KINSHIP OF IRAWATI KARVE


KINSHIP OF IRAWATI KARVE 



Every individual has relationships with other people around them. This is the basic system that takes place in all human societies. It is known as the system of kinship. Radcliffe-Brown (1964) insisted on the study of a kinship system as a field of rights and obligations. Evans-Pritchard’s study of the Nuer of the southern Sudan (1951) focused on kinship groups.

Irawati Karve was an Indian educationist, anthropologist, sociol­ogist and a writer from Maharashtra. Her study of kinship is based on personal inquiry supplemented by readings in Sanskrit, Pali, Ardhamagadhi, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Maithili.

Iravati Karve (1953) undertakes a comparative analysis of four cultural zones with a view to trace out something like a regional pattern of social behaviour. Karve analyses the process of acculturation and accommodation in the context of kinship. Some Points that gained Karve’s consideration:
1.     Kinship in terms of Indian languages.
2.     Behavior and attitudes in context of language
3.     Rules of Descents and inheritance
4.     Marriage and family patterns
5.     Comparative study on Sanskritic north and Dravidian south

She divided the whole country into northern, central, southern and eastern zones keeping in view the linguistic, caste and family organisation.  But in some respects language and kinship do not go hand in hand.

Kinship in North India:
In the Northern part of India the features of kinship are:
1. Territorially
2.Taboos
3.Genealogy
4.Exogamy (local)
Brahmanas and other upper castes practice the avoidance of fathers, mothers, grandmother and maternal grandmothers gotras in north India. Also known as the rule of Four gotras.

Kinship and Central India:
There are three main points to be kept in mind while learning about the northern areas:
1.     Cross-cousin marriages are prevalent which are not witnessed in the north zone.
2.     Exogamous clans have divided into different castes.

Kinship in South India:
The southern zone presents a very compli­cated pattern of kinship system and family organisation. Some features are:
1.     Here, patrilineal and patrilocal systems dominate.
2.     In southern India, the importance is given to bilateral links and little too territorial exogamy or nil.
3.     In the southern zone there is the system of caste endogamy and clan exogamy similar to the northern system.

Kinship in eastern india:
The features of the kinship of eastern india are:
1.     People with Mundari linguistic background have the patrilocal or patrilineal system.
2.     The Ho and Santhal have the practice of cross-cousin marriage.
3.     Money is given for procuring a bride.

Thus it is found that both rigidity and flexibility exist side by side in regard to values and norms related to the kinship systems. kinship is a complex component existing in society and the most fundamental principle of society. Different regions in India follow different types of kinship system and there are many factors which have brought changes in kinship such as migration, education, and mobility etc. kinship continues to be a basic principle of social organisation and mobilisation on the one hand and division and dissension on the other.


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