his father, would have the status of a mother.[1] We have no evidence for the presence of such a marriage in India, but our knowledge of the sociology of the more backward peoples of India is not so complete that we can afford to neglect any clue. The possibility suggested by the mode of using the term bahu should lead us to look for other evidence of such a form of polyandry among the ruder elements of the population of India, of whose social structure our present knowledge is so fragmentary.
Another important result of our study of the terminology of relationship is that it helps us to understand the proper place of psychological explanation in sociology. These lectures have largely been devoted to the demonstration of the failure to explain features of the terminology of relationship on psychological grounds. If this demonstration has been successful, it is not because the terminology of relationship is anything peculiar, differing from other bodies of sociological facts; it is because in relationship we have to do with definite and clean-cut facts. The terminology of relationship is only a specially favourable example by means of which to show the value of an attitude towards, and mode of treatment of, social facts which hold good, though less conspicuously, throughout the whole field of sociology.
- ↑ In such a case the use of the term by other members of the household, including women, would be the result of a later extension of meaning.
