) MARRIAGES OVER TIME

Kinship Per Cent by Present Ages of Wives (in years) of Groom to Bride

Under 25 25-34 35-44 45+ Total (n=) (83) (141) (108) (65) (397)

MoBro 12 14 6 9 10 1st cousin 8 16 11 25 15 Distant kin 4 9 10 12 9 subtotal 24 39 27 4« 34 Non-kin 76 61 73 54 66

Total 100 100 100 100 100

The arrangement of all marriages is shown in Table 3. Arrangements are most often made by thè elders of the kin group but are finalized after the potential bride and groom give their approval. What distinguishes consanguineous marriages from non-consanguineous marriages is the frequency by which elders finalize contracts without seeking the approval of the bride and groom. Thus, while consanguineous unions constitute 34 per cent of the total unions, they constitute 54 per cent of the unions arranged by the elders without the approval of the bride and groom. This acting without consulting occurs mainly when the union involves close kin rather than distant kin.

Table 3 ARRANGEMENT AND APPROVAL OF MARRIAGES OF SPOUSES BY KINFOLK

Kinship Per Cent of Groom to Bride Arrangement by Kinfoik Arrangement by Spouses Total

without with with without approval approval approval approval

of of of of spouses spouses kinfoik kinfoik

(n=) (58) (255) (43) (27) (383) MoBro 19 9 2 7 10 1st cousin 26 14 7 15 15 Distant kin 9 9 12 - 9

subtotal 54 32 21 22 34 Non-kin 46 68 79 78 66 Total 100 100 100 100 100

Our evidence suggests that arranged marriages have not declined over the years. The per cent of the total marriages arrànged by the elders, with or without approval of the bride and g Poo m , is about the same for all of the marriage cohorts (expressed as age groups).



Social and Demographic Correlates of Consanguineous Marriages in South India 233 Table 4 FREQUENCY OF ARRANGED MARRIAGES OVER TIME

Per Cent by Present Ages of Wives (in years)

Under 25 25-34 35-44 45+ Total (n=) (83) (137) (99) (63) (382)

By Kinfolk without approval of spouses 16 10 14 27 15 with approval of spouses 68 68 70 57 67

By Spouses with approval of kinfolk 6 14 12 11 11 without approval of kinfolk 10 8 4 5 7

Total 100 100 100 100 100

The ages at which marriages occur in South India may be defined by the date of the contract (arrangement), the date of the nuptials, or the date of consummation. For our data, these dates are very close together. The median ages (in years) for contract, nuptials, and consummation for brides are, respectively, 18.3, 18.4 and 18.5; these ages (in years) for thç grooms are, respectively, 26.6, 26.7, and 26.8. These general medians are almost identical to the medians for each marriage cohort; in effect, ages at marriage have remained rather stable over time.

The relationship between ages at nuptials for brides and grooms, by type of marriage, are shown in Table 5. There is a tendency for marriages to occur at younger ages for consanguineous unions (medians of 17.7 years for brides and 26.2 years for grooms) than for non-consanguineous unions (medians of 18.8 years for brides and 26.9 years for grooms). Within the consanguineous category, brides who are close kin to^ the grooms marry earlier than do brides who are distant kin to the grooms, their respective medians being 17.3 years and 19.1 years.

Analysis of the specific ages at which brides and grooms married shows a wide range of age differences between certain mates. At one extreme, there was a bride who was two years older than her groom, and there were eight brides who were equal in age to their grooms. At the other extreme, there were two brides who were thirty years younger, and there were seven brides who were twenty to twenty-three years younger, than their grooms. In some of these cases of extreme differences, the bride who was in her first marriage had been married to a man who had been previously married for many years.

