NEGOTIATING PATRILINY

RAJNI PALRIWALA

INTRODUCTION

Gender inequality permeates society at all levels and in the context of most social institutions. One
institution in which gender inequality remains resistant to change is the family. Over time, various
theories have examined the causes of gender inequality generally, including biology, sex roles, and
“doing gender,” each of which has also been applied to gender inequality in the family. Critiques of
these approaches include their over-determinism, inability to grapple with gender inequality at
macro social levels, and failure to theorize about change. The gender as structure approach looks at
gender across multiple levels of social reality simultaneously.

Feminists have critiqued family as the arena for gender-based oppression. Two fundamental issues
emerge here central to this subject. The first, concerned with the linking of domains historically,
has been the impact of economic and political processes on `traditional' kinship and gender
relations. The second issue is why women seem more concerned to maintain their family and
foster kinship ties and values when these seem to oppress them. This can be found by doing a
unified analysis of family and gender.

ECONOMIC PROCESSES, HOUSEHOLD STRATEGIES AND CALUATION OF WORKERS

Abolition of jagirdari in 1950s changed the rural set-up. Land reforms took place though the land
holding share was in accordance to caste and class ranking with the high caste and class people
having high share, middle class having reasonable share and low caste people having low share.
With electrification in 1970s there was a dramatic increase in the number of tube wells, extent of
irrigated land and yield. There was a growth in demand for female household labour in animal
husbandry and agriculture, and male labour in cultivation.

As agricultural growth was new and uncertain many resorted to the non-agricultural sector to boost
their earnings. Work-related emigration became widespread. Unemployment and the search for
subsistence though reinforced traditional forms of security like agriculture. Occupational multiplicity
for individuals and households were emphasized. People there fostered ritual kin relationships and
patron-client ties with the view towards employment opportunities, future loans amongst others.
New income sources both depended on and made possible the maintenance of social networks. A
household's network was related to its ability to offer hospitality. Upward mobility, high status and
symbolic capital in Panchwas (a village in Jaipur) were expressed through an extended social
network. This entailed acquisition of surplus to enable expanded gift exchange and hospitality. Thus
the overlapping and mutually supporting networks of kinship, caste, and clientage were given a fresh
life by the developmental processes. These networks provided the forms in which attempts to
cultivate new links were shaped.

With the growth of economy and the shift from agriculture to non-agriculture sector two kinds of
workers emerged. Agricultural workers mostly employed persons from the family who were not
remunerated while the persons working outside this sector were remunerated periodically and
thus earned recognition and were valued in the household’s economic and social strategy. Here

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 also many less women worked outside household and that too for low wages. Households
depended on individual male earners. In addition agricultural developments had further devalued
women’s household labour.

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND PATRILINY

Economic and social strategies of panchwasis were connected to the maintenance and
enhancement of their social networks. The most important segment of a household’s social world
consisted of kin, affines, neighbours, patrons and clients with whom interaction and gift exchange
was regular. Maintaining as well as enhancement of a household’s social status were directly linked
to following of social norms like gift exchange between affines, normative division of gender roles
and rules pertaining to women’s behaviour, modesty and shame. Central to their ethos of their
social world were notions and practices of patriliny and patri-virilocal residence.

Patriliny defined – group membership and inheritance of property. The coparcenary unit consisting
of men who by birth take an interest in the joint property, i.e., a person himself, his sons, sons' sons
and sons' sons' sons, was the core of the family. They inherited the property. Group membership and
continuity were reaffirmed and marked, in conjunction with status, at rituals, particularly weddings,
in the gathering of the kabeela - the lineage of cooperation, and in public gift exchange among them.

Women were kept separate from family property. Marriage for women meant dual loyalties to
both natal and marital groups for women. Women had rights only to their maintenance and to
‘gifts’ which did not include any share in property. Among Muslims, daughters' Shariat right to a half
share was voiced as a residual right, and at the most as a gift a generous brother may give a destitute
sister. Family line was a patrilineal descent group with a core of male agnates while female agnates
and married woman were of varying and transient significance.

Patriliny was being manipulated to exclude the extended kin group and women from property,
while maintaining the extended group as a unit of social support and sanction. Simultaneously, the
lack of economic alternatives for women and their valuation in terms of dowry meant their
continuing dependence on family ties.

