Family and marriage

1. Family: meaning

• MacIver and Page: the family is “a group defined by a sex relationship sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children”.
• Burgess and Locke: a group of persons united by ties of marriage, blood or adoption, constituting a single household, interacting with each other in their social roles of husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister, and creating a common culture.
• G.P. Murdock (Social Structure, 1949): a social group characterised by common residence, economic co-operation and reproduction.

2. Characteristics (MacIver)

1. Universality — found in every society.
2. Emotional basis — love, affection, parental care.
3. Limited size — the smallest social unit.
4. Formative influence — the first environment shaping personality.
5. Nuclear position in the social structure — other groups are built from families.
6. Responsibility of members — members make sacrifices for one another.
7. Social regulation — guarded by customs and laws on marriage, inheritance and divorce.
8. Permanent and temporary — permanent as an institution, temporary as an association.

3. Types of family

• By structure: nuclear (husband, wife and unmarried children) and joint or extended (several generations under one roof, sharing property, kitchen and worship). Iravati Karve defined the Hindu joint family as a group of people who generally live under one roof, eat food cooked at one hearth, hold property in common, participate in common family worship and are related to one another as some particular type of kindred.
• By authority: patriarchal and matriarchal.
• By descent: patrilineal and matrilineal (the Nairs of Kerala historically, the Khasis and Garos of Meghalaya).
• By residence: patrilocal, matrilocal, neolocal.
• By marriage: monogamous and polygamous families.

4. Functions of the family

MacIver divides them into essential (primary) and non-essential (secondary) functions.

Primary (essential) functions

1. Stable satisfaction of the sex need under social regulation.
2. Procreation and rearing of children — continuity of the society.
3. Provision of a home — affection, security and emotional support.
4. Socialisation — the family transmits culture, language and values (added by most writers).

Secondary (non-essential) functions

1. Economic — the family was once a unit of production; it remains a unit of consumption and inheritance.
2. Educational — first lessons, skills and, historically, hereditary crafts.
3. Religious — household worship, rites of passage.
4. Recreational — festivals, family gatherings.
5. Health and protection — care of the sick, aged and disabled.
6. Status-giving — ascribed status of caste, class and name.

Murdock named four universal functions: sexual, reproductive, economic and educational. Ogburn argued that many functions have passed to schools, hospitals, the State and the market, leaving the family with affectional functions.

5. Marriage: meaning and features

Westermarck (The History of Human Marriage, 1891): marriage is “a more or less durable connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring”. Lowie: marriage is a relatively permanent bond between permissible mates. In Hindu tradition marriage is a sacrament (samskara); in Islam it is a contract (nikah).

Features: universal; a relationship between man and woman (the traditional definition); social approval; durability; regulated by norms (who may marry whom); establishes rights and duties; legitimises children; connected with ceremonies; creates the family.

6. Forms of marriage

By number of mates

• Monogamy — one spouse at a time; the legal rule under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
• Polygyny — one man, several wives. Sororal polygyny (wives are sisters) and non-sororal.
• Polyandry — one woman, several husbands. Fraternal (husbands are brothers, as historically among the Todas and the Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar) and non-fraternal (historically among the Nairs).
• Group marriage — several men married to several women; rare.

By rules of mate selection

• Endogamy — marriage within one’s own group (caste, sub-caste, religion).
• Exogamy — marriage outside a group (gotra, sapinda, village, clan).
• Hypergamy (anuloma) — a woman marries a man of higher caste or status; hypogamy (pratiloma) — a woman marries a man of lower status.
• Preferential marriage — cross-cousin marriage in South India, levirate and sororate.

The eight forms in the Hindu shastras

Brahma, Daiva, Arsha, Prajapatya (approved); Asura, Gandharva, Rakshasa, Paishacha (disapproved).

7. Recent changes in marriage and the role of legislation

1. From sacrament to contract. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 allows divorce (section 13) and mutual-consent divorce (section 13B, added 1976), weakening the idea of an indissoluble bond.
2. Monogamy enforced for Hindus; bigamy is an offence under section 82 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
3. Rise in age at marriage. The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 (Sarda Act) and now the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 fix 21 for men and 18 for women.
4. Widow remarriage permitted by the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act, 1856.
5. Choice of partner. Love and inter-caste marriages are increasing with education, urbanisation and women’s employment; the Special Marriage Act, 1954 permits civil marriage across religion.
6. Dowry is prohibited by the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961; dowry death (section 80) and cruelty by husband or relatives (sections 85–86) are offences under the BNS, though the practice persists.
7. Protection within marriage: Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005; the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 makes instant triple talaq void and punishable.
8. Other trends: smaller weddings or registered marriages, rising divorce in cities, live-in relationships, decline of the joint family and of exogamy rules, and matrimonial websites replacing kin networks.

How this is examined

Functions of the family: definition, MacIver’s characteristics in brief, then primary and secondary functions in two numbered lists, ending with Ogburn on loss of functions. Marriage: definitions, features, forms in three groups, and changes with Acts named and dated. A short note on forms of marriage takes only section 6.