Social antecedents and correlates. Consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages are compared in terms of traits which precede nuptials and apply to their immediate kin (especially parents). These very same traits also apply to the married pair throughout their lifetime. The traits are ancestral home, occupations of the fathers of bride and groom, and caste and social class. By Table 6, consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages are not distinguished by their frequencies of brides, grooms, or brides and grooms, who were born in the place where they now



Table 5 INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN BRIDE'S AGE AT NUPTIALS AND GROOM'S AGE AT NUPTIALS. BY TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Kinship of Groom's Age Bride's Age at Nuptials Groom to at Nuptials 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-39 Total Median Bride

15-19 2 2 20-24 3 9 12

MoBro 25-29 1 16 17 30-34 4 3 7 35-39 3 3 40+ 1 1 Total 6 32 3 1 42 17.3 Median 27.1

15-19 4 1 5 20-24 6 14 20

1st 25-29 2 13 7 1 23 cousin 30-34 2 1 3 6

35-39 2 1 3 40+ 1 1 Total 14 32 11 1 58 17.3 Median 26.1

15-19 1 1 20-24 2 8 4 14

Distant 25-29 2 7 7 1 17 kin 30-34 111 3

35-39 1 1 40+ Total 4 17 12 3 36 19.1 Median 25.9 15-19 6 2 8

Subtotal for 20-24 11 31 4 46 Kin 24-29 5 36 14 2 57

30-34 2 6 7 1 16 35-39 5 1 1 7 40+ 112 Total 24 81 26 5 136 17.7 Median 26.2

15-19 6 7 13 Non-kin 20-24 14 52 10 76

25-29 14 47 45 7 1 114 30-34 2 14 18 6 3 43 35-39 1 1 3 3 2 10 40+ 4 112 8 Total 37 125 77 17 8 264 18.8 Median 26.9

15-19 12 9 21 20-24 25 83 14 122

Total 25-29 19 83 59 9 1 171 30-34 4 20 25 7 3 59 35-39 1 6 4 4 2 17 40+ 5 1 2 2 10 Total 61 206 103 22 8 400 18.4

26.8




reside (i.e. metropolitan Madras), or who were that persons resident where they were born would exceed persons born elsewhere. We have assumed that persons resident where they were born would exceed persons born elsewhere in consanguineous marriages because of the availability of kin preferred as marital partners.

Table 6 ANCESTRAL HOME SAME AS PLACE OF RESIDENCE FOR SPOUSES IN RELATION TO TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Kinship Per Cent of Groom to Bride Same for Same for Same for Total

husband either neither & wife husband or husband

i wife nor wife (n =) (98) (97) (205) (400)

Mo Bro 12 13 8 10 1st cousin 13 13 16 15 Distant kin 8 8 10 9

subtotal 33 34 34 34 Non-kin 67 66 66 66

Total 100 100 100 100

The relationship between occupations of the fathers and consanguineous marriages for their offspring is shown in Table 7. The evidence is mixed. Fathers who were owners-cultivators are like fathersan other occupations in how often they arranged consanguineous unions for their sons. But owners-cultivators did exceed other occupations in arranging consanguineous unions for their daughters. The difference is not large and such variation ils not unusual in a sample so small as ours.

Table 7 OCCUPATIONS OF FATHERS OF SPOUSES IN RELATION TO TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Kinship Per Cent of __ Groom Groom's Father Bride's Father Total to Bride Owner- Other Owner- Other

cultivator occup. cultivator occup. N (93) (258) (85) (263) Mo Bro 12 14 13 13 10

1st cousin 20 13 25 12 15 Distant kin 7 10 7 9 9

subtotal 39 37 45 34 34 Non-kin 61 _63 55 66 66 Total 100 100 100 100 100

Our data on social class was obtained by asking interviewees to respond to the question: what is the name of the social class to which you and your family belong? Responses to this openended question produced 18 different terms of class identifi- cation, which we subsequently reduced to three broad categories based on linguistic



236 Journal of Comparative Family Studies similarities among the terms (for details, see Driver and Driver 1986). These broad categories (low class, middle class, and upper class) were found to highly correlate with the person's actual occupation, education, income,2 and property ownership as well as the education and occupation of fathers of both bride and groom. Be- cause of these correlations, it may be said that social class is constant in the kin group, before and after nuptials.