Patri-virilocal residence stressed male agnates as the core of the lineage and/or the family, making
women junior and minimal participants in the life of their natal families/`lineages'. Women’s
residential practice constantly restated that they were transient owing to the fact that after
marriage, for a fair length of time new brides moved back and forth between natal and conjugal
homes.

INTRA-HOUSEHOLD AUTHORITY AND CONTROL OVER CONSUMPTION

Household head was always the senior-most male adult. Decisions regarding all the matters were
taken by him after consultation with other adult male members and senior women. He was ultimate
authority in labour allocation and distribution of consumption goods. The presumption for the power
accorded to him was, he was the most knowledgeable person that was owed to his seniority.

The women of the household were under the triple authority of the head, their husbands, and the
senior woman. The management of various spheres of activities rested primarily on that household
member who was seen as having the knowledge and responsibility of ensuring the work was done.

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 Generally it was women who controlled the household’s grain stocks. Women managed only that
grain that was brought to the house and not the one that was kept for selling. In some households
even the grain was kept inside a locked room controlled by the house head who was the senior male
implying lack of trust in women of the household. Men conducted and controlled the sale of
agricultural products and could veto women’s assessments on the quantity to be retained. Women
were prohibited from selling the surplus in the market without the knowledge of the adult male
members.

Also a woman’s options were few if a man insisted on a decision. There were instances where a
man sold grain to buy alcohol and woman was beaten for resisting. If there was serious depletion of
stock for household purposes due to unnecessary spending like for alcohol, the woman could not
directly tell her husband but had to ask her kin to remonstrate with him, though this had risks of
creating more tensions and conflict.

Commercialisation and a money economy were diversifying men's options but reducing away
women's control. Increasingly, they were dependent on men's cash earnings, on men buying and
stocking wheat or millet for household use from `their' earnings. Earlier constraints on women's
management were exacerbated, and their control diminished, both as normative right and in
practice.

Serving food was the responsibility of the woman. Woman had to face the brunt of men and cries
of children in poor households if food wasn’t provided, not tasty or was not ready on time.
Sometimes woman had to reduce her own consumption to feed the family. Sometimes they barter
and borrowing by women from neighbours and friends to ensure availability of food was also there.
Pathan women used their tie-and-dye income to buy vegetables or tea leaves, though these earnings
were meant for their personal expenses. Money from sales of butter, notionally women's income,
was also so used by Jat women.

So women continued to be economically and socially dependant on their homes for subsistence.
Their personal status depended on their reputation as skilled housewives.

Woman’s hope of achieving status in her marital home was through her sons. Sons were seen to be
women’s support and security at a later age. So women often favoured young sons over older nieces
and daughters-in-law. The women who gained most influence in their marital homes had been
successful in the above, able to contain possible tensions.

These manoeuvrings and negotiations women did primarily to escape oppressive institutions and
bargain with patriarchy as a whole.

THE DISCOURSE AND PRACTICE OF FOOD DISTRIBUTION

The distribution of food was governed by rules and values, witnessed and practised from infancy
onwards. Kinship status, specifically agnation, contribution to household income and work, and the
concrete context of social relationships were the determinants of intra-household access to
consumption. These dimensions could either reinforce or contradict each other, resulting in
variations in practice. Adult male agnates had first priority, but the male head of household and the
person who "earned" were first among equals, particularly in the case of delicacies and "nutritive"
items such as butter. The person who cooked who was usually the youngest daughter-in-law ate at

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 last. Sometimes unexpected guests had to be welcomed and then the cooked food exhausted and
the woman went hungry rather than cooking again. In middle peasant households, often there
could be no vegetables or lentils left and she made do with a pepper paste. In a situation of deficit
she went hungry when other household members did not have to.

Normatively new mothers were given special food after 40 days of childbirth. Natal home was
expected to provide some of the special diet that the mother would consume. The mother of a boy
was fed special foods for longer than the mother of a girl. People would exclaim, "If a mother of a
son is not fed, who will eat!"- One more articulation of patriliny, the status of mother of sons being
crucial in determining women's access to consumption. Sons were the embodiment of family’s
future, and were often favoured over daughters over food with the justification that they must grow
faster and work for the whole family whereas it was assumed that the daughter would marry and
leave her home.

