1. Chapter 10 Kinship

2. Chapter Questions • Why is kinship so important in nonstate societies? • Can you explain why hunters and gatherers have kinship classification systems similar to those of industrialized societies?

3. Chapter Questions • What are some of the functions of different kinds of kinship systems? • How can people manipulate kinship rules to server their own interests? • In what ways to kinship terminologies reflect other aspects of a culture?

4. Kinship Includes relationships through blood and through marriage. Functions: • Provides continuity between generations. • Defines a group on whom a person can rely for aid.

5. Descent Groups • Affiliations between children and parents. Functions: • Organize domestic life. • Enculturate children. • Allow transfer of property. • Carry out religious ritual. • Settle disputes.

6. Unilineal Descent • Descent based on links through paternal or maternal line. Advantages: • Forms nonoverlapping descent groups that perpetuate themselves over time even though membership changes. • Provide clear group membership for everyone in the society.

7. Patrilineage • Descent is traced through male lineage. • Inheritance moves from father to son, as does succession to office. • Man’s position as father and husband is the most important source of male authority. • Example: Nuer or Sudan.

8. Matrilineage • Descent is traced through the female line. • Children belong to the mother’s descent group. • The inclusion of a husband in the household is less important. • Women usually have higher status. • Example: Hopi.

9. Kinship Classification and Culture • Outlines rights and obligations. • Specifies how people act toward each other. • Determines the types of social groups that are formed. • Regulates the systems of marriage and inheritance.

10. Principles of Classifying Kin • Generation • Relative age • Lineality vs. Collaterality • Gender • Consanguineal vs. Affinal kin • Sex of linking relative • Side of the family

11. Types of Kinship Terminologies • Hawaiian - emphasizes distinctions between generations and reflects the equality between the mother’s and the father’s sides of the family. • Eskimo - found among hunting-and-gathering people in North America and correlated with bilateral descent.

12. Types of Kinship Terminologies • Iroquois - associated with matrilineal or double descent and emphasizes the importance of unilineal descent groups. • Omaha - found among patrilineal peoples including the Native American group of that name.

13. Types of Kinship Terminologies • Crow - named for the Crow Indians of North America, is the matrilineal equivalent of the Omaha system. • Sudanese - most descriptive systems, named after the groups that use them in Africa (primarily Ethiopia).