In what ways have Anthropologists shown that kinship is not about genetic relatedness?

Genetics and Kinship Martin Hulf

13/12/02

The question asks how anthropologists have found kinship to be more than genetically based. ‘Kinship’, for the purpose of this essay, will be discussed as the fundamental group of people with whom one relates with for food, support, and company (i.e. Who we consider family). Where as ‘genetic relatedness’ is the people that we are biologically related to and with whom we innately form relationships.

This essay will show that genetic relatedness does not determine kinship. There are societies where being a parent does not mean you have to be genetically related to your children. There are other cases where labor and proximity determine who one considers kin and finally there are instances where people choose their kin, while even being able to negate biological relationships one considers unsatisfactory. These arguments prove that kinship something more than biological and yet they do not prove it is independent from it but that they work together to create kinship.

In some societies parents are not necessarily related to the children they raise. The Nuer of Sudan are “remarkably unconcerned with genetic paternity” (Holy, 1996: 23). To them it is not so important that children have genetic fathers as it is for them to have legal fathers. Take the case of ghost marriages. A marriage is sealed not through sexual activity but through the transfer of cattle as a bridal gift, making a man the legal father of the children the woman bears. If he should die before being able to have sex with her then his younger brother takes the role of genitor and has sexual relations with the dead brother’s wife. Although he may be the offspring’s genitor he is not their pater because the cattle gift was made in another man’s name (Evans-Pritchard, 1951. Cited in Holy, 1996). Consequently, he may not have any sons and upon his death there will be a ghost marriage to provide him with heirs to look after his cattle. Even the sons feel they do not belong in their genitor’s house and will usually leave at the age of about eighteen or nineteen to live with his “real” paternity where he is automatically a member of that household and not a guest (Holy, 1996: 23).

The Nuer also have female-female marriages where one woman is the pater to all the children that the other produces. If a woman is barren then by Nuer standards she is a man. She gives a cattle gift to obtain a wife and finds a kinsman, friend, or neighbor to beget her children. The barren woman then has the legal right of any husband and father including the arranging of marriages of her daughters and seeking damages if a man copulates with her wife without her permission. She is referred to as ‘husband’ by her wife and as ‘father’ by her children, despite having no genetic relation to them she is their legal father and kin (Evans-Pritchard, 1951. Cited in Holy, 1996: 17).

In some Melanesian societies a woman is not considered at all related to her children despite giving birth to them. The Baruya of New Guinea have this concept based on their theory of procreation where a woman contributes nothing to the conception and growth of a child. Instead, it is a man’s semen that has all the necessary components for a child, the woman acts as little more than a vessel (Godelier, 1986. Cited in Holy, 1996: 21). Therefore, to the Baruya, maternity is not innate but “patently secondary” (Jolly, 1991:55. Cited in Holy, 1996:23) to paternity to the point ...

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In western society it is also possible to be the parent of children through fertility treatments and adoption so that one has no genetic relation to them but is still their parent. With the huge advance in fertility technology in the 1980’s and 1990’s it is now possible to have a maximum of five parents involved in the creation of a child: an infertile couple who wish to have a child, a sperm donor, an ovum donor, and a surrogate mother willing to bear the child (Fox, 1993. cited in Holy, 1996). In this extreme case the mother and father who will raise the child have no shared genetic relation to it but act as its socially and legally recognized parents. Adoption is a similar example. Parents choose to raise a child that they have no genetic similarity to and it seems to be the case that this is done quite readily: 25% of children born in Tahiti are adopted and 38% of rural households include adopted children (Hooper 1970b. Cited in Sahlins, 1977). These children grow up as an equal member of kin with the same right of inheritance and paternal care as the “natural” counter-parts (Sahlins, 1977: 48).

There is also remarkable evidence to prove that kinship develops because of shared labor and proximity. The Bena Bena, of New Guinea, grant rapid and full incorporation to their clan to those who immigrate. The clan sees themselves as related kinsmen who call each other “brother”. Andrew Strathern believes this was from sharing food grown on clan land from clan labor:

Another way in which they share substance is through consumption of food grown on clan land. Food builds their bodies and milk give them substance in the womb and as small children. Hence it is through food that the identification of the sons of immigrants with their host group is strengthened. Food creates…an excellent symbol…for the creation of identity out of residence. (Strathern 1973:29. Cited in Holy, 1996:10)

Lagness also notes that it was the “sheer fact of residence” (1964:174. Cited in Holy, 1996:10) which allowed the newcomers to integrate into Bena Bena kinship and the “people do not necessarily reside where they do because they are kinsmen: rather they become kinsmen because they reside there” (ibid. Cited in Holy, 1996: 10).

