• Kinship in India carries strong emotional significance, with family as an indispensable social unit, reflected even in religion and mythology, where most Hindu deities are portrayed with families.

• A distinctive feature of Indian society is the broad recognition of kins as part of the family, leading to differing interpretations of what constitutes a family; for instance, Pauline Kolenda identified eleven forms of households.

• Owing to India’s cultural diversity, kinship structures vary regionally, and under the influence of modernity and external cultural contacts, the nature of kinship bonds is changing.

• The kinship system includes persons related through blood (consanguinity), marriage (affinity) or adoption, and is shaped by principles of lineage, descent, marriage, division of labour, inheritance, residence and authority, which differ across societies.

Lineage and Descent in India

• The social structure of India is deeply shaped by cultural principles embedded in lineage and kinship, studied by scholars like Coomaraswamy and Ghurye, who used concepts such as Kula and Gotra (clan) to explain descent.

• Gotra is a unique Indian concept, approximated to a clan, forms an exogamous unit, prohibits marriage within the same Gotra, and assumes descent from a real or mythical common ancestor, making members of the same generation fictitious siblings (e.g., Sangwan Gotra from Saangu).

• After the family, kinship and lineage play a crucial role in daily life, rituals and ceremonies, with Vansha (lineage) and Gotra (clan) being important groups beyond close kin (maternal and paternal relatives).

• Vansha is a consanguineous unilateral descent group tracing to a known common ancestor, and in India patrilineage is dominant, though alternatives like the matrilineal Tharawad system of Kerala also exist.

• A distinctive Indian practice is the maintenance of genealogical registers, notably at Haridwar, where Pandas can trace lineages up to twenty generations.

• Ghurye argued that Gotra is universal across castes, acting both as a unifying and dividing principle, and that Kula denotes a lineage worshipping a common ancestor.

• Coomaraswamy noted that marriage rules are governed by Kula and Gotra, following Sapinda exogamy and caste endogamy, prohibiting marriage within five generations on the mother’s side and seven on the father’s side, making lineage central to individual identity.

• T.N. Madan (1965) showed in his study of Kashmiri Pandits that the community is interlinked through primary, secondary and tertiary kinship ties.

• Feminist scholars like Uma Chakravarti view lineage and descent as sustaining patriarchy, denying women inheritance rights, assigning reproductive roles to women and productive roles to men.

• According to Paul Brass, while caste is vital in Indian politics, kinship networks also significantly influence political processes.

• Traditionally, lineage members lived in joint or neighbouring households, shared property and meals, but today lineage and descent systems are transforming, with extended kinship weakening.

• Inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, conversions and gay marriages are among the major factors driving change in traditional lineage and descent patterns.

Types of Kinship Systems

• The kinship system comprises persons related by blood (consanguinity) or marriage (affinity), and includes affinal kin, consanguineal kin, and as noted by S.C. Dube, also fictive (chosen) kin based on presumptive bonds.

• Kinship is not only relational but also a principle governing succession, inheritance, division of property, and is so complex that Malinowski termed it “Kinship Algebra.”

• On the basis of descent, kinship may be agnatic/patrilineal (through males) or uterine/matrilineal (through females), both being unilineal, while bilateral groups trace kinship through both sexes.

• Indological classifications include cultural kin groups like Sapinda, Sarika, Kula and Gotra.

• Murdock distinguished terms of address (culturally patterned relations) and terms of reference (linguistic symbols), noting that one term (e.g., uncle) may cover many relations such as Taau, Chacha, Phoofa and Mausa.

• Based on degree of kinship, primary kin (e.g., father, son, siblings, spouse) are the closest, and according to S.C. Dube there are eight primary kins.

• Secondary kin are primary kin of primary kin, numbering 33 according to Murdock, while tertiary kin are secondary kin of primary kin and primary kin of secondary kin, totalling 151 types.

• Functionally, kinship groups regulate inheritance, authority, succession, marriage, group membership, perform jural, economic and ritual roles, and in agrarian societies also organise production of goods and services.

• A major cultural study of kinship was undertaken by Irawati Karve, who divided India into four kinship zones.