By our data (Table 8), social classes do not differ in arranging consanguineous unions. Such unions constitute 34 per cent of all unions of the lower class, 35 per cent of all unions of the middle class, and 31 per cent of all unions of the upper class.

Table 8 SOCIAL CLASSES OF SPOUSES IN RELATION TO TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Kinship of Per Cent of Each Class Groom to Bride Lower class Middle class Upper class Total

(n=) (115) (210) (74) (399) Mo Bro 13 11 4 100 1st cousin 18 15 8 15 Distant kin 3 9 19 9

subtotal 34 35 31 34 Non-kin 66 65 69 66

Total 100 100 100 100

Table 9 shows the relationships of religion and caste to type of marriage. Hin- dus arrange consanguineous unions about twice as often as do members of other religions (Christians, Jains, Muslims, Parsees, Sikhs, neo-Buddhists). Within the Hindu category, there is only slight variation among the broad caste categories which we employ. The highest and lowest frequencies for consanguineous unions are 34 per cent for the Brahman castes and 40 per cent for the non-Brahman castes. The Scheduled castes are intermediate in frequency.

Consequences of consanguineous marriages. We may now consider whether consanguineous marriages and non-consanguineous marriages differ in fertility, infant and child mortality, and family structure and size.

By Table 10, consanguineous marriages are found to be more fertile than non- consanguineous marriages at virtually every duration of marriage, in termfrof both female and male offspring. The differences, however, are very small; for all durations of marriage, the standardized means are 3.91 and 3.45, a difference of 13 per cent.

The exact relationship of these self-identified social classes to economic classes is reported in Driver 1982: 238. This report shows a very high correlation between social class and economic class: the per cent of men having a low income, i.e. , monthly earnings of 1-124 Rs. ; is 93.0 for the lower class, 46.0 for the middle class, and 21.4 for the upper class; and the median, monthly earnings of men is 67.6 Rs. for the lower class 191.7 Rs. for the middel class, and 1,437.5 Rs. for the upper class. The patterns for women having earnings are quite similar.




Table 9 RELIGION AND CASTE OF SPOUSES IN RELATION TO TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Kinship Per Cent of Each Catergory of Groom Other Total to Bride Religions

Brahman Non-Brahman Scheduled Total castes castes castes

(n=) (54) (182) (90) (326) (71) (397) MoBro 6 12 13 11 7 10 1st cousin 11 16 18 16 9 15 Distant kin 17 12 6 11 1 9

Subtotal 34 40 37 38 17 34 Non-kin 66 60 63 62 83 66

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

Consanguineous unions, while more fertile, also experience greater infant and child mortality. This excess appears at every duration of marriage for both female and male offspring, except the smallest duration of 0-4 years. For all durations, the standardized means are 0.97 and 0.59, a difference of 64 per cent (0.97 - 0.59/0.59). The consistency of this difference in mortality suggests that consanguineous unions may result in less healthy offspring. Or it may be that more mothers in consanguineous unions than in non-consanguineous unions experience higher parities, re- lative to durations of marriage, and that women with higher parities are less healthy and less able to care for their later offspring. Because we have not probed in to the causes for infant and child mortality, the reasons for greater mortality of offspring of consanguineous unions must remain a matter of conjecture.3

3One interesting conjecture, which is offered by a reviewer of this paper, as to why greater infant and child mortality occurs in consanguineous unions than in non-consanguineous unions, is that women and offspring of consanguineous unions may suffer the consequences of certain psycho-social factors not en- countered by women and offspring of non-consanguineous unions. The reasoning goes something like this: "Most women return to their mothers to spend the last few months of pregnancy, eating better and being indulged." While this occurs for most women, it is more complicated in the case of women married to kin. "If a woman is married to either her mother's brother or her mother's brother's son, she will be living with her maternal grandmother. Mothers are less likely to indulge a daughter who comes back with complaints about her grandmother than one who comes with complaints about a stranger or more ditstant person." Less indulgence for the former woman as compared with the latter woman takes the form of less being favored with food during the last few months of pregnancy and right after delivery when she is breast feeding.

