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Re: A doubt on gothras

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Pradeep Janakiraman • November 12, 2002 


The answer to your question lies in your posting itself. You had said 
that Gothram is based on a patriarchal lineage. 

Therefore, the wife converts to the Gothram of the husband's family 
after marriage, since Gothrams are determined based on the "kulam" or 
the family to which one belongs.

Since the woman moves into a new family, she would be expected to 
follow those customs and rituals, as she would live in that family 
(which probably would have been joint-family system). 

When we look at Manu's Dharma Shastram, we see that if a Kshatriya 
marries a girl from the other 3 castes, viz Kshatriya, Vaishya, 
Sudra, the girl comes to live in the palace and lives the life of a 
queen, and hence converts to the rituals and customs of the 
destination. 

The reason why the child gets the father's gothram(in the case of 
Brahmins) is because of the fact that the seed(bijam) is considered 
the more determining factor than the field in which it is sown. The 
seed determines what grows out of it. 

But, if we look at elementary genetics, the off-spring has a pretty 
good chance of acquiring the mother's characteristics also. So there 
is come confusion as to why our ancestors chose the patriarchal gene 
pool as the dominating one. 

You would probably need to consult some expert on the subtle nuances 
of Dharma-Shastram to get your queries answered further. 

Radhe Krishna

-- Pradeep 





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