The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

69. Exogamy with female descent

The exogamous clan, with female descent, was, however, an unstable social institution, in that it had no regular provision for marriage nor for the incorporation of married couples. The men who associated with the women of the clan were not necessarily, nor as a rule, admitted to it, but remained in their own clans. How this association took place is not altogether clear. At a comparatively late period in Arabia, according to Professor Robertson Smith,163 the woman would have a tent, and could entertain outside men for a shorter or longer period according to her inclination. The practice of serving for a wife also perhaps dates from the period of female descent. The arrangement would have been that a man went and lived with a woman’s family and gave his services in return for her conjugal society. Whether the residence with the wife’s family was permanent or not is perhaps uncertain. When Jacob served for Leah and Rachel, society seems to have been in the early patriarchal stage, as Laban was their father and he was Laban’s sister’s son. But it seems doubtful whether his right was then recognised to take his wives away with him, for even after he had served fourteen years Laban pursued him, and would have taken them back if he had not been warned against doing so in a vision. The episode of Rachel’s theft of the images also seems to indicate that she intended to take her own household gods with her and not to adopt those of her husband’s house. And Laban’s chief anxiety was for the recovery of the images. A relic of the husband’s residence with his wife’s family during the period of female descent may perhaps be found in the Banjāra caste, who oblige a man to go and live with his wife’s father for a month without seeing her face. Under the patriarchal system this rule of the Banjāras is meaningless, though the general practice of serving for a wife survives as a method of purchase.

