Cultural, social and political

institutions
Cultural, social and political institutions
1. Kinship, marriage, and the household
a. Kinship by blood
Descent and marriage (unilineal, matrilineal, patrilineal,
bilateral)
b. Kinship by marriage
Marriage rules cross-culturally (monogamy vs. polygamy,
post-marital residency rules, referred marriage partners)
c. Kinship by ritual (Compadrazgo)
d. Family and the household
Nuclear, extended, and reconstituted families (separated,
transnational)
e. Politics of kinship (political dynasty, alliances)
Kinship, marriage, and the
household
What is Kinship?
• Is a culture’s system of recognized family roles and
relationships that define the obligations, rights and
boundaries of interaction among the members of a
self recognizing group.
• Refers to the web of social relationships that form
an essential part of the lives of most humans in
most societies.
Kinship by blood
• The blood or marriage which binds people together
in group.
• The term “Kinship” is different from family because
the former is more linked to marriage, common
ancestry, or adaption (Macionis, 2010).
Family
• Family is the basic social institution and the primary group in society.
• Defined as a type of social institution that unites people by blood, kinship or
alliance into one group within a society. The unifying factor could be that two
people are in love, or simply they want to care for each other or they have
similar personal goals.
• Parents
• Grandparents
• Siblings
• Relatives
• Close friends
Descent
• Refers to the origin or background of a person in
terms of family or nationality.
• A descent group is a social group whose members
have common ancestry.
Descent and marriage

Unilineal
Matrilineal
Patrilineal
Bilateral
 Unilineal Society
• A unilineal society is one in which the descent of an individual is reckoned
either from the mother’s or the father’s line of descent.

Through common ancestry using both Encourages unions of two

mother and father’s side of the family. different types of groups

Clans Lineages Moieties Phratries

Link by kin with members tracing connection through Based on the association by choice with an ancestral
one another even if the supposedly ancestral union is line but the members couldn’t explain the reason for
not clear. the link
Patrilineal: tracing descent through the
men only
Matrilineal:tracing descent through
women only
Bilateral descent

•Traces the affiliation of a person from

both the female and the male as
recognition of the equal worth and
value of both sexes in identifying the
ancestry line.
Bilateral:tracing descent through both
men and women
Kinship by marriage
 Forms of marriage
MONOGAMY
• Allows or permits a man to take
only one spouse at a time.
POLYGAMY
 Is a form of plural marriage
and can assume three forms:
polygyny, polyandry, and
group marriage.
pOLYGYNY

•Is the marriage of one man to two or

more women at the same time.
•Practiced by Muslims.
polyandry
• Is the marriage of a woman to two or more men at
the same time.
• Anthropologists have discounted the existence of
such marriage.
post-marital residency rules

•Patrilocal residence
•Matrilocal residence
•Bilocal residence
•Neolocal residence
•Avunculocal residence
Patrilocal residence
• Requires that the newly married couple live with or
near the domicile of the parents of the bridegroom.
Matrilocal residence
• Requires that the newly married couple live with or
near the domicile of the parents of the bride.
Bilocal residence
• Gives the couple a choice of staying with either the
groom’s parents or the bride’s parents, depending
on factors like the relative wealth of the families or
their status, the wishes of the parents, or certain
personal preferences of the bride and groom.
Neolocal residence

• Permits the newly married couple to reside

independently of the parents of either groom
or bride.
Avunculocal residence
• Prescribes that the newly married couple reside
with or near the maternal uncle of the groom. This
type of residence is very rare.
 referred marriage partners

ENDOGAMY EXOGAMY
• Refers to the norm which dictates  Prescribes that one can marry
that one should marry within one’s outside one’s clan or ethnic
clan or ethnic group. group.
• Parents may also arrange to have
their children marry within the
religious group, locality, or social
class.
Kinship by ritual
Compadrazgo
• Family alliance is extended by the “compadre or
compadrazgo” system which is formed through the
rituals of baptism, confirmation, and marriage.
• Sponsors for these occasions become linked to the
family and are expected to help the family or may
expect to be helped by the family when occasions
arise.
Family and the household
Different kinds of family structures:

• Nuclear
• Extended
• Reconstituted families (separated,
transnational)
Nuclear family

• A family unit consisting of at most a father,

mother and dependent children. It is
considered the “traditional” family.
Extended family
• A family consisting of parents and children, along
with either grandparents, grandchildren, aunts or
uncles, cousins etc. In some circumstances, the
extended family comes to live either with or in
place of a member of the nuclear family.
Single parent family:
• This can be either a father or a mother who is singly
responsible for the raising of a child. The child can
be by birth or adoption. They may be a single parent
by choice or by life circumstances. The other parent
may have been part of the family at one time or not
at all.
Bi-racial or multi-racial family

• A family where the parents are members of

different racial identity groups.
Trans-racial adoptive family
• A family where the adopted child is of a different
racial identity group than the parents.
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