Kinship Systems and How They Shape Society

Authors Avatar

Candidate No. 227797

Assessed Essay for SSA101

KINSHIP SYSTEMS AND HOW THEY SHAPE SOCIETY

Since the beginning of anthropological study the idea of kinship has been defined in many ways.  Lucy Mair (1972) classed it “Kinship is the expression of social relationships in a biological idiom”  In essence this means that kinship is defined by a society’s particular beliefs about biological connections between people.

Particularly in small scale societies kinship is an important principle in the organisation of members, which can be based on either marriage or descent.  It is this difference that was acknowledged by the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1968) “A kinship system does not exist in the objective ties between individuals: it exists only in human consciousness”.  Expressed in other terms this simply means that ideas about kinship cannot be grouped together, it is too complex.  Kinship can only be studied by looking at the recognition of relationship ties from the perspective of a chosen society.

 This essay will look at kinship in the form of descent.  Descent can be defined as the socially recognised  links between ancestors and descendants.  There are 4 major theories of descent that can be used to explain the line of kinship in various societies.  These are;    

Unilineal descent

Bilineal descent

Parallel descent

Bilateral descent

A society recognised as having a unilineal descent system will trace kinship only through a single line of ancestors, male or female. If descent is traced through the female side children will belong to their mothers kinship group (a matrilineal society), but if it is traced through the male side the children will become members of the fathers group (patrilineal society).

A bilineal descent system (also known as double descent), is one in which a child is both a member of their mothers matrilineage and fathers patrilineage.  Such a system is illustrated by the Yako of Nigeria where rights are transferred through kinship.  Through membership to the fathers group (patrilineal) a child gains rights to land and residence, rights to other moveable goods e.g. livestock are gained through the mothers group (matrilineal).

Join now!

A parallel descent system (also called a ‘rope’ system) is where the males of a society trace their descent through the male line of their father and the females trace their descent through the female line of their mother.  The Mundugumor society in New Guinea, as researched by Margaret Mead (1901-1978) follow this type of descent but have a variation in that males belong to their mothers kinship group and females belong to their fathers kinship group. Such a descent line is unusual as it is the only kinship system where brothers and sisters do not belong to the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay