For instance, the patrilineal Nuer are patrilocal and the matrilineal Hopi, matrilocal. If no limitation were placed on the recognition of kinship, everybody would be kin to everyone else; but in most societies some limitation is imposed on the perception of common ancestry, so that a person regards many of … Such links assured the wider integration of kinship groups over a particular territory and could include links formed through marital connections as well as the recognition of kinship ties in the line that was complementary to the principal line of descent (i.e., matrilateral ties in a patrilineal kinship system or patrilateral ones in a matrilineal system). Prominent British social anthropologists of this period, such as Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard, and Fortes, generally advocated a functionalist approach to these questions. Theories of kinship: Kinship consists two main theories i.e. However, the recognition of one line of … A descent group is any social group in which membership depends on common descent from a real or mythical ancestor. Descent rules determine mainly membership to the parents’ kinship groups; in other words, descent is more of a social convention than a biological relationship. Chapter 11. B) Alliance Theory. A review of kinship theory … 1973 « Kinship, descent and alliance », in John J. Honigmann (ed. Indeed, scholarly interest in the cross-cultural comparison of kinship institutions could be traced back to a set of questions deriving from the cultural evolutionists. This system is termed double descent or bilineal descent, not to be confused with bilateral or cognatic descent, where descent is equally determined by both parents’ sides. kinship sys tems are prim arily structured a round liatio n (descent theory) or a round a nal relations (alliance theory). Book Description: Archaeology has been subjected to a wide range of misunderstandings of kinship theory and many of its central concepts. Introduction à deux theories d’anthropologie sociale. Studies Sarah Franklin 6. descent on. Descent theory > While British social anthropologists were focused on the existence of social rules and the ways in which members of different societies acted within a given framework of ideas and categories (descent theory/lineage theory), French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss had a very different starting point. The (Non)Biological Basis of Relatedness: 7. These theories are known as descent theories. This resulted first in a number of important works that documented the lives of women, which had previously been omitted from ethnographic accounts. of kinship have suggested that descent and residence models are ideological constructs not associated with socioeconomic behavior, that social anthropologists believe normative kinship rules are rarely practiced, and that the models are biased by Western assumptions of biological relatedness. Subjects: Social sciences. Most Western societies fall into this category, with children usually bearing their father’s surname. Classical descent-group theory posited the preeminence of being over doing; Schneider now believed this should be reversed. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Under the discipline of anthropology, kinship regards relations forged through marriage and arising from descent as being sufficiently important in deciding who is a member of which family; this is in contrast to biological disciplines which define relations through descent and mating (where by only people who share genes are related. Morgan held that kinship terminology used in nonliterate societies reflected a low level of culture and that the … In such systems descent defines bounded groups. These are i) patrilineal — where descent is traced in the male line from father to son, ii) matrilineal — where descent is traced in the female line from mother to Extending our discussion of kinship and descent, a kinship group (either lineage or clan) may be of matrilineal, patrilineal, or double descent. English new terms dictionary. Yet if this emotional content was the source of the power of kinship, it was also an area that lay beyond the province of anthropology. This is the case with the two forms of real kinship: consanguinity and affinity. Despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, a notional era of “pure” matriarchy has been invoked as a theme in some very diverse contexts, including not only 19th-century cultural evolutionism but also the more recent discourses of environmentalism (especially ecofeminism), Neo-Paganism, and the so-called Goddess movement. This patrilateral group is strictly exogamic; their matrilateral group is much less so. Radcliffe-Brown’s 'Structural Principles' Chapter 10. Descent in retrospect and prospect Gillian Feeley-Harnik 4. We can view ritual kinship as a special form of fictitious kinship, which necessitates a ritual for its creation, rituals such as godparenthood, adoption, or fraternization. scent n: transmission or devolution of the estate of a person who has died … Fox, R. (1984). Not fully members of either group, they were not considered full social persons. The presence of the wife’s brother signified the importance of marriage as a relation of exchange between men rather than a mechanism concerned only with ensuring reproduction. In a cognatic descent, all descendants of an ancestor\ancestress enjoy … Structurally , though, insu cient attention has been The term descent groups is thus limited to unilineal or double descent groups. In J. Goody & L. Roper (Eds. descent on: translation. Unilineal kinship systems were seen by British anthropologists of this period as providing a basis for the stable functioning of societies in the absence of state institutions. Studies of matrilineal systems suggested that a particular nexus of problems might arise regarding political continuity in a context where the holders of office (men) did not pass their status to their sons. Descent groups usually appear organized in such a way that enables them to make political, religious, or social decisions affecting their members. Morgan and especially Pitt-Rivers and Radcliffe-Brown formulated a series of theories that reproduction by way of