History · Ch 3 — Kinship, Caste and Class — Early Societies
Kinship and Marriage
Kinship and Marriage
Kinship and Marriage: Many Rules and Varied Practices
Families are not all the same. They differ in size, in how members relate to one another, and in the activities they share — living together, working, performing rituals, and pooling resources. Families are usually part of larger networks of relatives, or kinfolk. What seems “natural” — like being related by blood — is actually defined differently across societies. Some consider cousins blood relations; others do not.
For early societies, historians can reconstruct the family lives of elites fairly easily, but ordinary people’s familial relationships are much harder to trace. Historians also study attitudes toward family and kinship, because these ideas shaped people’s actions — and actions, in turn, could change attitudes.
In Sanskrit texts, kula means family, jnati refers to the larger kin network, and vamsha means lineage.
The ideal of patriliny
The Mahabharata is, at one level, a story about kinship change. It describes a feud between two groups of cousins — the Kauravas and the Pandavas — who belonged to the same ruling family, the Kurus, a lineage that dominated one of the janapadas. The conflict ended in battle, the Pandavas won, and patrilineal succession was proclaimed.
Patriliny — tracing descent from father to son, grandson, and so on — had existed before the epic was composed, but the Mahabharata reinforced the idea that it was valuable. Under patriliny, sons could claim their father’s resources (including the throne) when the father died. Most ruling dynasties from about the sixth century BCE onwards claimed to follow this system, though practice varied:
- Sometimes there were no sons.
- In some situations, brothers succeeded one another.
- Other kinsmen sometimes claimed the throne.
- In very exceptional circumstances, women like Prabhavati Gupta exercised power.
This concern with patriliny was not limited to ruling families. It appears in mantras from ritual texts like the Rigveda. Wealthy men and those claiming high status — including Brahmanas — likely shared these attitudes.
A Rigveda marriage mantra (c. 1000 BCE) chanted by the priest says: “I free her from here, but not from there. I have bound her firmly there, so that through the grace of Indra she will have fine sons and be fortunate in her husband’s love.” “Here” means the father’s house; “there” means the husband’s house. The mantra shows that marriage was seen as a transfer of the bride from one household to another, with the purpose of producing sons.
Why kinfolk quarrelled — The Adi Parvan of the Mahabharata explains the conflict: Dhritarashtra was blind, so his younger brother Pandu became king. After Pandu’s early death, Dhritarashtra ruled because the princes were young. As the cousins grew up, people preferred the Pandavas for their ability and virtue. Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava, told his father: “You yourself did not receive the throne because of your defect. If the Pandava receives the patrimony from Pandu, his son will inherit it in turn, and so on. We and our sons will be excluded from the royal succession and become of slight regard in the world.” Such passages may not be literally true, but they reveal what the text’s authors thought — and sometimes contain conflicting ideas.
Rules of marriage
Sons were crucial for the continuity of the patrilineage. Daughters were viewed differently: they had no claims to household resources. Marrying them into families outside the kin was considered desirable. This system — exogamy (marrying outside) — meant that the lives of girls and women in high-status families were carefully regulated to ensure they married at the “right” time and to the “right” person. This gave rise to the belief that kanyadana — the gift of a daughter in marriage — was an important religious duty of the father.
Endogamy = marriage within a unit (kin group, caste, or locality).
Exogamy = marriage outside the unit.
Polygyny = a man having several wives.
Polyandry = a woman having several husbands.
With the growth of new towns, social life became more complex. People from different areas bought and sold products and shared ideas. This may have led to questioning of older beliefs. Brahmanas responded by laying down detailed codes of social behaviour, meant for Brahmanas and society in general. From about 500 BCE, these norms were compiled in Sanskrit texts called Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras. The most important, the Manusmriti, was compiled between about 200 BCE and 200 CE.
Though Brahmana authors claimed universal validity for their prescriptions, real social relations were likely more complicated. Given regional diversity and communication difficulties, Brahmanical influence was not all-pervasive.
Eight forms of marriage — The Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras recognised eight forms. The first four were considered “good”; the remaining were condemned. It is possible that the condemned forms were practised by those who did not accept Brahmanical norms.
| Form | Description |
|---|---|
| First | Gift of a daughter, dressed in costly clothes and honoured with jewels, to a man learned in the Veda whom the father himself invites. |
| Fourth | Gift of a daughter by the father after addressing the couple with “May both of you perform your duties together” and honouring the bridegroom. |
| Fifth | The bridegroom receives a maiden after giving as much wealth as he can afford to the kinsmen and the bride herself. |
| Sixth | The voluntary union of a maiden and her lover, which springs from desire. |
The gotra of women
From about 1000 BCE, Brahmanas classified people (especially themselves) in terms of gotras. Each gotra was named after a Vedic seer, and all members were regarded as his descendants. Two rules were particularly important:
- Women were expected to give up their father’s gotra and adopt their husband’s on marriage.
- Members of the same gotra could not marry.
One way to check whether this was followed is to examine names derived from gotras. Such names are available for the Satavahanas, who ruled parts of western India and the Deccan (c. second century BCE to second century CE). Inscriptions allow historians to trace family ties, including marriages.
Satavahana king names from inscriptions — These names end with puta (Prakrit for “son”). Gotami-puta means “son of Gotami”; Vasithi-puta means “son of Vasithi”. Gotami and Vasithi are feminine forms of Gotama and Vasistha — Vedic seers after whom gotras were named. …