Also the rights of women to consumption were discussed in terms of labour they provided to the
household. Female work was valued less to male work and women were presumed to have less
requirements of nutrition than men. Also dual residence was used to deny a daughter-in-law’s
labour contribution, with the statement, ‘She works elsewhere (her natal home) and eats here’.
Daughters-in-law insisted that with the long hours they worked - grinding flour, fetching water, and
cutting grass - they also needed extra nutrition. At the risk of furthering intra-household tensions,
they could complain to the husband, to be told that this was for his mother to decide.

It was core of the household, the male agnates who had primary right over consumption with the
presumption that the household depended on them. Women had secondary rights and residual
statuses and were considered dependants.

MALE MIGRATION AND CONTROL OF HOUSEHOLD FINANCES

Ideally and in practice men made decisions regarding cash expenditures. Control of household
money usually was with the male head orelse other adult male agnates. It was believed that women
had little knowledge beyond kitchen and their animals and it was believed that men knew the best
and would decide on the welfare of the family.

Many male earners mainly non-agricultural earners stayed away from their families and gave
periodic visits. In such cases sometimes women had some decision making power as to how to run
the family and control over earnings. Three main types of migration were common. When junior
men were away from home it was senior men who decided on cash expenditures with
consultation with other senior members. The second was the case when senior men were away
earning for the family. In this they visited monthly or gave periodical visits. In these cases also
these men controlled household expenditure on regular basis. In the third case earning men
returned to their house annually or biennially. In these cases his wife managed day-to-day
consumption under the guidance of husband’s closest agnates. Many of the decisions made by her
had to be approved by her husband. Sometimes when there was shortage of money she borrowed
money from her close women friends or from household’s with whom they had strong ties.

Often there was shift in household composition. Many preferred separating from their parents and
living with their wives and children as they earned away from their homes, though complex

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 household living was admired in villages. Conflicts arose between senior lame members and young
male earners. Often fathers complained that after giving life, education and a job to son the latter
was earning and didn’t make any contributions to the household. Individual wage complicated the
relationship between parents and son. However, it also complicated the relationship between junior
women and other household members and between husband and wife. Treatment of wife in the
complex household depended on her emigrant husband fulfilling obligations mainly giving money
to the household pool. The wife also didn’t have means to be a part of household decisions or keep
a track of them, her only informer being her emigrant husband. Women often had their personal
incomes in the form of small things like ghee that they sold, or her emigrant husband leaving some
money with her for her personal expenses, but in many middle class and poor households along
with pressures of declining economic resources and the absence of husbands at times of crisis,
their personal income tended to be integrated into household income.

WORKING FOR FAMILY GOOD

The household, in family ideology, was the patriline. If a household and family were to survive and
prosper, men and women, young and old, were essential and had to give and receive their due,
which were inherently differential. Ultimately, family good meant the maintenance and upward
mobility of the male agnatic core. Importantly, women were seen to have no legitimate needs
outside common household needs. On the other hand as men mediated between the world and
household they had individual needs and expenses.

Central to the prosperity of the patriline was the fostering of its social network. Women were
persons via whom social networks were reaffirmed and expanded in marriage, dowry, and continuing
affinal prestations. After marriage also obligations and rights of sisters and daughters continued to
their natal families, and it was balanced with those duties that were concerned of their being
daughter-in-laws. However this very quality of women undermined their integration into any one
agnatic core.

The daughter and sister were seen as liabilities in families. Daughters-in-law were valued for the
dowry they brought. A vicious cycle was established in which women’s labour was devalued and
she was considered an economic burden in her husband’s home who considered the labour that
women provided as a means to settle expenses that was incurred in feeding her.

Women became increasingly dependent on individual males. Women's concern to ensure that
"family relationships" were kept alive, was central not only to household strategy, not only to
deeply embedded moralities, but to their own personal strategies. Their "family conservatism" and
re-assertion of kinship values and sanctions were fuelled by their need to widen their support
base, their security net, to re-socialise individualised ties, even if these meant a re-vitalisation of
those very structures which controlled them.

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