The god Rāma, an incarnation of Vishnu, with attendant deities

Among the Australian aborigines apparently the clans, or sections of them, wander about in search of food and game, and meet each other for more or less promiscuous intercourse. This may perhaps be supposed to have been the general primitive condition of society after the introduction of exogamy combined with female descent. And its memory is possibly preserved in the tradition of the Golden Age, golden only in the sense that man was not troubled either by memory or anticipation, and lived only for the day. The entire insecurity of life and its frequent end by starvation or a violent death did not therefore trouble him any more than is the case with animals. He took no thought for the morrow, nor did the ills of yesterday oppress his mind. As when one of a herd of deer is shot by a hunter and the others stand by it pityingly as it lies dying on the ground, uncertain of its mishap, though they would help it if they could; yet when they perceive the hunter they make quickly off and in a few minutes are again grazing happily a mile or two away: little or no more than this can primitive man be supposed to have been affected by the deaths of his fellows. But possibly, since he was carnivorous, the sick and old may have been killed for food, as is still the practice among some tribes of savages. In the natural course, however, more or less permanent unions, though perhaps not regular marriages, must have developed in the female exogamous clan, which would thus usually have men of other clans living with it. And since identification of individuals would be extremely difficult before the introduction of personal names, there would be danger that when two clans met, men and women belonging to the same totem-clan would have sexual intercourse. This offence, owing to the strength of the feeling for exogamy, was frequently held to entail terrible evils for the community, and was consequently sometimes punished with death as treason. Moreover, if we suppose a number of small clans, A, B, C, D and E, to meet each other again and again, and the men and women to unite promiscuously, it is clear that the result would be a mixture of relationships of a very incestuous character. The incest of brothers and sisters by the same father would be possible and of almost all other relations, though that of brothers and sisters by the same mother would not be caused. This may have been the reason for the introduction of the class system among the Australians and Red Indians, by which all the clans of a certain area were divided into two classes, and the men of any clan of one class could only marry or have intercourse with the women of a clan of the other class. By such a division the evil results of the mixture of totems in exogamous clans with female descent would be avoided. The class system was sometimes further strengthened by the rule, in Australia, that different classes should, when they met, encamp on opposite sides of a creek or other natural division164; whilst among the Red Indians, the classes camp on opposite sides of the road, or live on different sides of the same house or street.165 In Australia, and very occasionally elsewhere, the class system has been developed into four and eight sub-classes. A man of one sub-class can only marry a woman of one other, and their children belong to one of those different from either the father’s or mother’s. This highly elaborate and artificial system was no doubt, as stated by Sir J. G. Frazer, devised for the purpose of preventing the intermarriage of parents and children belonging to different clans where there are four sub-classes, and of first cousins where there are eight sub-classes.166 The class system, however, would not appear to have been the earliest form of exogamy among the Australian tribes. Its very complicated character, and the fact that the two principal classes sometimes do not even have names, seem to preclude the idea of its having been the first form of exogamy, which is a strong natural feeling, so much so that it may almost be described as an instinct, though of course not a primitive animal instinct. And just as the totem clan, which establishes a sentiment of kinship between people who are not related by blood, was prior to the individual family, so exogamy, which forbids the marriage of people who are not related by blood, must apparently have been prior to the feeling simply against connections of persons related by blood or what we call incest. If the two-class system was introduced in Australia to prohibit the marriage of brothers and sisters at a time when they could not recognise each other in adult life, then on the introduction of personal names which would enable brothers and sisters to recognise and remember each other, the two-class system should have been succeeded by a modern table of prohibited degrees, and not by clan exogamy at all. It is suggested that the two-class system