Revision summary
Patriarchy is organised male authority in kin, property and public life. Dube’s Seed and Earth explains why daughters are not full heirs in practice. Patrilocal marriage and endogamy limit women’s claims. Law grants rights that households may still deny. Wages and office create partial counter-entitlements.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Patriarchy is a social system in which men as a category command authority, property, and the legitimate line. In the Indian family it directly shapes what women may claim as entitlement.
Body
Definition
- Patriarchy is not only a cruel father. It is organised male right in kinship, work, and the state.
- Leela Dube’s Seed and Earth names a Hindu North Indian form: man as seed of the line, woman as field to be guarded.
- It intersects caste and class: a landless Dalit woman and a dominant-caste daughter face different walls, both patriarchal.
Bearings on entitlement
- Descent and residence: patriliny and patrilocal marriage send the daughter out, so the natal house treats her as a guest in property.
- Inheritance: even after Hindu succession amendments, brothers often keep the field; title on paper is not tilling power.
- Sexuality and honour: control of marriage is control of the jati, which Ghurye listed as endogamy and which politics still polices.
- Care and unpaid work: entitlement to leisure, food, and medical spending is ranked; NFHS-type patterns of anaemia show household distribution, not only poverty.
- Law versus family: domestic violence and maintenance statutes exist in Beteille’s disharmonic order; panchayat and kin often restore the seed line.
Change
- Education, wages, and panchayat reservation create new claims.
- The family system still makes entitlement a negotiation against patriarchy, not a delivered right.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD P[Patriarchy] --> S[Seed and Earth patriliny] S --> E[Weak property and honour control] L[Law wages office] --> C[Partial new entitlements]
Conclusion
Patriarchy is structured male command of line and resources. It has direct bearings on Indian women’s family entitlements in land, residence, honour, and care. Statutes puncture it; kinship often absorbs the puncture.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Compare the north Indian kinship System with the South Indian kinship system
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q3(c)). View answer →
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Is matriliny free of patriarchy?
Property may follow women. Office and violence can still be male-dominated.
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Does paid work end family patriarchy?
It strengthens bargaining. Honour and land can still overrule a wage.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2018 · Q4(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the issues relating to the entitlement of transgender in Indian society.
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