W2C2: kinship Flashcards
Kinship
Is a classificatory system, not predominantly biological
Nowadays we are socially organized in a number of ways. But if we go back in time and look at more primitive societies: it all relies on kinship: who do you support? how is labour organized? who will support you?
Kinship is about more than reproduction and the transmission of cultural values, kin group form the basis for political stability and the promotion of political interests. Kinship is also connected with inheritance and succession: the transmission of resources from one generation to the next.
Especially important in stateless societies
Indication relationships in etic terms:
Mother (Mo), Father (Fa), Sister (Si), Brother (Br), Daughter (Da), Son (So)
Three different terminologies:
Inuit terminology:
Same as Dutch, everybody from the previous generation is called uncle or aunt.
Iroquois terminology:
Uss parallel cousins and cross cousins, even encourages marriage between cross cousins but not parallel cousins
Parallel cousins are called brothers and sisters, cross cousins are cousins
Hawaii terminology:
All siblings in own generation are called sister/brother
All siblings in the previous generation are father/mother
Cross cousins:
different gender in the previous generation
Mothers brothers children or fathers sisters children
Parallel cousins:
same gender in previous generations
Fathers brothers children and/or mothers sisters children
3 important issues in kinship
- Descent
- Marriage
- Where to settle after marriage
(Slightly less important)
Lineage:
A lineage consists of people who can claim, by stating all the intermediate links a common descent from a shared ancestor or ancestress
Clan:
A clan encompasses people who assume shared descent without being able to account for the exact lineage
Unilineal:
the kin relationship is only going through the female OR male line
6 forms of descent
- Patrilineage
- Matrilineage
- Ambilineal / double
- Cognatic/bilateral
- Parallel desecent
- Crossing or alternating descent
Patrilineage:
lineage through the male line
Matrilineage
lineage through the female line.
You can recognize it if it’s going through the female line, offspring is left out
Ambilineal (or double):
Some resources are transmitted through the father’s lineage, others through the mother’s lineage. The two lineages are kept separate
Cognatic/bilateral descent:
resources can be transmitted through kin on both mother’s and father’s side, bilaterally
Parallel descent:
rare variety whereby men transmit to their sons and women to their daughters
Crossing or alternating descent:
rare variety which represents the opposite of parallel, men transmit to their daughters, women to their sons.
Matrilateral:
all the kin traced through the mother
Even in patrilineage, there are matrilateral kin
Every biological (by blood) kin through the mother
Patrilateral:
all the kin traced through the father
Every biological (by blood) kin through the father
Cognates
kin group members traced either ambilineally or bilaterally
Unilineal and bilateral descent groups, differences:
- Only in unilineal groups it is totally clear who is in, and who is out
- Therefore they can be corporate groups that hold substantial wealth in common
- Since there’s no real overlap
- Unilineal descent lead to strong, corporate groups, with a very clear idea of who’s in or out.
A matrilineage isn’t simply a mirror image of a patrilineage, if we lead from the assumption that males are leading the family.
- In a patrilineage: the oldest living male member is the leader
- In a matrilineage: is usually the oldest male related to the matrilineage.
Usually mother’s brother. If someone wants to marry, she needs consent from her mother and the leader of the matrilineage
Marriage:
in many societies a relationship between groups with mutual obligations
Prescribed or preferred marriages between unilineal kin groups lead to structural relationships between those lineages
‘marriage in most traditional societies tends to be arranged by kin groups, not by individuals concerned’ (Eriksen 2023: 138).
Obligations from marriage:
- Bride wealth / bride price: the groom’s kin is obliged to transfer resources to the bride’s kin in return for his rights to her labour and reproductive powers
- Dowry: the bride brings gifts from her family into the marriage, as a compensation to the man’s family for undertaking to support the woman economically
- Levirate: marriage rule in which a man marries the wife of his deceased brother
- Sororate: marriage rule in which the woman marries the husband of her deceased sister
Matrifocality
father’s have no rights on their children, only on their sister’s children. In addition to being matrilineal, this kind of arrangement can be described as matrifocal. The mother is the focal point. This phenomenon can be seen in patrilineal as well as matrilineal and cognatic societies.
Exogamous marriage:
marrying outside your own group
Endogamous marriage:
marrying inside your own group
Can be class, caste, ethnic background, nationality, clan
Incest taboo:
depends on terminology system, who is defined as sister or brother? who is a parallel cousin or cross cousin?
Where to settle after marriage:
- Uxorilocality (or matrilocality): residence pattern in which a married couple resides with the family of the wife
- Virilocality (or patrilocality): residence pattern in which a married couple resides with the family of the husband
Preferred marriages, three main types
- Matrilateral cross cousin marriage results in unequal relationships between lineages (wife-givers and wife-takers)
Patrilineages pass on wifes to the same other patrilineage, in every generation. Systematic inequality - Patrilateral cross-cousin marriage results in equal relationships between lineages
Every generation, the wife goes in a different direction. Systematic equality - Bilateral cross-cousin marriage results in equal relationships and a very strong bonding between lineages
Very strong bond between two lineages
Polygyny:
a system where a man can have several wives, this is widespread.
Polyandry:
a system where a woman can have several husbands which is much rarer
Moiety system:
marriage system in which kin groups swap sisters/women.
- Many peoples traditionally practise the cyclical exchange of women between more than two groups, so that clan A gives women to clan B which gives women to clan C which gives women to clan D which in turn gives women to clan A. In this system a woman can only be paid for with another woman.
- Moieties constitute a symmetrical alliance system which implies equality between the groups.
- An asymmetrical alliance system is where one distinguishes categorically between wife-givers and wife-takers.
Levi-Strauss: kinship atom / elementary structure
- All kinship systems are elaborations on four fundamental kin relationships: brother/sister, husband/wife, father/son, mother’s brother / sister’s son
- Specifies that elementary systems have positive rules: not only who you cannot marry, but also who one can marry
- Complex systems only have negative rules and are therefore unable to create long-term alliances between groups
- Shared descent isn’t the fundamental fact of kinship, it is about the development of alliances between groups through the exchange of women
Some universals in marriage:
- All societies have rules regulating incest and exogamies
- Alliances are forged between persons or descent groups, whether their importance is marginal or significant.
- All societies also seem to have developed a social organisation where mother and child live together during the first years of the child’s life.
- All societies have developed functioning reproductive institutions, and all have rules of inheritance.
- Also local forms of organisation with political, economic and other dimensions, which are based on kinship
Max Weber wrote about the differences between kinship based organisation and bureaucracy.
Kin-based organisation is based on loyalty to specific persons, while bureaucratic organisation ideally is based on loyalty to abstract principles, notably the law and contractual obligations.
