Sociology: Family and marriage in India.
NEWS IN SHORT:
- 21-year-old woman in Rajasthan died by suicide and pinned the blame on the age-old ‘aata sata’ tradition in her suicide letter.
- The woman, Suman Choudhary, hailed from Nawa town of Nagaur district in Rajasthan and had died by suicide in Hempura village two days ago. In her suicide letter, she appealed to the society to shun the ‘aata sata’ practice, the Times of India reported.
- “If divorce or marrying against family wishes is not acceptable, then why is ‘aata sata’ acceptable,” the suicide note said.
- ‘Aata saata’ is a system where a family gets their daughter married only when the other family pledges to give them a daughter to be married in their family. The age of the girls offered for matrimony does not matter.
- Simply put, in this tradition, the husband’s sister marries his wife’s brother. According to reports, the tradition is the fallout of low sex ratio of girls in the region
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE:
Syllabus: System of kinship and Marriage
- Mate selection can be said to be a personal affair of social actors and households or families.
- The issue of finding and selecting mate extends beyond the boundary of households. In India many local and national newspapers and internet sites do provide advertisement under matrimonial columns with regard to mate selection.
- In India and among the Hindu population, caste is important when it comes to mate selection. Mate selection is usually arranged. Other factors taken into consideration include Jati endogamy meaning, selecting and marrying a mate from the same Jati rank;
- secondly Gotra exogamy (prohibited relations or equivalent to clan) and varying degrees of prohibited relations with patrikins and the feminal kins; and some villages in India do also follow village exogamy, selecting mate from outside one’s own village (Dumont 1988, Mayer 1986).