Adoption and Marriage

The major cause for a multiple marriage, and one of the major reasons contributing to divorce or separation, is the wife's failure to produce children for the household and the lineage. When a childless marriage is otherwise satisfactory, the household sometimes considers adopting a son. The adopted son, called a dharma putra or dharma kae , would most likely be taken from the patrilineal extended family, the phuki , but people can also, but less desirably, take a boy related through the out-marrying women of the patriline, a sister's son, or (in the case where a man has daughters, but no surviving son) a married daughter's son. The dharma kae would often but not necessarily, live with and have his economic support from the adopting family. As a phuki member, he would not change his ritual relation to the lineage and lineage gods by being moved to another household—except that he would have a son's special ritual responsibilities in the case of death of his adopting parents. If the son is adopted from a daughter or sister, he will most frequently remain in his natal family, or if he does live in his adoptive home, will return there for important family ceremonies and for his own rites of passage. He belongs to his genitor's, his biological father's lineage, and is involved in the worship of his biological father's (and not his adoptive father's) lineage gods. However, he has the additional ritual function of being centrally involved in the death ceremonies for his adoptive parents. Adoptive sons are taken when very young, perhaps one to three years of age. They are always middle sons, as the eldest son is supposed to do death ceremonies for his father and (among some thar s) the youngest for his mother in their natal families.

Adoption is, in fact, extremely rare, and I could find no cases in the families of my informants. G. S. Nepali did not find any cases among 224 families he studied, nor was he able to identify any cases in a study of the village of Panga (1965, 97). Direct ties of biological descent are strongly emphasized,^[35] and childlessness is dealt with whenever possible by remarriage.