Social Institutions: Caste, Tribe, Family, Marriage and Kinship
What this domain tests
This domain examines institutions that organise Indian social life. Expect questions on caste versus tribe, family forms, marriage rules and kinship terminology, and on how these institutions persist while changing.
Core concepts
- Caste: hereditary, endogamous and hierarchically ranked, historically linked to purity-pollution. Varna is a textual ideal; jati is the lived local group.
- Tribe: often associated with a distinct territory, language, kinship organisation and customs; Scheduled Tribes are constitutionally recognised categories.
- Family: nuclear or joint; patrilineal or matrilineal; residence may be patrilocal, matrilocal or neolocal.
- Marriage: monogamy, polygyny, polyandry; endogamy means marrying within a group, exogamy means marrying outside a clan or village.
- Kinship: consanguineal ties are based on blood; affinal ties arise through marriage. Kinship terms encode generation, gender and side of the family.
Worked example
Among the Khasi of Meghalaya, descent is traced through the mother, and the youngest daughter often inherits ancestral property. Reasoning: matrilineal descent does not mean women hold all political power. Descent, inheritance and residence are separate dimensions. Calling Khasi society “matriarchal” overstates the evidence.
Traps that cost marks
Do not equate caste with class: caste is ascribed and endogamous, while class is achieved and more open. Do not describe tribes as “backward castes”. Do not assume the joint family has vanished; it persists in modified forms. Do not use “polygamy” when you specifically mean polygyny.