CH4. Matrimonial Alliances: Marriage Types

• The institution of marriage has been unfairly criticized in many parts of the world, especially concerning tribal peoples.
• Wild, baseless charges have been made against tribal cultures, with some pseudo-scholars claiming deep knowledge of these societies and letting their imagination run riot.
• These scholars often claim that laxity regarding sexual relations equals promiscuity or free sex, which supposedly means the absence of marriage.
• Such scholars coined phrases like ‘sexual communism’ to describe non-existent social situations.
• However, no ethnographic data from anywhere in the world support these claims.
• Tribes in India, such as the Andamanese, Kadar, Paliyan, Malapanthram, Chenchu, Birhor, and others, do not show any evidence of promiscuity.
• Indian tribes, like those from other parts of the world, practice various forms of marriage based on convenience and social acclimatization within their cultural-ecological settings.

Monogamy

• Monogamy is a form of marriage where a man can only be married to one woman at a time.
• The majority of Indian tribes practice monogamy.
• To counter the claim that primitive tribes lack a clear marriage system, the example of the Kamar tribe from Madhya Pradesh is provided.
• The Kamar tribe is monogamous, refuting the idea that backward tribes have no clear marriage structure.

Polygamy

• Polygamy, or marriage to more than one person, is widespread globally, including among Indian tribes.
• Polygamy has two types:
  
  • Polygyny: One man married to multiple women.
  • Polyandry: One woman married to multiple men.
• Both types are commonly referred to as polygamy in everyday language.
• Polygyny is found among Naga tribes, Gond, Baiga, Toda, Lushai, and most Proto-Australoid tribes in Middle India.
• Polygyny often arises due to sex ratio imbalances, with more females than males, leading to polygyny.
• In societies with a normal sex ratio, polygyny may force many males to remain bachelor, and in these cases, it is typically the privilege of the rich and powerful to marry multiple wives as a status symbol.
• Among tribes like Gond, Baiga, and Lushai, polygyny helps in labor division.
• Polyandry is rarer and found primarily in the Himalayan tract from Kashmir to Assam, and is practiced by Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid tribes.
• Polyandry in its classical form is practiced by the Tiyan, Toda, Kota, Khasa (Jounsari), Ladakhi Bota, and is popular among the Tibetans.
• Among Indian tribes, two types of polyandry exist:
  
  • Fraternal Polyandry: Several brothers share one wife, seen in the Khasa and Toda.
  • General Polyandry: No close relationship between husbands; the wife spends time with each husband, as seen in Toda polyandry and Nayar polyandry.
• Polyandry does not always arise due to a higher male population; in Ladakh, women actually outnumber men.
• Among the Toda, property considerations and sex disparity explain the prevalence of polyandry.
• Polyandry leads to fewer children per woman, more male children, and a high rate of sterility among women.
• The Khasa of Jounsar-Bawar have a practical approach to polyandry, where the eldest brother’s wife becomes the common wife for all brothers.
• If a brother is a minor, he may marry another woman later, which results in multiple wives for some brothers, deviating from the classical polyandry.
• Majumdar coined the term Polygynandry to describe the mix of polygyny and polyandry.
• The Toda of Nilgiri Hills practiced the Bow and Arrow Ceremony to socially declare paternity, where a brother presents a bow and arrow to the wife in the 5th month of pregnancy, establishing him as the social father over the biological father.
• Bride wealth, an economic factor, also contributes to the prevalence of polyandry in Indian tribes.
• In the bride wealth system, husbands must pay an agreed amount in cash or kind to the bride’s parents, with the value varying based on the bride’s beauty and utility.
• Over time, the increasing bride wealth made it difficult to afford individually, leading to polyandry as a way to share the burden.
• Agricultural holdings in mountainous regions are uneconomic and difficult to manage alone, further encouraging polyandry to avoid land fragmentation and share labor.
• Bigamy, a restricted form of polygamy, allows a man to marry two sisters at once, observed in the Holiya and Medara tribes of Mysore.

• Society prohibits sexual relations or marriage within certain kins, clans, or gotra, but encourages marriage between other specific kin.
• Some marriages are based on preference or prescription for particular kin, known as preferential marriages.
• Popular types of preferential marriages among Indian tribes include:
  
  1. Cousin marriage
     
     • Cross-cousin marriage
     • Parallel-cousin marriage
  2. Levirate
  3. Sororate
• Cousin marriage is common in tribes like Gond, Kharia, Khasi, and Kadar.
• Cross-cousin marriage occurs when the children of a brother and sister marry each other.
• Parallel-cousin marriage occurs when the children of two brothers or two sisters marry.
• Among the Gond, a person is supposed to marry their cross-cousin, and if this is waived, a compensation must be paid to the losing party.
• Cross-cousin marriage is seen as a way to avoid paying a high bride price and to maintain property within the family.
• Gonds of Madhya Pradesh refer to cross-cousin marriage as doodh lautawa (return of milk), meaning the bride price paid by ‘A’ will be returned when ‘A’s daughter marries her mother’s brother’s son.
• Preferential marriages strengthen solidarity within the tribe, as per Claude Levi Strauss.
• Levirate occurs when a woman marries her deceased husband’s brother.
  
  • There are two types:
    
    • Junior levirate: When the woman marries her husband’s younger brother.
    • Senior levirate: When the woman marries her husband’s elder brother.
• In non-polyandrous societies, levirate is important as it provides the widow with a guardian, a new husband, and the children with a father who may have already loved them.
• Anticipatory levirate allows some laxity in sexual relations between a woman and her husband’s brothers as a prelude to the marriage.
• Sororate occurs when a man marries his wife’s sister(s), either after the wife’s death or during her life.
• Sororate typically happens when a man marries the younger sister of his deceased wife as compensation.
• Both levirate and sororate emphasize inter-familial obligations, viewing marriage as a tie between two families, not just individuals.