[Buddha-l] Cross vs. parallel cousins

[jkirk]

Hi Mitchell, 

"Preferential" is an anthropology term for marriage
arrangements/mate choices that are culturally preferred and
usually followed---in any society there are of course exceptions
to every "rule". The acronym for preferential cross-cousin
marriage would be PMBD--preferential mother's brother's daughter.
Some cultures allow MBD marriages but there isn't a preference
rule, so there might be other kinds of spousal choices as well. 

As I already said, there's a lot of anthropology literature on
kinship, so please don't ask me to wade through it all. Suggest
that you check into a good introductory anthro. textbook for an
overview of preferential/optional marriage rules in different
societies.

The Pali scriptures only use a term translated into English as
"cousin"--since I hardly know Pali, (since Pali is sort of a
constructed or literary language), I have no idea if there were
ever terms that differentiated between different kinship
roles/titles, and if so, if these appeared in the texts. We have
to infer from other data (like names of relatives and some term
designating same as a father's sister, for ex.,) if any given
cousin is a maternal or paternal cousin, a cross-cousin or a
parallel cousin, etc. 

Not sure what you want to know while referring to "privileged
mother/sister." 

A lot of the inferences about kin relations between spouses and
cousin brothers in the scriptural literature are mainly based on
just that--inference for the little we have as evidence. 
I bet linguistic specialists could help us out better than I
could. 
In Hindi forex., the term for mother is Maa, for mother's brother
is Maama, for mother's sister is Maasi, etc.There are a host of
other familial kinship terms as well.  I don't know if these
terms for example have Sanskrit analogs, or if they occur in Pali
either, or if so, if they appear in the canonic texts.    

Cheers, Joanna
=======

Hello Joanna and all,
You write in part: 
"I was addressing whether or not their being cousin-brothers and
preferential cross-cousin marriage had anything to do with the
case. Somehow the B's abusive langyage doesn't pose a problem for
me--especially after what Devadatta tried to do to his brother.
The Buddha after all was a human."

I see the explanation of cross-cousins (child of your father's
sister or of your mother's brother) and also of parallel-cousins
(child of your father's brother or your mother's sister), if I
understand F.K. Lehman (F.K.L. Chit Hlaing)'s explanation of
these terms correctly), making the B. and Devadatta
parallel-cousins, I suppose, but what is the "preferential" part.
I take it that Siddhartha was born of the privileged
mother/sister in this story. Are there passages that explain that
either in the Tipitaka or Atthakatha or Tika (or elsewhere)? 

Thank you.
Mitchell
==========
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