Reviewing the contributions made to Indian sociology by various thinkers, Yogendra Singh says that during the 1950s and 1960s, much literature was generated by social anthropologists, economists and historians.
“On family and kinship systems the contributions of Louis Dumont demonstrated the structural similarity between the interregional kinship systems.” Dumont picked up some communities from north and south India and studied their kinship systems. He has also made a comparison between the two groups belonging to these regions.
Dumont differs from Iravati Karve. The latter establishes that there is difference in the northern and southern kinship systems. It is the diversity between these two systems that summarizes the contribution of Karve. Dumont, on the other hand, argues that there is a strong homogeneity between the two.
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He has compared his findings with the findings of Karve in one of his articles published in The Contributions to Indian Sociology.
Dumont says that despite some differences in the kinship systems of the two regions, there is a strong homogeneity in the valuation, elaboration and ordering or patterning of affinal relationships. There is also similarity in the ceremonial presentations.
Though Dumont has studied kinship systems from the structural perspective, his theoretical contributions do not give us an overall understanding of India’s kinship system.