Matriliny among the Khasis A Study in Retrospect and Prospect

The study conducted in Nongkrem and Sarwmer Villages of East Khasi Hills District, Meghalaya, India. Kinship studies were central to anthropological researches in the mid-twentieth century, and later, for a few decades. Kinship study is the crown of anthropology. It is to anthropology what the study of the state is to political science. Kinship relations are universally found, notwithstanding the scale of society, although in contemporary times, it may not be the principle of social organization as Lewis H. Morgan thought. The ubiquity of kinship is because each society has bonds of consanguinity and affinity – the kinspersons share biogenetic substances, though the adoption of children in a group from the other groups may also be practised, and persons conquered as slaves from neighbouring communities may also be adopted in a family in the course of time depending upon their good demeanour.