We have reason to doubt that this conjecture has much real bearing on differences in infant and child mortality for consanguineous and non-consanguineous unions. Without going into a full explana- tion for our doubt, we may cite two important observations. First, there is little likelihood that a woman would be residing in a household with her maternal grandmother; by our Table 12, households having more than two generations present are rare, and they are less frequent foť consanguineous unions than non-consanguineous unions. Secondly, we did enquire of those couples who said that the ancestral home wás different from their current place of residence (Table 6) as to how often and for what reasons they returned to the ancestral homes. These unpublished data, shown below, show that few women regularly return to the ancestral home, and that however often they return it is rarely for 'care during pregnancy and for child delivery.'



238 Journal of Comparative Family Studies Table 10 MEAN NUMBER OF CHILDREN, BY GENDER, EVER BORN TO MARRIED

WOMEN BY DURATION OF MARRIAGE AND TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Gender of Children Number Mean Number of Children and of Marriage Duration Marriages Kin Non-Kin

(in years) Kin Non-Kin marriages marriages

Male children to women married 0-4 20 53 0.60 0.59 5-9 19 46 1.26 1.24 10-14 26 52 1.85 1.67 15-19 21 39 2.48 2.00 20-24 17 31 2.71 2.45 25+ 33 40 2.61 2.53 All durations

unstandardized 136 261 1.97 1.65 standardized* 1.97 1.81

Female children to women married

0-4 20 53 0.40 0.40 5-9 19 46 1.00 0.76 10-14 26 52 1.65 1.69 15-19 21 39 2.29 1.85 20-24 17 31 2.88 2.03 25+ 33 40 2.94 2.38 All durations


Both genders to women married

0-4 20 53 1.00 0.99 5-9 19 46 2.26 2.00 10-14 26 52 3.50 3.36 15-19 21 39 4.77 3.85 20-24 17 31 5.59 4.48 25+ 33 40 5.55 4.91 All durations


*Standardized by using durations of marriage for kin marriages for both kin and non-kin marriages.

Lastly we have considered whether the two types of marriages lead to the for- mation and persistence of households differing in family structure and size. By Table 12, type of marriage is unrelated to family structure; for each type, about 78 per cent of the families were nuclear or nuclear extended (nuclear plus one or more unmarried, adult kin).

The size of the household, which is a combination of kin and non-kin residing together, is about the same for consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages, their medians being 5.7 persons and 5.8 persons.



Social and Demographic Correlates of Consanguineous Marriages in South India 239 Table 11 MEAN NUMBER OF CHILD DEATHS BY GENDER, TO MARRIED WOMEN AT

VARIOUS DURATIONS OF MARRIAGE AND BY TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Gender of Children Number of Mean Number of Child Deaths and Marriages

Marriage Duration Kin Non-kin (in years) Kin Non-Kin marriages marriages

0-4 20 53 0.00 0.08 5-9 19 46 0.25 0.20 10-14 26 52 0*25 0.29 15-19 21 39 0.67 0.36 20-24 17 31 1.00 0.32 25+ 33 40 0.79 0.48 All durations


Female children to women married 0-4 20 53 0.00 0.04 5-9 19 46 0.15 0.00 10-14 26 52 0Л8 0.15 15-19 21 39 0.52 0.26 20-24 17 31 0,65 0.45 25+ 33 40 1.06 0.50 All durations


Both genders to women married

0-4 20 53 0.00 0.12 5-9 19 46 0.40 0.20 10-14 26 52 0.43 0.44 15-19 21 39 1.19 0.62 20-24 17 31 1.65 0.77 25 + 33 40 1.85 0.98 All durations


* Standardized by using durations of marriage for kin marriages for both kin and non-kin marriages.




