Kinship has traditionally been one of the key topics in social and cultural anthropology. There are two principal reasons for this: First, although not all human groups are constituted on the basis of kinship, all humans have kinship as individuals and are related to other individuals through it. Second, for the sorts of “tribal,” classless, economically unspecialized societies that anthropologists have mostly—though no longer exclusively—studied, kinship has appeared to be the main or even sole form of social organization. As a result, many theoretical approaches, especially the schools of functionalism and structuralism within social anthropology, have focused on how social groups are formed, how individuals are related to one another through kinship, and the mutual rights and duties they have as a result. Cultural anthropologists, by contrast, have chosen to focus more on the symbolic aspects of kinship, such as the meanings attached to being a particular sort of relative, as well as how symbols of and perspectives on personhood, the body, and gender inform kinship ideas and practices. In broad terms, this latter approach has predominated in America since around 1900 but has been reinvigorated periodically and become more influential in world anthropology, especially in the post-structuralist phase starting in the 1970s.
The domain of kinship can be divided into descent (that is, relations between generations), marriage, and siblingship, though there are not nearly as many studies on the last category as there are on the first two. Early work (especially from the functionalist school) tended to see kinship as a matter of descent only, which produced the phrase “kinship and marriage”; later work, starting with structuralism, has tended to include marriage within the overarching rubric of kinship, adding to it the notion of affinal alliance.
The descent theorists (anthropologists limit the term to consangineal relationships,that is,relationships based on ties of blood) include the British Social anthropologists.Their intellectual lineage starts from W.H.R.Rivers and goes through Radcliffe Brown,Evans Pritchard,Meyer Fortes,etc.
The alliance theorists on the other hand, emphasize that kinship includes not only consanguineal relationships but also affinal relationships,that is relationships based on marriage.The "alliance theorists" include anthropologists from America and France like Kroeber,Murdock,Scheider,Claude Levi-Strauss, Louis Dumont, etc.
The Descent theorists emphasize that kinship is a social or cultural recognized consanguineal relationship.The Alliance theorists define kinship as a totality of relationships governed by the rules of consanguinity and affinity.
The descent theorists (anthropologists limit the term to consangineal relationships,that is,relationships based on ties of blood) include the British Social anthropologists.Their intellectual lineage starts from W.H.R.Rivers and goes through Radcliffe Brown,Evans Pritchard,Meyer Fortes,etc.
The alliance theorists on the other hand, emphasize that kinship includes not only consanguineal relationships but also affinal relationships,that is relationships based on marriage.The "alliance theorists" include anthropologists from America and France like Kroeber,Murdock,Scheider,Claude Levi-Strauss, Louis Dumont, etc.
The Descent theorists emphasize that kinship is a social or cultural recognized consanguineal relationship.The Alliance theorists define kinship as a totality of relationships governed by the rules of consanguinity and affinity.
Note: The relationships based on the consanguineal bond of birth are called descent and relationships based on the affinal bond of sex and marriage are called alliance.
Kinship terminologies :
Anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) performed the first survey of kinship terminologies in use around the world. He argued that kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes (the difference between a brother and a sister) and between generations (the difference between a child and a parent). Moreover, he argued, kinship terminologies distinguish between relatives by blood and marriage (although recently some anthropologists have argued that many societies define kinship in terms other than blood).
Morgan had amassed a huge amount of data on kinship terminology, and using this he worked out a classification of kinship systems. Morgan assumed that human society had evolved through a series of stages from primitive savagery to civilization, and he saw kinship terminologies as reflecting these stages.
Primitive promiscuity, for example, is signalled by a Hawaiian type of kinship nomenclature. Morgan made two major criterial distinctions between kinds of kinship terms: classificatory terms (provides single term for several persons), which subsume a relatively large number of biological kin types, and descriptive terms (provides specific term for each relation), which subsume relatively small numbers of types - preferably having unique referents. He imposed this scheme on whole terminological systems. He then fitted the typological scheme to his evolutionary framework, where he said that "primitive systems were classificatory, whereas civilized systems were descriptive.Descriptive terminology, in contrast to classificatory terminology, maintains a separation between lineal and collateral kin; for example, mother and mother’s sister, although of the same generation and sex, are distinguished. Descriptive systems are typically found wherever the nuclear family operates as a relatively autonomous unit economically and socially; as a result, they are relatively rare in ethnographic literature.
