1. Chapter 10
Kinship and Descent

2. What We Will Learn
Why have cultural anthropologists spent so much time studying kinship?
What are the various functions of descent groups?
What are the different ways in which cultures categorize kin?
Why is it important to know something about the kinship systems in other cultures?

3. Kinship Defined
Kinship refers to the relationships—found in all societies—that are based on blood or marriage.
Relationships based on blood and marriage are culturally recognized by all societies.

4. Kinship Defined
Those to whom we are related through birth or blood, are our consanguineal relatives.
Those to whom we are related through marriage are our affinal relatives.
Fictive kinship refers to relationships among individuals who recognize kinship obligations although the relationships are not based on either consanguineal or affinal ties.

5. Kinship
Cultural anthropologists generally have studied societies in which kinship activities play an important role.
This Tibetan family includes three generations.

6. Parenthood
Parenthood as defined by this Western family is very different from the Zumbaguan definition of parenthood.

7. Question ________ refers to relationships found in all societies.
Relatedness
Matrilineality
Patrilineality
Kinship

8. Answer: d
Kinship refers to relationships found in all societies.

9. Question Those who are related to us by blood are referred to as:
affinal kin.
descendants.
ancestors.
consanguineal kin.

10. Answer: d
Those who are related to us by blood are referred to as consanguineal kin.

11. Partible Paternity
The Bari of Venezuela believe in partible paternity, the idea that a child can have more than one biological father.

12. Functions of Kinship Systems
Vertical function - provides social continuity by binding together a number of successive generations.
Horizontal function - solidify or tie together a society across a single generation through marriage.

13. Kinship Diagrams
All kinship diagrams are viewed from the reference of EGO, the person from whose point of view we are tracing the relationship.

14. Kinship Diagrams - References
Father’s sister (FZ)
Father’s sister’s husband (FZH)
Father’s brother’s wife (FBW)
Father’s brother (FB)
Father (F)
Mother (M)
Mother’s sister’s husband (MZH)
Mother’s sister (MZ)
Mother’s brother (MB)
Mother’s brother’s wife (MBW)
Father’s sister’s son (FZS)
Father’s sister’s daughter (FZD)
Father’s brother’s son (FBS)

15. Kinship Diagram Symbols

16. Generic Kinship Diagram

17. Principles of Kinship Classification
Generation
Gender
Lineality Versus Collaterality
Consanguineal Versus Affinal Kin
Relative Age
Sex of the Connecting Relative
Social Condition
Side of the Family

18. Lineality Versus Collaterality
Kin related in a single line such as son, father, and grandfather.
Collaterality
Kin relations traced through a linking relative.

19. Descent Groups
Relatives who live their lives in close proximity to one another.
Characteristics:
Have a strong sense of identity.
Often share communally held property.
Provide economic assistance to one another.
Engage in mutual civic and religious ceremonies.

20. Functions of Descent Groups
Mechanism for inheriting property and political office.
Control behavior.
Regulate marriages.
Structure primary political units.

21. Rules of Descent: Two Types
Unilateral
Trace their ancestry through mother’s line or father’s line, but not both (60%).
Cognatic descent
Includes double descent, ambilineal descent, and bilateral descent.

22. Patrilineal Descent
In a patrilineal descent system, a person is connected to relatives of both sexes related through males only.

23. Patrilineal Descent Most common unilineal descent group.
A man, his children, his brother’s children, and his son’s children are all members of the same descent group.
Females must marry outside their patrilineages.
A woman’s children belong to the husband’s lineage rather than her own.

24. Patrilineal Descent
This Kikuyu family of Kenya has a patrilineal descent system.

25. Matrilineal Descent Groups
A woman, her siblings, her children, her sisters’ children, and her daughters’ children.
15% of the unilineal descent groups found among contemporary societies including:
Native Americans (such as Navajo, Cherokee, and Iroquois)
Truk and Trobrianders of the Pacific
Bemba, Ashanti, and Yao of Africa

26. Matrilineal Descent
In a matrilineal descent system, a person is connected to kin of both sexes related through females only.

