1. Family The social institution regulating the biological reproduction of human beings, the social structure provided by the ongoing relationship between an adult male, and an adult female, in which the male can provide food and protection and the female can nurse and provide the nurturing for the healthy development of their biological children.

2. This is only a social ideal about the family that produces specific moral assumptions about people. What assumptions are being made?

3. Affinity Relationships based on mating.

4. Descent Relationships based on birth.

5. Adoption Relationships based on nurturance alone, that don’t involve birth.

6. Kinship Systems Regulate sexual access between people and establish the legitimacy of group members Establish links between generations Assign responsibility for child care Determine residence rules Provide a clear framework for organizing individual’s rights and responsibilities Provide for the transfer of property and social position between generations

7. Assumptions about the family Relationship that is based on cooperation as opposed to competition, that is enduring as opposed to temporary, that is non-contingent rather than contingent upon performance, and that is governed by feeling and morality, instead of law and contract.

8. Kinship is not a human recognition of actual biological bonds, but a social interpretation of assumed biological bonds.

9. David Schneider

10. Basic Terms Mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son, wife, husband, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and cousin.

11. Derived Terms Terms used in conjunction with a modifier: Step, in-law, foster Grand, great, first, second (etc.) once, twice removed, half Ex

12. These terms distinguish blood relatives from those in comparable positions who are not blood relatives. Or mark distance between people.

13. The heart of American kinship involves a concern with consanguineal or “blood” relationships.

14. Blood in North American culture is the symbol for biogenetic relationship.

15. American kinship is based on a cultural distinction between the “order of nature” and the “order of law.”

16. Order of Nature As pertaining to kinship, refers to shared biogenetic substance.

17. Order of Law Is imposed by man and consists of rules and regulations, customs and traditions.

18. Code for Conduct Entailed by custom, that is, the pattern of behaviour that determines how people should proceed in any given situation.

19. 1) relatives in nature alone – such as the biological parents of an adopted child; 2) relatives in law alone – such as in- laws, or step relationships; 3) relatives in nature and in law.

20. Genitor = Biological father (Victor) And someone’s Pater = Social father (Brad)

21. Genetrix = Biological mother Mater = Social mother

22. Jane Dolgin Studied several examples of these ambiguities in contemporary court cases in the US, having to do with the paternal rights of parents who were not married, and with the maternal rights of surrogate mothers.

23. In the cases of children being born out of wedlock, biological maternity automatically turned a woman into a social mother, but biological paternity didn’t automatically make a man the social father.

24. Surrogacy The cases show that when a surrogate mother impregnated with the sperm of the husband in the couple decided to keep the child, then the court decided that biological maternity wasn’t enough to be a mater.

25. Biological facts were called into play by the court only when they justified the preservation of traditional families, that is, nuclear, middle-class, North American two-parent family.

26. Zumbagua, Ecuador According to Mary Weismantel, family consists of those who eat together. Eventually, people will come to share “the same flesh”, no matter who gave birth to them.

27. Ascribed Statuses: Are social positions that are assigned at birth, and that are seen as immutable or unchangeable.

28. Achieved Statuses, on the other hand, are social positions that people attain later in life, as a result of theirs or someone else’s effort.