Kinship

Intro
- Main organizing units of social life (tribes/clans) in primitive societies
- Still plays an important role in enculturation (norms-value)
+ inheriting social and economic
- Kinship: relationships between people connected by blood or by marriage.
- Defines mutual expectations, rights and responsibilities.
- Kinship is culturally constructed (defers from one to society to the other) and is not
always defined biologically.
- A kinship system. It’s a classification system that links people on the basis of rights
and obligations.
- Kinship terminology are the terms used to classify different kin.

Role of kinship
1- Continuity between generations
2- Allows for the organized transmission of property (inheritance) and social
positions(successions) from one gen to the next.
3- Defines a world in which a person can depend on for aid.

Kinship groups are constructed through

Descent group:
- members claim a common ancestry
- consanguineal relatives (blood related)
- structure social life
1- Unilineal descent: trace your descent either to your mother or father’s line but not
both
Patrilineal – lifetime membership is to their father’s group
patrilocality: when a couple marries they become party of the husband’s community
example: the Nuer: patrilineal rights to land, participation in religious ceremonies,
political judicial obligations (warfare)
the Nuer have no centralized system of political authority; instead, the system of
lineages and clans serve to regulate conflict.
Lineage vs Clan
 Lebanese: mother cannot pass the nationality to her kids, we trace our descent to our
father’s sides, legally you are registered with your father/ husband

Matrilineal – lifetime membership is to their mother’s group

- the mother’s brother rights when it comes to kids
- husband: sexual and economic rights over his wife
- vs matriarchy: matrilineal descent does give women more rights but should not be
confused by matriarchy in which women hold the formal positions of power.
- Important political and economic resources are still in the hand of men

2- Bilateral descent: both maternal and paternal descent determine equally, high
independence of individuals and focus on nuclear family (industrial and postindustrial
societies).
3- Ambilineal descent: at a certain age you have to choose if you want to follow your
mother or your father’s line.

- demonstrated descent: members can recite how they are related to each other
(names/history) lineage
- Clans claim descent but cannot be historically proven
Marriage – Affinal ties
- Not related by blood or common descent, but through alliance
- Marriages create a socially recognized relationships that may involve:
 Physical and emotional intimacy
 Sexual relationships
 Children
 Companionship
 Legal rights to property and inheritance
- While we think of marriage as an individual marriage, it is often more a relationship
between groups in certain types of societies.
- Women and war, religious/civil marriage, interreligious marriage (encouraged and
expected to marry people from the same religious background frowned upon or
prohibited), interracial (legally prohibited), economic background, relatives.
- Polygamy: plural marriages
  Polygyny: man has several wives
 Poly : women marry several husbands

- Exogamy: seeking a mate outside your kin group

- Endogamy: seeking a mate inside one’s own kinship group, monarchies (keep the
assets within the family), or socially (race/religion/economic background)

Incest taboos
The rules that forbid sexual relations between close relatives: nuclear family members
(parents and children and siblings)
Could be cousins too

Why does it matter who is related to you (inheritance, responsibilities etc.)?

Fictive kinship
Not by blood
Ex: Godparents, adoption, brotherhood, cults (sects).

Classification systems on paper

Kin terminology connotes the social role a person plays in the society – if a father and a
father’s brother have the same function
Ego is the central character (the main person) 