27. Matrilineal Descent
These Zuni of New Mexico practice matrilineal descent.

28. Matriarchy
The rule of domination of women over men.

29. Differences Between Patrilineal and Matrilineal Descent Groups
Role of Women
Give birth to husband’s descendants; play minimal role in their own group
Play a central role in their own group by bearing their own descendants
Authority of Husband/ father
Strong authority
Weak in marital household; strong in household of his sister

30. Differences Between Patrilineal and Matrilineal Descent Groups
Status of husband/ father
High status
Relatively low status
Father/child relationship
Characterized by deference, strong authority and formality
Relatively weak authority and general informality

31. Differences Between Patrilineal and Matrilineal Descent Groups
Strength of marital bonds
Strong
Relatively weak
Residence pattern
Typically patrilocal
Typically matrilocal

32. Question
While matrilineal descent systems occur, it is important not to confuse them with _________________ , a situation whereby women have greater authority and decision-making prerogatives than men.

33. Answer: matriarchy
While matrilineal descent systems occur, it is important not to confuse them with matriarchy, a situation whereby women have greater authority and decision-making prerogatives than men.

34. Types of Unilineal Descent Groups
Lineages
Clans
Phratries
Moieties

35. Lineage
Unilineal descent group whose members can trace their line of descent to a common ancestor.
Segmentation
The process that takes place within a lineage whereby small subdivisions of a lineage will oppose one another in some social situations but will coalesce and become allies in other social situations.

36. Lineage Segmentation

37. Clans
Unilineal descent groups, usually comprising more than ten generations, consisting of members who claim a common ancestry even though they cannot trace step-by-step their exact connection to a common ancestor.
Phratries
Unilineal descent groups composed of a number of related clans.

38. Moieties
Complementary descent groups that result from the division of a society into two halves.

39. Corporate Nature of Unilineal Descent Groups
Lineage members see themselves as members of the group rather than individuals.
Large numbers of family must approve of marriages.

40. Corporate Nature of Unilineal Descent Groups
Property is regulated by the group, rather than by the individual.
If a member of a lineage assaults a member of another lineage, the assaulter and the group are held accountable.
The kinship group provides security and protection for individual members.

41. Cognatic Descent Groups
A form of descent traced through both females and males.
Approximately 40% of the world’s societies.

42. Types of Cognatic Descent
Double descent
Individuals receive some rights and obligations from the father’s side of the family and others from the mother’s side.
Ambilineal descent
Affiliates a person to a kin group through either the male or the female line.
Bilateral descent
Individuals equally emphasize their mother’s kin and their father’s kin.

43. World Distribution of Kinship Systems

44. Kinship Classification Systems
Eskimo
Hawaiian
Iroquois
Omaha
Crow
Sudanese

45. Eskimo System 1/10th of the world’s societies
Associated with bilateral descent.
Emphasizes the nuclear family by using separate terms (mother, father, sister, brother) that are not used outside the nuclear family.

46. Eskimo Kinship System

47. Hawaiian System Found in 1/3 of the societies in the world.
Uses a single term for all relatives of the same sex and generation:
A person’s father, father’s brother, and mother’s brother are all referred to as father.
In EGO’s generation, the only distinction is based on sex - male cousins are as brothers, female cousins as sisters.
Nuclear family members are roughly equivalent to more distant kin.

48. Hawaiian System

49. Iroquois System
EGO’s father and father’s brother are called by the same term, mother’s brother is called by a different term.
EGO’s mother and mother’s sister are called by one term, a different term is used for EGO’s father’s sister.
EGO’s siblings are given the same term as parallel cousins.

50. Iroquois System

51. Omaha System Emphasizes patrilineal descent.
EGO’s father and father’s brother are called by the same term, and EGO’s mother and mother’s sister are called by the same term.
On the mother’s side of the family, there is a merging of generations.
That merging of generations does not occur on EGO’s father’s side of the family.

52. Omaha System

53. Crow System
Concentrates on matrilineal rather than patrilineal descent.
Mirror image of the Omaha system.
The father’s side of the family merges generations.
On EGO’s mother’s side of the family, which is the important descent group, generational distinctions are recognized.

54. Crow System

55. Family History and Immigration
Immigrants are processed at Ellis Island in New York, the initial point of entry into the United States in the first half of the 20th century.
Information technology allows us to search immigration records to learn more about our family histories.

56. Reproductive Technologies
New reproductive technologies are changing the way we think about kinship.