was a common and natural form of evolution of a society divided into exogamous totem clans with female descent, when a man was not taken into the clan of the woman with whom he lived. The further subdivision into four and eight sub-classes is almost peculiar to the Australian tribes; its development may perhaps be attributed to the fact that these tribes have retained the system of female descent and the migratory hunting method of life for an abnormally long period, and have evolved this special institution to prevent the unions of near relatives which are likely to occur under such conditions. The remains of a two-class system appear to be traceable among the Gonds of the Central Provinces. In one part of Bastar all the Gond clans are divided into two classes without names, and a man cannot marry a woman belonging to any clan of his own class, but must take one from a clan of the other class. Elsewhere the Gonds are divided into two groups of six-god and seven-god worshippers among whom the same rule obtains. Formerly the Gonds appear in some places to have had seven groups, worshipping different numbers of gods from one to seven, and each of these groups was exogamous. But after the complete substitution of male for female kinship in the clan, and the settlement of clans in different villages, the classes cease to fulfil any useful purpose. They are now disappearing, and it is very difficult to obtain any reliable information about their rules. The system of counting kinship through the mother, or female descent, has long been extinct in the Central Provinces and over most of India. Some survival of it, or at least the custom of polyandry, is found among the Nairs of southern India and in Thibet. Elsewhere scarcely a trace remains, and this was also the condition of things with the classical races of antiquity; so much so, indeed, that even great thinkers like Sir Henry Maine and M. Fustel de Coulanges, with the examples only of India, Greece and Rome before them, did not recognise the system of female descent, and thought that the exogamous clan with male descent was an extension of the patriarchal family, this latter having been the original unit of society. The wide distribution of exogamy and the probable priority of the system of female to that of male descent were first brought prominently to notice by Mr. M’Lennan. Still a distinct trace of the prior form survives here in the special relationship sometimes found to exist between a man and his sister’s children. This is a survival of the period when a woman’s children, under the rule of female descent, belonged to her own family and her husband or partner in sexual relations had no proprietary right or authority over them, the place and authority of a father belonging in such a condition of society to the mother’s brother or brothers. Among the Halbas a marriage is commonly arranged when practicable between a brother’s daughter and a sister’s son. And a man always shows a special regard and respect for his sister’s son, touching the latter’s feet as to a superior, while whenever he desires to make a gift as an offering of thanks and atonement, or as a meritorious action, the sister’s son is the recipient. At his death he usually leaves a substantial legacy, such as one or two buffaloes, to his sister’s son, the remainder of the property going to his own family. Similarly among the Kamārs the marriage of a man’s children with his sister’s children is considered the most suitable union. If a man’s sister is poor, he will arrange for the weddings of her children. He will never beat his sister’s children however much they may deserve it, and he will not permit his sister’s son or daughter to eat from the dish from which he eats. The last rule, it is said, also applies to the maternal aunt. The Kunbis, and other Marātha castes, have a saying: ‘At the sister’s house the brother’s daughter is a daughter-in-law.’ The Gonds call the wedding of a brother’s daughter to a sister’s son Dūdh lautāna, or ‘bringing back the milk.’ The reason why a brother was formerly anxious to marry his daughter to his sister’s son was that the latter would be his heir under the matriarchal system; but now that inheritance is through males, and girls are at a premium for marriage, a brother is usually more anxious to get his sister’s daughter for his son, and on the analogy of the opposite union it is sometimes supposed, as among the Gonds, that he also has a right to her. Many other instances of the special relation between a brother and his sister’s children are given by Sir J.G. Frazer in Totemism and Exogamy. In some localities also the Korkus build their villages in two long lines of houses on each side of the road, and it may be the case that this is a relic of the period when two or more clans with female descent lived in the same village, and those belonging to each class who could not marry or have sexual relations among themselves occupied one side of the road.

70. Marriage

The transfer of the reckoning of kinship and descent from the mother’s to the father’s side may perhaps be associated with the full recognition of the physical fact of paternity. Though they may not have been contemporaneous in all or even the majority of societies, it would seem that the former was in most cases the logical outcome of the latter, regard being had also to the man’s natural function as protector of the family and provider of its sustenance. But this transition from female to male kinship was a social revolution of the first importance. Under the system of female descent there had been generally no transfer of clanship; both the woman and her partner or husband retained their own clans, and the children belonged to their mother’s clan. In the totemic stage of society the totem-clan was the vital organism, and the individual scarcely realised his own separate existence, but regarded himself as a member of his totem-clan, being a piece or fraction of a common life which extended through all the members of the clan and all the totem animals of the species. They may have thought also that each species of animals and plants had a different kind of life, and consequently also each clan whose life was derived from, and linked to, that of its totem-species. For the name, and life, and qualities, and flesh and blood were not separate conceptions, but only one conception; and since the name and qualities were part of the life, the life of one species could not be the same as that of another, and every species which had a separate name must have been thought to have a different kind of life. Nor would man have been regarded as a distinct species in the early totem-stage, and there would be no word for man; but each totem-clan would regard itself as having the same life as its totem-species. With the introduction of the system of male kinship came also the practice of transferring a woman from her own clan to that of her husband. It may be suggested that this was the origin of the social institution of marriage. Primitive society had no provision for such a procedure, which was opposed to its one fundamental idea of its own constitution, and involved a change of the life and personality of the woman transferred.

71. Marriage by capture

The view seems to have been long held that this transfer could only be effected by violence or capture, the manner in which presumably it was first practised. Marriage by capture is very widely prevalent among savage races, as shown by Mr. M’Lennan in Primitive Marriage, and by Dr. Westermarck in The History of Human Marriage. Where the custom has given place to more peaceable methods of procuring a wife, survivals commonly occur. In Bastar the regular capture of the girl is still sometimes carried out, though the business is usually arranged by the couple beforehand, and the same is the case among the Kolāms of Wardha. A regular part of the marriage procedure among the Gonds and other tribes is that the bride should weep formally for some hours, or a day before the wedding, and she is sometimes taught to cry in the proper note. At the wedding the bride hides somewhere and has to be found or carried off by the bridegroom or his brother. This ritualistic display of grief and coyness appears to be of considerable interest. It cannot be explained by the girl’s reluctance to marriage as involving the loss of her virginity, inasmuch as she is still frequently not a virgin at her wedding, and to judge from the analogy of other tribes, could seldom or never have been one a few generations back. Nor is affection for her family or grief at the approaching separation from them a satisfactory motive. This would not account for the hiding at all, and not properly for the weeping, since she will after all only live a few miles away and will often return home; and sometimes she does not only weep at her own house but at all the houses of the village. The suggestion may be made that the procedure really indicates the girl’s reluctance to be severed from her own clan and transferred to another; and that the sentiment is a survival of the resistance to marriage by capture which was at first imposed on the women by the men from loyalty to the clan totem and its common life, and had nothing to do with the conjugal relationship of marriage. But out of this feeling the sexual modesty of women, which had been non-existent in the matriarchal condition of society, was perhaps gradually developed. The Chamārs of Bilāspur have sham fights on the approach of the wedding party, and in most Hindu castes the bridegroom on his arrival performs some militant action, such as striking the marriage-shed or breaking one of its festoons. After the marriage the bride is nearly always sent home with the bridegroom’s party for a few days, even though she may be a child and the consummation of the marriage impossible. This may be in memory of her having formerly been carried off, and some analogous significance may attach to our honeymoon. When the custom of capture had died down it was succeeded by the milder form of elopement, or the bride was sold or exchanged against a girl from the bridegroom’s family or clan, but there is usually a relic of a formal transfer, such as the Hindu Kanyadān or gift of the virgin, the Roman Traditio in manum or her transfer from her father’s to her husband’s power, and the giving away of the bride.

