मराठीच्या बोलींचे सर्वेक्षण

Survey of Dialects of the Marathi Language

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Husband’s mother’s brother
28 October 2021

The lexical variants presented in the note below are arranged according to their frequency of occurrence in the survey data-from most frequent to least frequent.

The following variants were noted in different regions of Maharashtra to refer to ‘husband’s mother’s brother’: mama, kaka, sasre, mamsasre, wəḍil, culta, bap, baba, moṭʰa ba, mawḷa, mawḷe sasre, pʰuysaka, ajja, bʰako, bʰaswayri, etc.

The words used to refer to the kin relationships provide an insight into different marriage customs in India. The customs regarding who can marry whom in a consanguineous marriage vary across southern, central and northern regions of India. In many of the southern regions, it is a customary practice to get one's father's sister's son/daughter married to the mother’s brother’s daughter/son. In some regions, it is also a customary practice to get one’s daughter married to the mother’s brother. In cases where mother’s brother is a potential groom, any male who is addressed by the kin term mama can also be a potential groom. In regions where it is culturally acceptable for the girl to marry mother’s brother or father’s sister’s son, the words kaka, bap, culta, wəḍil are commonly used to refer to the husband’s mother’s brother. This is because the husband’s mother’s brother is regarded as a father-like figure for the girl. The words mama, sasre, mamasasre, mawle sasre were reported in families where such matrimonial relations are considered taboo.

Following variants were observed for this concept in the SDML survey: