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 words were noted in different dialects of Marathi for the concepts ‘ego’s husband’s father’ and ‘ego’s wife’s father’:

sasra, sasre, səsro(s), sasros, sasrebuwa, səsur, soɡ, səsurǰi, susraǰi, susro, susər, susra, sasrə, mama, mamaǰi, mamaǰinu, maw, mao, pʰuwaǰi, yəhi, dəlla, həro, hahəra, haora, hawro, əkkəḍsasra, etc.

Dhongde (2013: 75) has noted the kinship term sasra for this concept. In the SDML survey, the word sasra was reported in almost all districts of Maharashtra. Phonetic variations of this word include sasra, sasre, səsro(s), sasros, sasrebuwa, səsur, soɡ, səsurǰi, susraǰi, susro, susər, susra, sasrə, etc.

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 such cases, the words used to refer to ‘ego’s husband’s father and ‘ego’s wife’s father’ provide an insight into different customs of the Indian marriage system. In Karve’s (1953: 165) view, the word sasra is derived from the Sanskrit word swəšur. The SDML survey shows that the word mama, which is typically used to refer to ‘ego's mother's brother’, is also used to refer to ‘ego’s husband’s father/ ego’s wife’s father’. Apart from the word mama, alternative words such as mamaǰi, mamaǰinu were also reported in the present survey. The word mama is used to refer to the kin relationship ‘father-in-law’ in Nanded, Latur, Solapur, Sangli, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri, Raigad, Palghar, Nashik, Jalgaon and Buldhana districts. The word mamaǰi was mainly reported in villages adjacent to the Hindi speaking region. This word was occasionally reported in Dongaon village of Solapur district (Taluka: North Solapur). Additionally, the word pʰuwaǰi was reported only in Dhanora, a village adjacent to Gujarat in Nandurbar taluka of Nandurbar district. The word ssro was observed in Dagad-Dhanora, a village in Ner taluka of Yavtmal district; and Pimpalkhuta, a village in Aurangabad district.

References

Dhongde, Ramesh. 2013. Maharashtracha Bhashik Nakasha: Purvatayari, Mumbai: Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha.

Karve, Iravati. 1953. Kinship Organization in India. Pune: Deccan college Monograph series 11.