72. Transfer of the bride to her husband’s clan

These customs seem to mark the transfer of the woman from her father’s to her husband’s clan, which was in the first instance effected forcibly and afterwards by the free gift of her father or guardian, and the change of surname would be a relic of the change of clan. Among the Hindus a girl is never called by her proper name in her husband’s house, but always by some other name or nickname. This custom seems to be a relic of the period when the name denoted the clan, though it no longer has any reference either to the girl’s clan or family. Another rite portraying the transfer in India is the marking of the bride’s forehead with vermilion, which is no doubt a substitute for blood. The ceremony would be a relic of participation in the clan sacrifice when the bride would in the first place drink the blood of the totem animal or tribal god with the bridegroom in sign of her admission to his clan and afterwards be marked with the blood as a substitute. This smear of vermilion a married woman always continues to wear as a sign of her state, unless she wears pink powder or a spangle as a substitute.167 Where this pink powder (kunku) or spangles are used they must always be given by the bridegroom to the bride as part of the Sohāg or trousseau. At a Bhaina wedding the bride’s father makes an image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom’s sept and places it beside the marriage-post. The bridegroom worships the image, lighting a sacrificial fire before it, or offers to it the vermilion which he afterwards smears upon the forehead of the bride. The Khadāls at their marriages worship their totem animal or tree, and offer to it flowers, sandalwood, vermilion, uncooked rice, and the new clothes and ornaments intended for the bride, which she may not wear until this ceremony has been performed. Again, the sacrament of the Meher or marriage cakes is sometimes connected with the clan totem in India. These cakes are cooked and eaten sacramentally by all the members of the family and their relatives, the bride and bridegroom commencing first. Among the Kols the relatives to whom these cakes are distributed cannot intermarry, and this indicates that the eating of them was formerly a sacrament of the exogamous clan. The association of the totem with the marriage cakes is sometimes clearly shown. Thus in the Dahāit caste members of the clans named after certain trees, go to the tree at the time of their weddings and invite it to be present at the ceremony. They offer the marriage cakes to the tree. Those of the Nāgotia or cobra clan deposit the cakes at a snake’s hole. Members of the Singh (lion) and Bāgh (tiger) clans draw images of these animals on the wall at the time of their weddings and offer the cakes to them. The Basors of the Kulatia or somersault clan do somersaults at the time of eating the cakes; those of the Karai Nor clan, who venerate a well, eat the cakes at a well and not at home. Basors of the Lurhia clan, who venerate a grinding-stone, worship this implement at the time of eating the marriage cakes. M. Fustel de Coulanges states that the Roman Confarreatio, or eating of a cake together by the bride and bridegroom in the presence of the family gods of the latter, constituted their holy union or marriage. By this act the wife was transferred to the gods and religion of her husband.168 Here the gods referred to are clearly held to be the family gods, and in the historical period it seems doubtful whether the Roman gens was still exogamous. But if the patriarchal family developed within the exogamous clan tracing descent through males, and finally supplanted the clan as the most important social unit, then it would follow that the family gods were only a substitute for the clan gods, and the bride came to be transferred to her husband’s family instead of to his clan. The marriage ceremony in Greece consisted of a common meal of a precisely similar character,169 and the English wedding cake seems to be a survival of such a rite. At their weddings the Bhīls make cakes of the large millet juāri, calling it Juāri Māta or Mother Juāri. These cakes are eaten at the houses of the bride and bridegroom by the members of their respective clans, and the remains are buried inside the house as sacred food. Dr. Howitt states of the Kurnai tribe: “By and by, when the bruises and perhaps wounds received in these fights (between the young men and women) had healed, a young man and a young woman might meet, and he, looking at her, would say, for instance, ‘Djiitgun!170 What does the Djiitgun eat?’ The reply would be ‘She eats kangaroo, opossum,’ or some other game. This constituted a formal offer and acceptance, and would be followed by the elopement of the couple as described in the chapter on Marriage.”171 There is no statement that the question about eating refers to the totem, but this must apparently have been the original bearing of the question, which otherwise would be meaningless. Since this proposal of marriage followed on a fight between the boys and girls arising from the fact that one party had injured the other party’s sex-totem, the fight may perhaps really have been a preliminary to the proposal and have represented a symbolic substitute for or survival of marriage by capture. Among the Santāls, Colonel Dalton says, “the social meal that the boy and girl eat together is the most important part of the ceremony, as by the act the girl ceases to belong to her father’s tribe and becomes a member of the husband’s family.” Since the terms tribe and family are obviously used loosely in the above statement, we may perhaps substitute clan in both cases. Many other instances of the rite of eating together at a wedding are given by Dr. Westermarck.172 If, therefore, it be supposed that the wedding ceremony consisted originally of the formal transfer of the bride to the bridegroom’s clan, and further that the original tie which united the totem-clan was the common eating of the totem animal, then the practice of the bride and bridegroom eating together as a symbol of marriage can be fully understood. When the totem animal had ceased to be the principal means of subsistence, bread, which to a people in the agricultural stage had become the staff or chief support of life, was substituted for it, as argued by Professor Robertson Smith in The Religion of the Semites. If the institution of marriage was thus originally based on the forcible transfer of a woman from her own to her husband’s clan, certain Indian customs become easily explicable in the light of this view. We can understand why a Brāhman or Rājpūt thought it essential to marry his daughter into a clan or family of higher status than his own; because the disgrace of having his daughter taken from him by what had been originally an act of force, was atoned for by the superior rank of the captor or abductor. And similarly the terms father-in-law and brother-in-law would be regarded as opprobrious because they originally implied not merely that the speaker had married the sister or daughter of the person addressed, but had married her forcibly, thereby placing him in a position of inferiority. A Rājpūt formerly felt it derogatory that any man should address him either as father-or brother-in-law. And the analogous custom of a man refusing to take food in the house of his son-in-law’s family and sometimes even refusing to drink water in their village would be explicable on precisely the same grounds. This view of marriage would also account for the wide prevalence of female infanticide. Because in the primitive condition of exogamy with male descent, girls could not be married in their own clan, as this would transgress the binding law of exogamy, and they could not be transferred from their own totem-clan and married in another except by force and rape. Hence it was thought better to kill girl children than to suffer the ignominy of their being forcibly carried off. Both kinds of female infanticide as distinguished by Sir H. Risley173 would thus originally be due to the same belief. The Khond killed his daughter because she could not be married otherwise than by forcible abduction; not necessarily because he was unable to protect her, but because he could not conceive of her being transferred from one totem-clan to another by any other means; and he was bound to resist the transfer because by acquiescing in it, he would have been guilty of disloyalty to his own totem, whose common life was injured by the loss of the girl. The Rājpūt killed his daughter because it was a disgrace to him to get her married at all outside his clan, and she could not be married within it. Afterwards the disgrace was removed by marrying her into a higher clan than his own and by lavish expenditure on the wedding; and the practice of female infanticide was continued to avoid the ruinous outlay which this primitive view of marriage had originally entailed. The Hindu custom of the Swayamvāra or armed contest for the hand of a Rājpūt princess, and the curious recognition by the Hindu law-books of simple rape as a legitimate form of marriage would be explained on the same ground.