The biological and bio-social factors discussed above help us to understand the omnipresence of the family. George Peter Murdock conducted an analysis of 250 ‘primitive’ societies using the ethnographies relative to them, and arrived at the conclusion that family was present in all. Murdock defined Family as:
a social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation, and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults (Murdock, 1949: 1).
The Nuclear Family
It is important to note that Murdock distinguishes between marriage and family. Marriage is the means through which the foundations of a new family are laid. Murdock found present in his sample of 250 representative cultures this universal human grouping consisting of husband, wife and children—which he called the nuclear family. ‘Either as the sole prevailing form of the family or as the basic unit from which more complex familial forms are compounded, it exists as a distinct and strongly functional group in every known society’ (Murdock, 1949: 2). In the same vein, R. H. Lowie had written earlier:
It does not matter whether marital relations are permanent or temporary; whether there is polygyny or polyandry, or sexual license; whether conditions are complicated by the additions of members not included in our family circle; the one fact stands out beyond all others that everywhere the husband, wife, and immature children constitute a unit apart from the remainder of the community (1920: 66–67).6
For analytical purposes, Murdock regards the nuclear family as the ‘basic unit’. Murdock defines a nuclear family as consisting ‘typically of a married man and woman with their offspring, although in individual cases one or more additional persons may reside with them’ (1949: 2). He considered other, larger types of families as a combination of nuclear families ‘like atoms in a molecule’. The larger aggregates, according to him, were essentially of two types: polygamous and extended families. In Japan, the Census Bureau includes three combinations in a nuclear family: (i) a couple, (ii) a couple with their unmarried children, and (iii) a single parent with unmarried children.7
Of the 250 societies surveyed by Murdock, 192 cases threw up dependable information on the family. He found nuclear families in 47 societies;polygamous in 53; and extended families in 92 societies. Murdock concluded:
Whatever Larger familial forms may exist, and to whatever extent the greater unit may assume some of the burdens of the lesser, the nuclear family is always recognizable and always has its distinctive and vital functions—sexual, economic, reproductive, and educational …. It is usually spatially and socially distinct (1949: 3).
He argued that even if a person has more than one wife, separate dwelling arrangements are made for each wife and her progeny—thus, a larger unit such as this consists of more than one nuclear family.
Any individual belongs to two nuclear families: the family in which s/he was born and the family in which s/he will be a progenitor. In technical terms, the first family is called the Family of Orientation and the second, the Family of Procreation. This is shown in Figure 9.1.8
Figure 9.1 Family of Orientation and Family of Procreation for Ego
Note: Family of Orientation and Family of Procreation for the Ego. For each, the circle would vary.
As an analytical category, the nuclear family provides us with clues for the classification of various family types on the basis of their kinship composition. In Figure 9.1, it is shown that the ego—our point of reference—is linked to two nuclear families, the family of his/her birth and the family in which s/he plays the role of creator. We have shown two families of Procreation because the Family of Orientation has two children—a boy (son) and a girl (daughter). The boy is linked to his Father, Mother and Sister (that unit is the Family of Orientation for him); in the second family, his links are to his Wife, Son and Daughter (this unit is the Family of Procreation for him). Similarly, for the daughter, the Family of Orientation is the same as that of her brother, consisting of her Father, Mother and Brother; her Family of Procreation, however, has a different composition, consisting of her Husband, Son and Daughter.
Kinship Relations
Note that every person in a nuclear family has two statuses tied together: Father-Husband, Mother-Wife, Son-Brother, Daughter-Sister. Thus, a focus on the nuclear family leads us to identify eight primary relationships, of which six are through blood—technically called consanguineal—and two are through marriage—technically called affinal.
The eight primary relationships are abbreviated by social analysts of kinship. In British anthropology, they use only the first letter of the relationship [F for Father, M for Mother, B for Brother, H for Husband, and so on], but since son and sister have the letter ‘s’ in common, the letter ‘Z’ is used for sister. To avoid this, the American method is to use the first two letters of the relationship, the first in Capital and the second in small letters, as shown in Table 9.1.
