Munda kinship pattern

[nanda chandran]

Maybe such instances of cross-cousin, uncle-niece marraiges have more to do
with circumstances.

In the Buddhist legends, where the Buddha himself takes pride that his
family preserved the purity of their race by resorting to incest - the
circumstance is that they had no other option. Being driven into exile, the
brothers and sisters were forced to commit incest. And the way the story is
told, there's hardly any doubt that this was an exception rather than an
accepted social custom.

I know of atleast one case in my family where an uncle married his niece,
the reason being that they didn't want their wealth to go out of the family!
This kind of marraige is pretty common amongst the Tamils.

With their migration into Southern lands, the brahmins not finding many of
their own lot in the vicinity might have well resorted to uncle-niece
marraiges, which was anyway an accepted custom in their environs.

The further split of the smartha fold due to the emergence of Vaishnavism,
might have added to this problem. Must have been a big problem for the
Vaishnavites, since their following was much smaller.

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