The clan system has an elaborate social structure. In a single village, there are two or three clans. Generally, the clans have their hierarchy in a tribe. R.H. Lowie has made an attempt to establish different orders of clan among the African primitive groups.
In western India S.L. Dolin informs that the Mairiya among the Bhils occupy a higher rank. It is followed by Damor. Similar ranking is also found in Gond and Santhal tribes.
Majumdar and Madan in their Introductory Social Anthropology have described the social structure of a clan. According to them, the clans are divided into two: (1) phratry, and (2) moiety.
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Some anthropologists have called phratry lined xlans. Actually, the phratry is a blood related group. It is exogamous. When for some reason, two, three or more clans unite together, the union is called phratry.
Sometimes it so happens that in a large tribal group some people having common blood ties establishes a separate identity. This autonomous and separate identity is called phratry.
The phratries in a tribal group are individually called a moiety. Thus, the moiety is a part of a phratry. In a single tribe there could be phratries and each part of the phratry is a moiety. The phratry, therefore, constitute a dual organization of the tribe. In a phratry, thus, there could be several clans.
In the following figure we give the social structure of clan:
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The function of phratry and dual organization is normally to regulate marriages. Empirically, these days, the clan has limited functions. Its identity survives only in implementing the marriage rules.
The boundaries of phratries have also become loose. It appears that in the wake of modernization which the tribals are experiencing the hierarchy and status of phratry is fast dwindling.
The rights of reservation in terms of safety and security have weakened the dual division of clan. Reservations, is basically concerned with the tribal group and not the clan. This makes phratry irrelevant.