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Theoretical Significance of the Purum Kinship System — 2025 Paper I
Question · 2025 · Paper I · 10 Marks
Theoretical significance of Purum kinship-system.
Model Answer
VAID ICSIntroduction
The Purum, an old Kuki group of Manipur, were classically described by T. C. Das in The Purums (1945). Their kinship system became theoretically important because it provided material for debates on descent, prescriptive alliance and the relation between kinship terminology and marriage rules.
Prescriptive alliance and marriage exchange
The Purum system is significant because it shows how marriage is not simply an individual relation but a regulated exchange between social groups. Their kin categories indicate preferred or prescribed marriage relations, especially through cross-cousin/alliance principles. This supported the wider argument of Claude Levi-Strauss in The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) that marriage exchange creates alliances between groups.
Kinship terminology as social structure
Purum terms do not merely name relatives; they classify people according to rights, duties, avoidance, joking, marriageability and ritual obligations. This makes the system important for understanding the structural logic of kinship.
Debate in kinship theory
The Purum case was also used in later discussions by Rodney Needham and others to examine whether kinship should be interpreted mainly through descent, alliance, terminology or actual social practice.
Conclusion
The Purum kinship system is theoretically significant because it links terminology, marriage prescription and alliance formation. It remains a useful case for understanding how kinship acts as a cultural code for social organisation.
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