Armed with these different terms, Morgan identified six basic patterns of kinship terminologies:
Hawaiian kinship: the most classificatory; only distinguishes between sex and generation.
Sudanese kinship: the most descriptive; no two relatives share the same term.
Eskimo: has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, also distinguishes between lineal relatives (those related directly by a line of descent) and collateral relatives (those related by blood, but not directly in the line of descent). Lineal relatives have highly descriptive terms, collateral relatives have highly classificatory terms.
Iroquois: has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, also distinguishes between siblings of opposite sexes in the parental generation. Siblings of the same sex class as blood relatives, but siblings of the opposite sex count as relatives by marriage. Thus, one calls one's mother's sister "mother", and one's father's brother "father"; however, one refers to one's mother's brother as "father-in-law", and to one's father's sister as "mother-in-law".
Crow: like Iroquois, but further distinguishes between mother's side and father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more descriptive terms, and relatives on the father's side have more classificatory terms.
Omaha: like Iroquois, but further distinguishes between mother's side and father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more classificatory terms, and relatives on the father's side have more descriptive terms.
Some languages, such as Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Sinhalese, Chinese (see Chinese kinship), Japanese, Korean, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Nepalese add another dimension to some relations: relative age. Rather than one term for "brother", there exist, for example, different words for "older brother" and "younger brother".
Kinship terminologies :
Anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) performed the first survey of kinship terminologies in use around the world. He argued that kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes (the difference between a brother and a sister) and between generations (the difference between a child and a parent). Moreover, he argued, kinship terminologies distinguish between relatives by blood and marriage (although recently some anthropologists have argued that many societies define kinship in terms other than blood).
Morgan had amassed a huge amount of data on kinship terminology, and using this he worked out a classification of kinship systems. Morgan assumed that human society had evolved through a series of stages from primitive savagery to civilization, and he saw kinship terminologies as reflecting these stages.
Primitive promiscuity, for example, is signalled by a Hawaiian type of kinship nomenclature. Morgan made two major criterial distinctions between kinds of kinship terms: classificatory terms (provides single term for several persons), which subsume a relatively large number of biological kin types, and descriptive terms (provides specific term for each relation), which subsume relatively small numbers of types - preferably having unique referents. He imposed this scheme on whole terminological systems. He then fitted the typological scheme to his evolutionary framework, where he said that "primitive systems were classificatory, whereas civilized systems were descriptive.Descriptive terminology, in contrast to classificatory terminology, maintains a separation between lineal and collateral kin; for example, mother and mother’s sister, although of the same generation and sex, are distinguished. Descriptive systems are typically found wherever the nuclear family operates as a relatively autonomous unit economically and socially; as a result, they are relatively rare in ethnographic literature.
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| Descriptive Terminologies |
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| Classificatory Terminologies |
Armed with these different terms, Morgan identified six basic patterns of kinship terminologies:
Hawaiian kinship: the most classificatory; only distinguishes between sex and generation.
Sudanese kinship: the most descriptive; no two relatives share the same term.
Eskimo: has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, also distinguishes between lineal relatives (those related directly by a line of descent) and collateral relatives (those related by blood, but not directly in the line of descent). Lineal relatives have highly descriptive terms, collateral relatives have highly classificatory terms.
Iroquois: has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, also distinguishes between siblings of opposite sexes in the parental generation. Siblings of the same sex class as blood relatives, but siblings of the opposite sex count as relatives by marriage. Thus, one calls one's mother's sister "mother", and one's father's brother "father"; however, one refers to one's mother's brother as "father-in-law", and to one's father's sister as "mother-in-law".
Crow: like Iroquois, but further distinguishes between mother's side and father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more descriptive terms, and relatives on the father's side have more classificatory terms.
Omaha: like Iroquois, but further distinguishes between mother's side and father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more classificatory terms, and relatives on the father's side have more descriptive terms.
Some languages, such as Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Sinhalese, Chinese (see Chinese kinship), Japanese, Korean, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Nepalese add another dimension to some relations: relative age. Rather than one term for "brother", there exist, for example, different words for "older brother" and "younger brother".
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