Answer:
Mahabharata is a colossal epic running in its present form into over 1,00,000 verses with depictions of a wide range of social categories and situations, was composed for more than a 100 years. Therefore Mahabharata is a suitable text to give insight in familial and kinfolk?s values of ancient times.
Kinfolks is a large networks of people defined as relatives.
The kinfolk?s values which are depicted through episodes of Mahabharta are patriliny, rules of marriage, status of women etc.
Patriliny means tracing descent from father to son, grandson and so on. We find that most of the families? inheritance transcended to sons only. Only in few cases we find that it sometimes went to brothers also. Women had no claims on the resources of household.
Rules of marriage were defined along exogamy. Marrying outside the clan and relatives was considered good. Example: All pandavas married in far off reasons in India.
Polygeny was a common practice for example: Arjuna married to more than one women, but polyandry was also in practice sometimes, less often though, for example: Draupdi had five husbands.
There was gendered access to property and therefore there was practice of kanyadana or the gift of a daughter in marriage was an important religious duty of the father.
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