Table 9.1 Relationship Type and Designation
| Designation of the Relationship | ||
|---|---|---|
| Relationship Type | Designation | Abbreviation |
| Husband | Hu | |
| Affinal | Wife | Wi |
| Father | Fa | |
| Mother | Mo | |
| Consanguineal | Son | So |
| Daughter | Da | |
| Brother | Br | |
| Sister | Si | |
The relationships beyond these primary relationships are, for analytical purposes, extensions of these relationships. A primary relation of a primary relation outside the nuclear family is a Secondary relation; a secondary relation of a primary relation is, likewise, a Tertiary relation, and so on. In kinship analysis, secondary relations are expressed in the following manner:
| Father’s Father | = | FaFa |
| Father’s Mother | = | FaMo |
| Mother’s Father | = | MoFa |
| Mother’s Mother | = | MoFa |
| Brother’s Wife | = | BrWi |
| Sister’s Husband | = | SiHu |
| Son’sWife | = | SoWi |
| Daughter’s Husband | = | DaHu |
Each society names these relations distinctly, sometimes clubbing them together. Those terms used only for a specific relationship are called descriptive or particularistic. However, when the same term is used for a number of relationships that have some characteristics in common, it is called a classificatory term. For example, in English we use Father for the male parent and Mother for the female parent; these are exclusively used for these two relationships and hence are descriptive. But when we say ‘Grand Father’ or ‘Grand Mother’, we may mean either Father’s Father (FaFa) or Mother’s Father (MoFa). In India, the term Bahin is used not only for a sister but also for a distant cousin, and sometimes for an unrelated girl who ties a Rakhi knot on an unrelated boy. Only when we need to define the exact relationship do we specify that ‘she is my cousin (Chacheri or Mameri or Mauseri) sister’.9 The point to be made here is that the classificatory system is the most widely used. In most unilateral kinship systems, generation is paramount and relationship is subordinated. In some matrilineal10 systems, a person calls the Grand Mother (MoMo) with the same name as the Grand Mother’s Sister (MoMoSi). Similarly, the term for Mother is also used for Mother’s Sister (MoSi) and for the Daughter of Mother’s Mother’s Sister (MoMoSiDa) (see Figure 9.2).
Figure 9.2 Classificatory System
In the above case, the terms Mother and Grand Mother are classificatory, in the sense that they are used for a cluster of relationships. It is for this reason that in the sociological analysis of family and kinship structure, neutral categories (descriptive ones) are used. Extensions are traced from the eight basic relationships, and then the terms used in a given society for those relationships are identified against them.
These eight relationships found in a nuclear family are called primary relationships. The primary relatives of primary relatives are secondary relatives, and secondary relatives of primary relatives are tertiary relatives. In sociological analyses, the descriptive terms for these relationships are used to indicate the degree of objective distance; thus, a relationship described with two terms is a secondary relative; that with three terms is a tertiary relative. For example, Mother’s Sister (MoSi) is a secondary relative, being the primary relative (Sister) of Speaker’s primary relative (Mother). Her son, a cousin in common parlance, will be a tertiary relative, written as MoSiSo, that is, Mother’s Sister’s Son, but he may be addressed as brother or a cousin; where such use is found, both terms, namely Brother and Cousin, become classificatory.
There are theories built by experts on kinship terminology to infer possible marriage practices from the kinship term usage. Classificatory terms indicate the nature of the relationship or social proximity in a given cultural context. These social proximities are defined differently in different societies. Thus, the structural typology may remain cross-culturally valid if we were interested in only the composition of the unit. For cultural specificities, it is necessary to go into role definitions, taboos and sanctions.
While every society places a taboo on incest, the relationships defined as incest vary from society to society. A good example is the relationship between cousins. There are two types of cousins: parallel and cross. In Muslim society, both parallel and cross-cousin marriages are not only allowed, but are the preferred forms of marriage; however, amongst the Hindus of north India, such marriages are not allowed at all. In south India, cross-cousin marriages are preferred, but not marriages with parallel cousins. In the south, marriages between MoBr and SiDa (Mother’s Brother marrying his Sister’s Daughter) are also allowed; not so in northern India. In fact, many small villages in north India practise village exogamy, thereby barring marriage between those belonging to two different exogamous groups. A stricter form of exogamy is practised by the Jats in Haryana, where people are tabooed from marrying within a Khap—consisting of a number of villages mostly inhabited by people of the same gotra.11 People of other gotras also live in these villages, but the Khap brotherhood rule prohibits marriage between people of two gotras who belong to the same Khap.
Potentially, a person can have 33 distinct kinds of secondary relatives. Similarly, the number of potential tertiary relatives is 151, which include eight great-grandparents, eight first cousins, the spouses of all uncles, nephews and nieces, and many others. In a similar fashion, one can work out the potential number of quaternary and quinary relatives. This is a descriptive categorization of relationships, necessary for kinship analysis. Different societies evolve their own system of classificatory terms.
Using these basic eight abbreviations (Hu, Wi, Fa, Mo, So, Da, Br, Si), we can draw a family chart or even a genealogy of several related families. When two abbreviations are used, it denotes a secondary relationship; three abbreviations denote a tertiary relationship, and so on.
Typology of Family
It must be clear by now that while family exists in all societies, its structure is not the same everywhere. Families are classified in terms of their size, marriage type, type of residence for the married couple, type of kinsmen living together, rules of descent and the authority structure.
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