descent is the main principle of kinship. For ... Godelier wants to get beyond the “false debate” (p. 127) between partisans of an exclusively genealogical theory of kinship (i.e., in the last analysis biological) and partisans of an exclusively social theory. Some societies have an even more complicated descent system, combining matrilineal and patrilineal descent but with only one of them being commonly accepted. Mondal adds that kinship sets guidelines for interactions between people and defines the proper, acceptable relationship between father and daughter, brother and sister, or husband … In their opinion, however, the principle of descent remained paramount in assuring the stable functioning of societies without states. It became apparent that the depiction of societies as neatly ordered by unilineal descent into clearly bounded, nested units of different scale was quite far from everyday political reality. Where descent theorists defined a set of parents and children as the core of kinship relations, Lévi-Strauss defined it as a husband and wife, their son, and the wife’s brother. We can define descent as bilateral or cognatic when the characteristics of our status are transmitted through both parents and we belong to both parents’ kinship groups. The evolutionary biology of kinship is about the behaviour of organisms towards their kin and the evolved psychology underlying such behaviour. Because a man’s position as a member of a matrilineage was always to some degree compromised between affiliation to his mother’s group and to that of his wife, the extent to which he achieved full social personhood—that is, an identity altogether within either lineage—was limited. It is a central aspect of the study of kinship and has ... From: descent theory in Dictionary of the Social Sciences ». Balban was convinced that the only way to face the internal and … In the Ashanti in Ghana, children inherit their fathers’ “spirit” as a characteristic of their status, but they belong to their mothers’ kinship groups, with whom they cohabit. We also indicate the trajectory of kinship change, … Personhood, cohesion, and the “matrilineal puzzle”, Reciprocity, incest, and the transition from “nature” to “culture”, Historical materialism and instrumentality, Households, residence rules, and house societies, Feminist and gendered approaches to kinship, Challenging the conceptual basis of kinship, Reproductive technologies, social innovation, and the future of kinship studies, Australian Aboriginal peoples: Kinship, marriage, and the family, Polynesian culture: Kinship and social hierarchy, Northwest Coast Indian: Kinship and family life, Micronesian culture: Kinship and marriage, Melanesian culture: Kinship and local groups. However, the significance of men’s liminality vis-à-vis lineage membership seemed far greater and occupied more analytical space than that of women in mid-century studies, a view that reflected the androcentrism of the era’s researchers. followed the descent approach to study kinship systems, and explained the fact of a special place of the relationship between a person and his/her mother’s brother. 2. a downward inclination or slope. Perhaps the best-known of these is the avunculate, a custom in which men have an unusually close relationship with their sisters’ sons, often including coresidence. A further issue of contention was the extent to which descent theory minimized the importance of marriage in the structuring of kinship. Descent. These include name, surname, heritage, and so on. 4. derivation from an ancestor; lineage; extraction. Group-theory analysis, known as “kinship algebra,” reveals structures that satisfy transformation symmetry under marriage and descent rules (15 ⇓ –17). Paris: PUF. Thus a lineage is a unilineal descent group in which membership may rest either on matrilineal descent (patrilineage) or on matrilineal descent (matrilineage). Goody, J. His work was motivated by the question of how arbitrary … Thus, British social anthropologists explored the ways in which kinship provided a basis for forming the kinds of groups—discrete, bounded, and linked to a particular territory—that were seen as necessary for a stable political order. The modern study of kinship can be traced back to mid-19th-century interests in comparative legal institutions and philology. It suggests kinship systems function is sure intergenerational continutity by the lineage groups by maintenance of descent link through either or both parents. Fortes’s own work among the Tallensi of West Africa demonstrated very clearly that exactly the same argument could be made about women in a patrilineal system: women were always caught between being members of their father’s lineage and that of their husband. A man and a woman who are distant patrilateral relatives are allowed to marry when it becomes impossible for them to name their common patrilateral ancestor, usually after four or five generations. This descent was common among the Iroquois Native Americans, and it still happens in the Hopi tribe. Based on descent and lineage, kinship determines family-line relationships—and even sets rules on who can marry and with whom, says Puja Mondal in "Kinship: Brief Essay on Kinship." Anthropologists make a clear distinction between matriliny and matriarchy, however: the former denotes a method of reckoning kinship, while the latter denotes a system in which women have overall political control to the exclusion of men. It was nevertheless true that Fortes in particular gave considerable explanatory weight to the emotional power of kinship. When descent and locality appear parallel, that is, when patrilineal descent goes together with patrilocality or virilocality (residence with patrilateral relatives) and matrilineal descent goes together with matrilocality or uxorilocality (residence with matrilateral relatives), the descent system is described as harmonic. … (1983). Fortes had been influenced by Freudian psychology, but his approach placed analyses of emotion and the unconscious mind in the domain of psychologists rather than anthropologists. When the elements of an individual’s status are transmitted through men, in particular the father, the descent is termed patrilineal or