……………….Customs and usage has been brilliantly studied by Iravati Karve in her seminal work , Kinship Organization in India. One can have a look at various excepts available on the net.
India has been divided into four zone and Northern Zone has more severe restrictions. However, many time if I belong to northern India I remain under the impression that it is pan India truth at least for Hindus , which is not correct.
Iravati Karve uses a comparative analysis to look out the four cultural zones with an idea to conclude on the regional pattern of social behavior in society. The different regions may show different local patterns. There are different types of caste due to the hierarchy and caste division and separation. Karve looks after all the process of accommodation and acculturation in the field of kinship. She analyzed 3000 years based on ethnic sources, folk literature, observations, and Sanskrit texts.
In northern India, we have (a) blood relation (b) affinal relations. There are essential terms for three ages of immediate relations and the terms for single age cannot be exchanged for those people who are from another generation
Features of northern kinship in India
Territorially
Taboos
Genealogy
Exogamy (local)
Endogamy gets restricted when caste is a concern. Marriage on a large scale of the area gets blocked.
Brahmanas and other upper castes practice the avoidance of fathers, mothers, grandmother and maternal grandmothers gotras in north India. Also known as the rule of Four gotras.
kinship in South India
The regions that come under south India are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and other regions that have people with different languages. It is complex to study the southern areas as they are dominated by the patrilocal and patrilineal system and in some areas matrilineal and matrilocal systems.
If we compare southern and northern kinship we can state that in southern areas we can say there is no difference between the family of birth and the family of marriage and in northern part we have a clear-cut difference.
So here we see marriages are used to strengthen the kin relationships with one another. In south India, there are two sets of a line that guide people or descents with whom one can marry and second with whom one cannot marry.
Mandelbaum, explains Dravidian kinship terminology
“can be derived from a few postulates, a principal one being that the children of brother and sister should marry. The term used for cross-cousin of the opposite sex (a man’s mother’s brother’s daughter and usually also his father’s sister’s daughter) has the connotation of a prospective or possible spouse. By extension, all potential mates are called cross-cousin”.
So, therefore, marriages are used to strengthen the ties among each other. It maintains unity and understanding among kin.
After all his analysis Nur Yalman says:
“ Brother and Sister must be separated but their offspring must also be united”
In Western and Eastern zones too cross cousin marriages are permitted. Normally it will be with maternal sister and not paternal sister.
You may ask why should we learn about these complicated anthropological / sociological issues?
My answer is very simple , some of you want to write about incest based stories or read about incest and for that one must know what is incest.
As I had discussed , ‘ sexual relationship with somebody who you can’t marry is incest. 'Therefore I must know I can’t marry with whom and it will be decided by custom and usage. Only with such a person it will be incest.
To give an example I write a story about a boy who has sexual relationship with his maternal sister and call it ‘ Incest’ tag it also as incest.
But somebody from Southern or Eastern zone or even Amchi Mumbai may say , I can marry my ‘ Mama chi Mulgi ‘ so how it can be incest ? and somebody may complain to mods.
This is why I thought let me just clairify with my very limited knowledge about Incest.
and that explains my failure to write a story based on ' incest'