Table 12 PRESENT FAMILY STRUCTURE IN RELATION TO TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Family Per Cent of Each Type: Kinship of Groom To Bride Structure

Kin Non-kin Total

MoBro 1st Distant Total cousin kin

(n=) (40) (57) (36) (133) (261) (392) Nuclear 58 56 56 56 52 54 Nuclear extended* 18 23 25 22 21 21 Joint: one generation** 2 - 5 3 2 2 Joint: two or more

generations*** 22 21 14 19 25 23 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100

* Husband, wife, and children plus one or more kin who are either unmarried, separated, widowed, or divorced. **Two or more husband/wife couples where the husbands are brothers or the wives are sisters, their children, and possibly other kin. ***Two or more husband/wife couples where a husband or wife is a lineal of the other couple(s), their children, and possibly other kin.

Table 13 PRESENT SIZE OF THE HOUSEHOLD IN RELATION TO TYPE OF MARRIAGE

Per Cent pf Each Type: Kinship of Groom to Bride Size of Kin Non-kin Total Household

MoBro 1st cousin Distant kin Total 1 1 - 1 - 2 2 2 8 1 11 15 26 3 4 3 8 15 27 43 4 9 6 8* 23 46 69 5 8 13 4 25 55 80 6 6 8 1 15 43 58 7 4 6 7 17 30 47 8 4 2 6 18 24 9 4 7 2 13 9 22 10-11 2 3 2 7 10 17 12-13 - 6 6 14-21 1 12 3 22 - 11 Total 41 58 34 133 263 396 Median 5.6 5.9 5.0 5.7 5.9 5.8




DISCUSSION

Our study and the studies of Good (1980) and Rao and Inbaraj (1977) were done in Tamil Nadu, and are similar in the way of measuring consanguinity (field survey). Thus, some comparisons are in order. First, we may note findings with re- spect to the frequency and kinds of consanguineous marriages. Good's study was done in 1976-77 in three Villages in Tirunelveli district by surveying 25 castes ranging in size from three to 291 persons. For the entire set of 1,404 married women, 12.6 per cent married their mother's brother, 6.6 per cent married their mother's brother's son, and 6.0 per cent married their father's sister's son (Good 1980: 485). These findings are nearly identical to ours.

« Rao and Inbaraj did their study in the early 1970s in several villages and the

town of Vellore, North Arcot àistrict. The 11,628 marriages for rural women were often consanguineous. Their total marriages were distributed as follows: 15.8 per cent to mother's brother; 10.0 per cent to mother's brother's son; 17.4 per cent to father's sister's son; and 0.8 per cent to paternal or maternal parallel cousins (Rao and Inbaraj 1977: 283-84). Altogether, 44.0 per cent of these marriages were to close-kin. The 8,998 marriages in the town of Vellore were less often consanguineous and are nearly identical to our findings for metroplitan Madras. Transforming Rao and Inbaraj's (1977: 283-84) data to approximate our categories shows this close similaritv.

Per Cent metropolitan Madras Vellore

Uncle: Mo Bro 10 7 1st cousin (Mo Bro Son 5 6

(Fa Si Son 9 12 (Unspecified 1 - (Parallel Cousins - 1

2nd cousin 1 2 Distant kin 8 1 SUBTOTAL 34 29

Frequency of Reasons for Women Women Returning Per Cent Returning Per Cent To Ancestral Homes To Ancestral Homes

Never 25 Socializing with kin 49 Rarely 12 Marriages, Funerals,

Festival 29 Occasionally 36 Collection of Rents 7 Regularly 27 Management of Properties 1

Vacation 2 Total 100 Worship at Temple 4

Obtaining food, money 6 Pregnancy and child delivery 3

Total 100




There are two other comparisons between our study and those of Good and Rao and Inbaraj which can be made but have very limited usefulness. Good reports on the differences between grooms and brides in ages at nuptials, seemingly to de- monstrate that the age gradations, mentioned by Karve and others, do occur. For all types of marriages of close kin, the grooms are older by five years on the average (median) (Good 1980: 485). This difference is much less than our median of 9.6 years for close kin. Rao and Inbaraj report on the relationship of caste groupings to consanguinity. They find that the Backward castes and the Forward castes have the highest and the lowest rates in the rural areas while the Backward castes and the Scheduled castes have the highest and the lowest rates in the town of Vellore (Rao and Inbaraj 1977: 286). In effect, they, but not we, find some connection between castes and consanguinity. However, the classification of castes in their study and in our study differs so much as to rende? any comparisons invalid.