agnatic. Here we have two unilineal descents juxtaposed. Dumont, L. (1971). Clan is the even wider social group in which members acknowledge a common ancestry and whose relationships are ruled by solidarity. Its would be a major mistake to classify the category kinship under an exclusively American POV. Theory of Kingship: The stern, harsh and violent policy adopted by Balban to suppress the internal revolts and meeting with the challenges posed by foreign invaders of Mongols is known as the policy of blood and iron. In Congo, for example, the husband lives in the same village as his father and sons (patrilocal residence) but belongs and inherits goods from his matrilineal descent group (matrilineal descent). They pertain to fictive kin relationships and the Pseudokinship or fictitious kinship takes place when the social relationships simulate the ones arising through real kinship (consanguinity or affinity) but without any biological relationship. Les structures élémentaires de la parenté. Of course the relatives on both sides of any individual overlap with those of others, creating a web of interconnectedness rather than a discrete group. Kinship - Kinship - Feminist and gendered approaches to kinship: From the 1960s onward the feminist movement and the scholarship it inspired have had a very obvious impact on kinship studies. However, the recognition of one line of descent and the exclusion of the other provides the basis of a “unilineal” kinship system. The evolution of kinship and its terminology has interested anthropologists since the 19th century, when the American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan developed his theory of kinship. In particular, kinship refers to social relationships that usually coincide with biological ones. genes as a result of common descent, behaviors that increase the repro- ductive success of relatives can also increase the future representation of ego’s genes. 2014. descendible; descent; Look at other dictionaries: Descent 3 — Developer(s) Outrage Entertainment Publisher(s) Interplay Productions … Wikipedia. Take advantage of our Presidents' Day bonus! For example, in many societies, children who are breast-fed by the same mother are considered siblings. The alliance theory of kinship in South Indian ethnography Isabelle Clark-Decès 5. The term descent denotes the relationship that bonds the child to its mother or father, through which the elements that constitute the main characteristics of their status are transmitted. Descent, the system of acknowledged social parentage, which varies from society to society, whereby a person may claim kinship ties with another. Whether the group is of matrilineal, patrilineal, or double descent depends on whether its members claim a common ancestor (who may be an existing or mythical person) and whether their characteristics are determined through the mother, the father, or both. Parents also determine our membership in kinship groups: our mother’s, our father’s, or both. Traditional societies accomplished this task by organizing around kinship relations rather than property. Interpersonal Relations: Terminology and Behaviour Chapter 9. Both Evans-Pritchard and Fortes asserted the importance of various links between descent groups. The Main Principle: Descent. Correspondingly, when the elements of status have been transmitted by women, by mothers in particular, the descent is called matrilineal or uterine. Marriage is, however, strictly forbidden for all matrilateral relatives belonging to the mother’s wider kinship group. PART II: THE THEORY OG UNILINEAL DESCENT GROUPS. shared descent, anthropologists call them descent groups. These theories, descent and alliance are in today’s anthropological They also acted as corporations: their members held land in common, acted as a single unit with regard to substantive property, and behaved as one “person” in relation to other similarly constituted groups in legal and political matters such as warfare, feuds, and litigation. It finds its origins in Claude Lévi-Strauss 's Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) and is in opposition to the functionalist theory of Radcliffe-Brown. The alliance theory, also known as the general theory of exchanges, is a structuralist method of studying kinship relations. /di sent /, n. 1. the act, process, or fact of descending. Paris: Mouton. The Nuer in Sudan, as well as the ancient Romans, have kinship groups of typical patrilineal or agnatic descent. A) Descent Theory. Women’s involvement in … A number of solutions to what became known as the “matrilineal puzzle” were described, focusing variously on rules for marriage, residence, and succession. If the relationship has been established through marriage, it is affinal.’ The stuff of kinship Janet Carsten Part II. "Kinship and Descent" is a designation that makes the American POV cultural assumption that kinship is based on blood relationship (Schneider 1984) is one of many who critique this position. Consanguinity may exist, but it is in no way a necessary requirement. Personal experiences of kinship could vary considerably from the normative models described by some anthropologists; Evans-Pritchard, for instance, demonstrated that individuals could not always unequivocally identify the lineage to which they belonged. Across the phylogeny, a change in descent triggered a switch away from patrifocal kinship, whereas a change in residence triggered a switch back from matrifocal kinship. He says that this is because the social cohesion of elementary systems of kinship that are premised on the notion of groups of men exchanging wives requires a rule of descent, for … If a man’s right to inherit an office was determined by who his mother was, then the political cohesion that seemed to be dependent on the father-son bond was potentially jeopardized. Basically consists two main thinkers Radcliff Brown and Mayer Fortes. Because descent systems determine the kinship group to which individuals belong and with whom they usually cohabit, descent also appears related to the location of residence of both individuals and groups. This distinction arose out of the models that had been developed by Maine and Morgan, in which cultural evolution was driven by the transition from status to contract forms of organization and from corporate to individual forms of property ownership. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1949). That is, the members of a lineage did not act as individuals in the politico-jural domain, instead conceiving themselves to a considerable extent as undifferentiated and continuous with each other. The central problem addressed by anthropologists of the early 20th century was directly related to the colonial enterprise and focused on understanding the mechanisms for maintaining political order in stateless societies. A different view to these older theories is aired by Levi-Strauss’s alliance theory, which links the exchange of women and the interdiction of incest as the organizational principles of kinship. Kinship cannot be detached from … Conversely, in the Yako in Nigeria, children belong to and live with the patrilateral kinship group. Kinship, system of social organization based on real or putative family ties. The wider groupings recruited through kinship, which were the basis of political and economic organization, were much more culturally variable and hence of greater interest. Their explanations of these mechanisms became known as the descent theory of kinship. Descent or lineage theory explores the ways in which consanguineal (or blood) relations are structured in various societies. Thus, kin selection theory predicts that, all else being equal, individuals will be more likely to favor kin than non-kin, and close kin than more distant kin. Demonstrating that kinship is the foundation for past societies' social organization, particularly in non-state societies, Bradley E. Ensor offers a lucid presentation of kinship principles and theories accessible to a broad audience. The anthropology of biology: a lesson from the new kinship. Kinship and marriage: An anthropological perspective. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. 3. a passage or stairway leading down. For instance, we consider adopted individuals (fictitious or ritual kinship) to have the same descent as the members of the group that adopted them. German, French, and British anthropology, among others, define kinship as including marriage … In the Trobriands in Melanesia, the son belongs to his mother’s kinship group in which her brother is also included; following the son’s marriage, the son and his wife live with the said brother. Even Lévi-Strauss, in his major critique of descent theory in kinship studies, finds the existence of unilineal descent essential to the logic of his model of elementary structures of marriage exchange. 222-239). Given that such societies lacked centralized administrative and judicial institutions—the bureaucratic machinery of the state—how were rights, duties, status, and property transmitted from one generation to the next? We define descent as unilineal or unilateral when the elements of an individual’s status are transmitted through only one parent and the individual belongs to only one parent’s kinship group. The major premises of functionalism were that every aspect of a culture, no matter how seemingly disparate (e.g., kinship terms, technology, food, mythology, artistic motifs), had a substantive purpose and that within a given culture these diverse structures worked together to maintain the group’s viability. Kinship and descent are each notions that have been of particular preoccupation to social anthropologists, as much due to their importance as because of the difficulties they present. Unilineal kin systems trace kin through either the female line or the male line. 5. any passing from higher to lower in degree or state;… Of course the relatives on both sides of any individual overlap with those of others, creating a web of interconnectedness rather than a discrete group. At the end of our discussion of kinship groups in North India, it is not out of place to mention two more sets of relationships, which assume significance in some situations. The issues that underlay the so-called matrilineal puzzle were directly related to culturally specific notions about what constitutes a person. Despite Radcliffe-Brown’s assertions to the contrary, bilateral (sometimes called “cognatic”) kinship as well as bilateral descent groups (reckoned in both the mother’s and the father’s lines) were found to be statistically common, even though they did not provide the same kind of clearly demarcated groupings as unilineal versions of kinship. Although women may be more highly valued in matrilineal than patrilineal cultures, the anthropological data clearly indicate that hierarchical political systems (whether matrilineal or patrilineal) tend to be dominated by men and that no period of absolute matriarchy has ever existed. Lineage is the wider group of individuals beyond the family who are interconnected through consanguineal kinship and who acknowledge a common ancestor. → descent. From their perspective this function was to a large degree self-evident and cross-culturally constant. Kinship was regarded as the theoretical and methodological core of social anthropology in the early and middle part of the 20th century. D. Before The Nuer. Kin groups: Clans, lineages and lignages. In these cases, individuals belong to the groups constituted by their fathers’ kin without overlooking their consanguinity links with their mothers. Fortes distinguished between the “private” or “domestic” domain of kinship and what he called the “politico-jural” domain. These theories are known as descent theories. The differences between matrilineal and patrilineal systems nonetheless drew the nature of personhood to the attention of descent theorists. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. The seeds of kinship theory Carol Delaney 3. Although comparative studies gradually abandoned an explicit evolutionist agenda, there remained an implicit evolutionary cast to the way in which kinship studies were framed. ‘Kinship is the recognition of relationships between persons based on descent or marriage. In many matrilineal or uterine descent societies, the mother’s brother has the primary role in the kinship group, corresponding to the father’s role in cases of patrilineal or agnatic descent.