The Inuit also develop kinship from labor and shared proximity. In his study of the Qiqiqtamiut, Guemple decided that kinship was non-genealogical defined and that “social relatedness begins in the local group” (1979:93. Cited in Nuttall, 200: 37). The kinship is strengthened and made based on the close proximity they share. Graburn, who analyzed Inuit communities on the Ungava coast, came to similar conclusions that social relatedness begins with residence and co-operation in hunting and fishing activities (Graburn, 1964. Cited in Nuttall, 2000:37). This is reflected in Nuttall’s (2000) own research in that those that one hunts with are not necessarily one’s kin but through shared experience probably do end up becoming one’s kin.

Finally there are instances where people have a choice to who their kin are, allowing them to create or negate relationships. The Kangersuatsiarmiit, of northwestern Greenland, have just this sort of choice to regard a non-kin relationship as something similar to a genealogical or affinal link (Nuttall, 2000). For example, two good friends feel close enough to be family so they start to refer to each other as “brother” and the person is considered from there on as family kin. Similarly a second cousin’s spouse may become aleqq (a man’s way of saying ‘older sister’) and she may refer to him as aqqaluk (a woman’s way of saying ‘younger brother’) and their relationship would then entail all the responsibilities a brother and sister have for each other. These sorts of relationships are formed between friends and/or distant relations because it gives “a much larger set of symbols and meanings that people use actively and consciously to construct the idea of community” (Nuttall, 2000: 43). This also forms a social support network whereby individuals have obligations and duties to each other because of the kin terms they use. It is used when distributing meat from a large kill between all the members of society, although using a kinship term does not automatically entitle you to a share.

The Kangersuatsiarmiit also have the option to ‘forget’ genealogical relationships if the deem them to be unsatisfactory. This could be due to a number of reasons. The family members may simply have fallen out over an issue and are angry at each other. It could be that one of the two have begun to neglect the obligations they have to the other and subsequently the relationship was terminated, or in some cases because they’ve had sexual relations. This pragmatic denial of kinship is used when first cousins develop sexual relationships. Nuttall has heard people say, “she used to be my relative but now she is my woman” (2000: 43-44). It is also not uncommon to hear Kangersuatsiarmiit referring to an ilaqutarit (close kin) as though they were actually an eqqarleq (someone who is from a different extended family). The frequency of this occurrence means that choosing to disown a genealogical relation is as easy as simply denying that it exists.

There is, however, a limit to who one can disown. Nuttall (2000) notes that the Kangersuatsiarmiit cannot disown their parents, grandparents, or siblings. Heinrich (1963. Cited in Nuttall, 2000) also found that there were optative and non-optative categories of Inuit kinship. So, although one may fall out with their siblings, it is not seen as acceptable to deny the genealogical relationship.

In conclusion, anthropologists have shown that kinship is not about genetic relatedness by looking at societies where genetics do not determine parentage, where labor and proximity play a part in kinship, and where individuals can choose who they regard as kin. However, it is important to mention that, although most anthropologists do not see kinship as solely biological, they do not concede that kinship is independent of biology as a factor in relationships. After all, even the Kangersuatsiarmiit do not have the option of disowning their closest biological relations as kinsmen. Instead, most anthropologists yield to the view supported by Barnes that societies can be classed as acknowledging “the relations of nature to fatherhood and motherhood are different…physical motherhood is to physical fatherhood as nature is to culture” (Barnes, 1973: 72). In other words, a mother’s relations to her children is physically observable as pregnancy and birth, but a man’s relation to a child is constructed from the cultural setting into which that child is born. Finally, one can say that each society, due to its unique cultural beliefs and practices, has separate and rational assumptions as to what is and what is not kinship. Therefore, it is an enormously difficult task to determine a cross-cultural theory of kinship and it is a concept that is still being debated today.

References

Barnes, J. (1973) Genetrix: genitor::nature:culture. In J. Goody (ed.) The character of

kinship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holy, L. (1996) Chapter 1: First Principles. Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship,

Pluto: London

Nuttall, M. (2000) Choosing Kin: sharing and subsistence in a Greenlandic hunting

community. In Schweitzer, P. (2000, ed. by) Dividends of Kinship: meanings and uses of social relatedness. London New York: Routledge.

Sahlins, M. (1977) Chapter 2: critique of scientific socio-biology: kin selection. The use

and abuse of biology: an anthropological critique of sociobiology. London: Tavistock.

Similar theories of procreation are found in the Madak (Clay, 1977) and Gimi (Gillison, 1980) of Melanesia and also has been documented in Turkish Villages where a woman is nothing more than a ‘field’ for the man’s seed (Delaney, 1986). All cited in Holy, 1996.

Similar results have been found in Hawaii (Howard 1970; Ellis 1969 [1842]. Both cited in Sahlins)

Also noted by Guemple (1972c. Cited in Nuttall, 2000: 43)

Rosaldo (1980: 183. cited in Nuttall, 2000) made similar observations on the ‘discovery’ and ‘forgetting’ of genealogical relations. Sahlins (1962:164. cited in Sahlins 1977) also notes that among the Naroi Fijian villagers can choose those cousins they call ‘brother’ and those they do not.