Devar

In the northern Indian joint family, the
term designating a husband’s younger
brother. The traditional Indian joint
family is headed by a husband and wife.
The couple’s sons, the sons’ wives, and
unmarried daughters live with them.
The married daughters live with their
husbands’ joint families. The joint family
is not just a group of people living
together. The good of the family is given
184
Devaki
higher value than any individual’s
desires. Traditional Indian society was
highly status-conscious, a trait reflected
not only in the traditional hierarchical
conception of society, but also in similar
conceptions within the family. Based on
these assumptions, there are different
words for all sorts of relationships in the
Indian family. These words are based
partly on a person’s age in relation to the
speaker, whether he is related by blood
or by marriage, and whether blood relatives come from the mother’s or the
father’s side of the family. Since a
woman’s devar is younger than her husband, he is considered a person of less
exalted status, and thus someone with
whom she may have a more familiar
“joking relationship.”