Lastly, we need to consider whether the patterns for Tamil Nadu exist elswhere in South India. The one study which we have found to be useful for this comparison is Chekki's (1974) study of two communities in Dharwar District, Kar- nataka State. His examination of 303 marriages derived from genealogies collected in 115 households of Kalyan reveals that 38.9 per cent of these Lingayats married consanguineously (Chekki 1974: 80-81). His examination of 266 marriages of persons living in 106 households of Gokul reveals that 22.2 per cent of these Brahmans, primarily subcastes of Vaishnava and Smartha, married consanguineously (Chekki 1974: 90-91). The per cent of all women- in these communities who married specific types of kin is shown below:

Per Cent [ Lingayat Brahman Uncle: Mo Bro Ю.1 ю.О 1st cousin (Mo Bro Son 8.3 2.6

(Fa Si Son 12.5 4.5 Other types 3.0 1.9 Kin - exact relationship

not traceable 53 3 4 subtotal 38.9 22.2

These figures for two semi-urban places show that kin-marriages are still frequent in a western region of South India, Karnataka, as in an eastern région of South India, Tamil Nadu. They also show that such frequency depends upon the caste community under consideration as well as the subregion; while 22.2 per cent of the Brahmans in Karnätaka married consanguineously, 34 per cent of the Brahmans in Tamil Nadu (i.e., metropolitan Madras) married consanguineously.

FINAL REMARKS

Our study has merely scratched the surface of a complex and sociologically important topic, namely: kinship organization in South India. There is needed a very intensive study which addresses some challenging methodological issues. We need




here mention only a few. First, there is the problem of the choice of kin terms by respondents; as Karve has noted, several terms are used in some localities for the same referent, and a particular term may refer to several social equals who are consanguineously unequal to ego. As one moves from locality to locality, the terminological confusion increases. Secondly, a respondent who uses a particular kin- term may or may not be indicating a consanguineous connection. Good (1980: 485) notes that when a groom defines his bride as his sister's daughter, he may be repre- senting a real or fictional genealogy; he may be expressing a prescription of his community; or he may be depicting "jural alliance relationships between groups." Thirdly, there is the issue of exploring the multiple relationships, which Chekki, Good, and Karve say, may exist between bride and groom and others of the kin group. Good in his survey found some cases where the bride was both the man's sister's daughter and his mother's brother's daughter. Karve provides elaborate diag- rams of chains of networks of multiple kinship relationships between pairs of persons. Chekki says that kin ties existing between persons prior to either one's marriage may become more elaborate after one's marriage to the other person or another person.4

The history of research on kinship organization in South India, and particu- larly as it relates to consanguineous marriage, attests to how difficult it is to unravel this complex social form. That such research should continue is suggested by the persistence of kin-marriages over a long time, both as practice and preference (Chekki 1974: 94).

4Referring to the Lingayat community, Chekki (1974: 81) says: "In the case of uncle-niece marriage, husband and wife are not strangers. For him she is his elder sister's daughter and for her he is her mother's brother. Now her mother-in-law and her father-in-law are her mother's mother and her mother's father, respectively. For him his own elder sister becomes his mother-in-law and his sister's husband the father-in-law. In spite of change in relationships due to such a marriage it is significant that when a man marries one of his preferred kin his original kinship ties with her family tend to persist. When a man marries his sister's daughter he addresses his wife's mother (mother-in-law) "elder sister" and she refers to him reciprocally as "younger brother" and not at "son-in-law". The wife addresses her parents-in-law as "grand parents" and her children will call her "mother" and their father's sister "grand mother". So, broadly, the former patterns of inter-personal relationships continue to dominate."




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