Sureender S, Prabakaran B, Khan A G
Department of Population Policies and Programmes, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India.
Soc Biol. 1998 Fall-Winter;45(3-4):289-301. doi: 10.1080/19485565.1998.9988980.
Marriage in Indian society is a religious duty. Consanguineous marriage is common, where individuals prefer to marry within their clan (a unilateral kin group based on either matrilineal or patrilineal descent). Keeping in mind that this form of marriage has certain disadvantages for social and biological as well as demographic aspects of individuals and families, the present study examines the influence of mate selection (i.e., close relatives, distant relatives, not related) on female age at marriage, pregnancy wastages, and survival status of the first child. The study was designed based on the information collected on a sample size of 3,948 married women aged 13-49 in Tamil Nadu, India, by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 1992. Results suggest that 48 per cent of women in Tamil Nadu marry their relatives. This practice of marrying relatives is high in rural areas, among Hindus, Scheduled Castes/tribes, and illiterate women as compared to urban areas, among non-Hindus, non-SC/ST, and educated women, respectively. The bivariate analysis reveals that women marrying their close relatives had low age at marriage and experienced a higher per cent of pregnancy wastage and child loss (first child) as compared to those women marrying their distant relatives or nonrelatives. The result is found to be consistent even after controlling for selected background variables through multivariate techniques (applied separately for age at marriage, pregnancy wastages, and the survival status of first child). Hence, this study suggests that steps should be taken to inform people about the problems of marrying close relatives through appropriate IEC programs in Tamil Nadu.
在印度社会，婚姻是一项宗教义务。近亲结婚很常见，人们更倾向于在自己的氏族内结婚（氏族是一个基于母系或父系血统的单边亲属群体）。鉴于这种婚姻形式在个人和家庭的社会、生物学以及人口统计学方面存在某些不利之处，本研究考察了配偶选择（即近亲、远亲、非亲属）对女性结婚年龄、妊娠流产以及头胎存活状况的影响。该研究是根据1992年全国家庭健康调查（NFHS）收集的印度泰米尔纳德邦3948名年龄在13至49岁的已婚女性样本信息设计的。结果表明，泰米尔纳德邦48%的女性与亲属结婚。与城市地区相比，农村地区、印度教徒、在册种姓/部落以及文盲女性中与亲属结婚的比例较高，而非印度教徒、非在册种姓/部落以及受过教育的女性在城市地区的相应比例较低。双变量分析显示，与那些与远亲或非亲属结婚的女性相比，与近亲结婚的女性结婚年龄较低，经历妊娠流产和孩子夭折（头胎）的比例更高。即使通过多变量技术控制了选定的背景变量（分别应用于结婚年龄、妊娠流产和头胎存活状况），结果仍然一致。因此，本研究建议应采取措施，通过泰米尔纳德邦适当的信息、教育和宣传项目，让人们了解近亲结婚的问题。
