The Conceptual and Real Social Groups

The general issues of the kinship groupings can be discussed by separating and pointing to the real from the conceptual groups mentioned in the text. The reality of a group lies in the fact that such a group can be separated on the basis of the functions it performs. Secondly, a real group is related to other such group within the society. Thirdly, the actions of the members of a real group are governed by the knowledge of the membership of it. On the other hand, conceptual groups categorise the society in terms of some sociological criteria usually to understand the working of a society. They may or may not be real. They will be categories rather than groups in so far as they are not real. The validity of categorisation will depend on the concept used. An elementary use of concept of high and low in order to understand the stratification is an example in point.

It has been found that the concepts of household, family, natisalohita, nataka, vanna jati, gotta, and nati have been used in the text. The concept of household is chiefly expressed through the mention of relatives and quasi-relatives in given order. Sometimes the term kutumba also bears the meaning of household. The term for family group is kula and its variation; natisalohita, nataka and nati are the larger kinship groups we have been able to discover. All these groups are real. In contrast vanna and jati and its subdivisions are the concepts found in the text in relation to social stratification. It occurs where a status position is claimed or denied because of it. We may conclude from this that the very claims and their denial suggest the absence of settled grouping in terms of jati and vanna, is that they were the criteria in terms of which, high and low status was contested by an individual. As criteria of grouping we must deny their reality.