Setting Sail for Lakshadweep: Leela Dube and the Study of Matrilineal Kinship

Abstract

In this article I engage with Prof. Leela Dube’s fascinating work on matriliny in Lakshadweep which addressed critical questions in anthropology/sociology and feminist studies. Her discussion about the disjuncture between codified Islamic law and practice in relation to marriage and property devolution, her elaboration on the way law was manipulated strategically, and the image of flexibility in kinship practices are all important for a contemporary understanding of matriliny and kinship in general. Similarly, her discussion of what matriliny meant for women and more broadly the intersections of gender and kinship remain important concerns in the study of kinship. Furthermore, I point to the shifts in her work as she engaged with feminist politics and scholarship.

Doing Kinship and Gender in a Comparative Context

“…45–46, emphasis added). The ‘excitement’ of reading and writing on matrilineal kinship systems, and her own brief stint of field work in 1969 among a matrilineal Muslim community on the Lakshadweep Islands off the Kerala coast—a world away from her own social habitus—further confirmed her lifelong commitment to this field (Abraham, 2017; Sharma, 2005, p. 30).…”

“…This was her challenge to current Indian sociological/anthro-pological theory and practice by the self-conscious deployment of the ‘comparative method’ for engaging with empirical problems of social structure—not merely within , but also across , countries and regions. Once again, this aspect of her work was an evolving process rather than an epistemic rupture, beginning with her fascination for the perturbations of matrilineal kinship systems in different sociocultural settings (Abraham, 2017). It was also sharpened by her recognition of the global context within which the CSWI exercise was nested, persuading her that ‘[c]ross-cultural understanding and comparative analyses of various family systems in the world could help [in tackling gender bias]’.…”

“…This asymmetry was the core of the so-called ‘matrilineal puzzle’, and the source of the supposed instability or fragility of kinship groupings based on matrilineal descent, or indeed of matrilineal kinship as an institution destined for extinction in the course of human evolution. As Janaki Abraham’s essay shows (Abraham, 2017), Leelaji would not accept this stereotype at face value, and instead highlighted the flexibility and potential for ‘negotiation’ that the asymmetry enabled in actual practice (1997a, pp. 154–156), as for instance in the Lakshadweep case, the pragmatic accommodation of the strongly ‘patriarchal’ bias of official Islam with Kalpeni island’s pre-existing matrilineal kinship system.…”

Apakah sistem kekerabatan matrilinieal di suku Minang masih membudaya? Analisis tematik pada makna pemberian dukungan sosial mamak kepada kemenakan

“…Perubahan sistem kekerabatan matrilineal menuju sistem kekerabatan non-matrilineal, sebenarnya juga terjadi pada suku-suku matrilineal lain di dunia, bahkan diramalkan bahwa sistem kekerabatan ini tidak lagi digunakan di masa yang akan datang (Shenk, Begley, Nolin, & Swiatek, 2019). Penyebabnya adalah perubahan sosial seperti: pengenalan kapitalisme pada saat penjajahan Belanda yang memunculkan "man's power" yang menandingi penguasaan ekonomi oleh perempuan dan masuknya agama Islam yang memperkenalkan nilainilai patrilineal (Abraham, 2017;Blanchy, 2019;Osella, 2012;Quisumbing & Otsuka, 2001). Ketika laki-laki Minangkabau pada akhirnya menguasai sumber ekonomi dan mengambil alih istri dan anak kandung di bawah kekuasaannya, maka ikatan antara suami-istri dalam struktur keluarga batih akan menguat bersamaan dengan melemahnya ikatan laki-laki tersebut dengan saudara perempuannya.…”

Debating Gender Inequalities: Culture, Economics and Choice

“…In looking at her assertion of the social, we see LD’s second concern and her particular focus—the variety of rules, structures and practices of kinship-marriage systems, including property, descent and residence, and the gendered implications of these rules and practices. In the debate I am reviewing, she drew on the comparative study of kinship in South and Southeast Asia (1997) that she had by then begun (see Uberoi, 2017), as well as her earlier monograph on kinship studies in India (1974; see Uberoi, 2017) and her long interest in the matrilineal Muslim community of Lakshadweep (1994; 1996; with Kutty 1969; see Abraham, 2017). Her comparative work led her to question the idea that ‘boy preference prevails in nearly all societies’ (Kumar, 1983a, p. 61; 1983b, p. 1075).…”