Kinship Usages

KINSHIP USAGES

Kinship usages refer to definite and comparatively stable patterns of behaviour of different members of a kin group. Every relationship involves a particular type of behaviour. The behaviour of a son towards his father is one of respect, while the behaviour of a husband towards a wife is one of love. The behaviour of a brother towards his sister is one of affection. Some usages regulate the behaviour of different kin. These usages are called kinship usages. Some of these usages are the following:

AVOIDANCE

In all societies, avoidance of one kind or another is observed in the relations between a daughter-in-law and her parents-in-law or a son-in-law with his parents-in-law. For example, older Navaho Women traditionally wore tiny bells known as ‘mother-in-law bells’ that were designed to warn their son-in-law of their approach so the men might be absent themselves.

According to Tylor, avoidance is particularly due to the matriarchal system. In some tribes, for example, the Zuni and Hopi, after marriage, the bridegroom stays in the wife’s family. Since he has no definite status in the family, he is avoided. After procreation, his status becomes more definite and better.

According to James Frazer, avoidance is due to sexual reasons. He based his theory, particularly upon the brother-sister avoidance in Vedda of Ceylone and the inhabitants of Trobriand island. Among Vedda people, brothers and sisters cannot live under the same roof nor eat together. This avoidance is to check sexual relationships among heterosexual people.

Sigmund Freud explained avoidance with psycho-analytical theory, which refers to sex relationships. According to him, sex motivation is normal among persons of the opposite sex. The avoidance of the mother-in-law and son-in-law relationship is due to the possibility that the mother may be reluctant to hand over her daughter to a stranger and feel displaced in the affections and loyalty. Since the daughter has lived with the mother for so many years, she has a natural attachment to her. This made the mother-in-law’s incestuous feelings toward her sons-in-law.

According to Lowie, both in-laws have different cultural and social values. The mores of the wife’s side may be different from the mores of the son-in-law’s side. In a matriarchal family, the bridegroom is different from other members of the family since he comes from another family. Hence, he is avoided. Similarly, in a patriarchal family, the daughter-in-law is avoided.

Turner High has explained avoidance in terms of conflicts. According to him, it is the best method to achieve harmonious relationships. In a family, the status of the daughter-in-law is peculiar. She has to serve the in-laws. Therefore, she cannot understand proper relationships, leading to conflict with her in-laws. Avoidance is an attempt to solve the problem of this conflict.

According to Radcliffe Brown, the main cause of avoidance is social. Love and hate are natural among members of two different families. Hatred is harmful to the family's organization. Avoidance is a cure for this conflict.

In all societies, the usages of avoidance are observed in one form or another. It means that the two kins should remain away from each other. Thus, a father-in-law or mother-in-law should avoid a daughter-in-law or son-in-law.

JOKING RELATIONSHIP

The reverse of the avoidance relationship is an extreme degree of familiarity expressed through joking relationships. Such joking may amount to an exchange of abuse and banter, obscene and vulgar references to sex, damage to each other’s property, ridicule and so on. Joking relationships may be indicative of equality and mutual reciprocity. They may also be indicative of a potential sexual relationship. A joking relationship with one’s maternal uncle’s wife may be indicative of the practice of inheriting all the property of one’s maternal uncle, including his wife. It may be indicative of a joking relationship with the maternal uncle himself, expressed through sexual intimacy with his wife. Such usages have been reported from the matrilineal Hopi and Trobriand Islanders.

Among many primitive folks like Oraon and the Baiga, a joking relationship has been found to prevail between grandparents and grandchildren. S.C. Roy has reported an instance of a grandfather marrying his granddaughter among the Oraon. Verrier Elwin has reported a similar instance from the Baiga where a grandson married his grandmother. Radcliffe Brown regards the joking relationship as having a symbolic meaning, saying that joking relations may be a kind of friendliness expressed by a show of hostility. Chapple and Coon regard this usage as the way to stimulate a higher interaction rate between various people which it may not be possible to do otherwise.

Thus, a joking relationship may not be essentially reciprocal so that it can be used as a mechanism of social control.

COUVADES

Couvade is a kinship usage reported from primitive tribes like the Khasi and the Toda. The practice consists of making a husband live as an invalid along with his wife whenever she gives birth to a child. He refrains from active life, goes on a sick diet and observes certain taboos.

This kinship usage involving wife and husband has been explained in various ways. Some authorities have seen the survival of the traditional stage of the maternal-paternal complex in it. In the maternal-paternal stage, where residents may be matrilocal, but inheritance patrilineal, or conversely, some conventional methods of ascertaining paternity are needed-keeping the father confined in a room or the customary bow and arrow ceremony of the Toda. Malinowski believed couvades to be a cementing bond of married life and a social mechanism designed to secure paternal affection. Raglan regards it as an irrational belief that may be prior to marriage and even a contributory cause of the emergence of marriage as an institution.

Some writers have sought a psycho-analytical explanation. They have attributed this usage to the husband’s desire to lighten the wife’s discomforts through participation through identification.

TEKNONYMY

Teknonymy refers to usage all over rural people of India and some tribal groups like the Khasi as well as elsewhere among the primitive societies of some parts of the world, a person referred to as the father or the mother of his/her child, i.e., teknonymously. Tylor regarded this kinship usage also as a relic of the former supremacy of women, who never accepted the son-in-law as one of them in their residence and recognized a secondary relationship with him through the children he helped to bring to life. Through extension, a mother may likewise be referred to teknonymously.

AVUNCULATE

There are some matrilineal societies where the maternal uncle of a child takes the most important authoritative place in his life. On most occasions, he becomes the main guardian, even out weighing his father. Such position of the maternal uncle is the convention known as ‘avunculate.’ In such cases, the maternal uncle enjoys a pre-eminent place in the life of the child, he bears some special obligations towards his sister’s children, he enjoys a prior right over their loyalties, and he is even obliged to transmit his property to his nephew. This kind of authority enjoyed by the maternal uncle is designated as avuncupotestiality. If the maternal uncle takes responsibility for rearing up the children of his sister and keeping them in his residence, the condition is referred to as avunculocal residence.

AMITATE

A type of kinship usage relates father’s sister too closely with the children that are known as ‘amitate.’ Here father’s sister becomes prominent in matters of rights and authority. She acts almost as the head of the household and exercises her supreme authority over her brother’s children’s. Radcliffe Brown and I. Schapera considered this person as ‘female-father’. Amitate may be easily explicable in a patrilineal society; it has to be explained in the context of the matrilineal culture complex of the Trobriand Islanders. It would seem that whereas avunculate in a matrilineal society and amitate in a patrilineal society may be the outcome of an obvious emphasis on one particular group of relatives, such emphasis expressed through avunculate in patrilineal society and amitate in a matrilineal society may be the social mechanism for preventing certain kinship bonds from falling into neglect. Or, to borrow once again the phraseology of Chapple and Coon, these usages are the way to keep up the rate of interaction between such kin among whom it may fall low due to their belonging to such groups, which are not taken into account while reckoning descent.