Question 9: Discuss the evidence that suggests that Brahmanical prescriptions about kinship and marriage were not universally followed.
Answer:
Brahmanical prescription about kinship and marriage:
Prescription about kinship
According to Sanskrit texts the term “kula’ was used to designate families and jati for the larger network of kinfolk. The term ‘vamsha’ was used for lineage. Very often people belonging to the same family share food and other resources where they live, work and perform rituals together. Families were considered as the part of larger networks of people defined as relatives a technical term used to define them was kinfolk. While familial ties were considered “natural” and based on blood they can be defined in different ways. For instance, some societies regard cousins as being blood relations, whereas others do not regard as from Historians retrieve information about elite families fairly easily since it is very hard to reconstruct the familial relationship of ordinary people. Historians also try to analyse their attitudes towards family and kinship. These are important, because they provide an insight into people’s thinking. It is also expected ideas would have shaped their action because their actions may have led to changes in their attitudes.
Prescription about marriage
For the continuity of the patrilineage the sons were considered important and the daughters could not over the resources of their household. They were married into families outside the kin. This system was known as exogamy which means marrying outside one’s kin or gotra. The women of high status families were married to the right persons at the right time. Kanyadana or the gift of a daughter in marriage was considered as an important religious duty of the father. With the emergence of new means of communication people came into contact with each other and they began to share their view. So the Brahaman said down codes of their social behaviour. These codes regarding social behaviour were later on enshrined in Dharmashastra. These texts recognised eight types of marriage. Among these types of marriage the four were considered as good while the rest four as condemnable. Satvahana rulers did not follow the exogamy of Brahmans.
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