The Khasi Matrilineal System

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Chapter 5 Discussion 5.1 Introduction Based on the research questions the researcher, in this chapter will discuss synthesis and evaluate to develop connections between what is known and what emerges from the study, to create new understandings or new knowledge. The significant data from the previous chapter, Findings, will provide the basis of the material for the researcher in addition to knowledge expressed through or inferred by the Literature Review. This chapter is divided into three sections in the first section the researcher will highlight the concept of the original Khasi matrilineal, lineage, marriage, inheritance and the maternal uncle. In the second section the researcher will highlight and discuss the changes in the Khasi matrilineal…show more content…
Thus, any society, which follows these three norms, is presently called matrilineal society. Matriliny is a system in which descent is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors it is also a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriliny or mother's lineage, this involves the inheritance of property and/or titles. In a matrilineal descent system an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as her or his mother (Chacko, 1998). According to (A. Q. Lyngdoh & Nongkynrih, 2015) they stated that in the original Khasi matrilineal system constitutes of the kni (maternal uncle) as the centre of authority and economy, and the kni’s sister with her children from a father from another clan, who has nothing to do with this family except…show more content…
the father, these various conflicting situations like the one between nuclear families and matrilineal descent groups, between natal and conjugal loyalties, between ownership of properties and authority and conflict between a man’s children and his sister’s children. Education, urbanisation, and change from subsistence economy to market economy all these factors have contributed in the gradual disappearance of the matrilineal system (Passah, 1998). "As a result of these, increasing importance is being given to nuclear families, Iing (family), Kpoh (clan) and Kur (community) are no longer the strong forces of social cohesion and solidarity as they were in the past," (J. War, 1998). From the literature on matrilineal society it has been found that some of the matrilineal societies have changed through the ages to patriarchy and this process is making a progress in roads into the remaining matriarchal societies which are coming into contact with the outer world (Vidyarthi & Rai, 1985). Khasi matriliny in this sense is similar to the fourteen disintegrating matrilineal societies examined by Gough, such as the Tongs, Ndembu, Bemba, Ashanti, Hopi, Minangkabau and so on. As Gough has rightly pointed, variations may exist in the steps, in the process, and in the degree of change; however, the end results are the same (Gough,
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