Lecture 12: Kinship and Descent

Question 1

what is kinship?

what is it based on?

Answer 1

• not based on shared blood
• 1/2 genetic material: mother, brother, etc
• 1/4 genetic material: grandparents, cousins
• more complicated than just based on love
• kinship signifies 3 things
1: totality of relationships based on ideas of shared substance and mutuality that links individuals in a web of special rights and obligations
2: the kind of groups formed in a society based on these ideas and relationships
3: systems of terms used to classify relatives and distinguish them

Question 2

nuclear family

Answer 2

• parents and their biological children
• typical American family is small and impermanent
• matrilaterally skewed: women seem to be doing most
of the work of kinship
• rely on non-kinship based institutions to survive (kin
substitutes? married to our jobs?)

Question 3

other families

Answer 3

• expanded, extended households: kinship network of social and economic ties composed of the nuclear family (parents and children) plus other, less immediate relatives
ex: aunts, uncles, cousins
• nuclear not as popular today compared to 1970 (in text)
• increase in divorce ratios

Question 4

changes in NA kinship

Answer 4

• more women joining workforce
• first marriage at later age
• higher divorce rate
• increase in single parent families

Question 5

Scheper-Hughes “Death Without Weeping” in Brazil

Answer 5

• people didn’t become attached to their babies until they knew they were going to survive

Question 6

Nayar of India

Answer 6

•
Matrilineal society in which extended families live in compounds called theravad ‘‘terawads” each headed by a senior female, without emphasis on biological paternity
-many Nayar children did not know who their biological father was
-total disregard for paternity
-this shows that the nuclear family is NOT universal

Question 7

descent groups

Answer 7

permanent social units whose members claim common ancestry
Patrilineal: membership based on relatedness through male ancestors
Matrilineal: || mother’s line
Unilineal: either Patrilineal OR Matrilineal
Ambilineal: individual gets to choose Patrilineal or Matrilineal
Bilateral: no descent groups: mother’s and father’s side are to be the same kind of relative (US)

Question 8

common descent group locations

Answer 8

• non-industrial economies: horticultural, agricultural, pastoral
• descent groups are not constituted with high mobility or flexibility

Question 9

family of orientation

Answer 9

•classic nuclear family in which you are born and grow up

Question 10

family of procreation

Answer 10

•family which you form when you marry and have children

Question 11

Virilocality

Answer 11

living with residents/family of the groom

Question 12

Uxorilocality

Answer 12

living with relatives of the bride

Question 13

Neolocality

Answer 13

living apart from relatives of the bride and groom

most common in US

Question 14

Patrilocality vs Matrilocality

Answer 14

moving to the husband’s community

moving to the bride’s community

Question 15

kinship calculation

Answer 15

system through which people in a society conceptualize kin relationships

involves distinguishing b/w varieties of relatedness
•blood, marriage, descent

kin type vs kin term

Question 16

descent

Answer 16

• collateral: siblings, aunts, nieces

* lineal: parents, grandparents, children

Question 17

blood and marriage

Answer 17

• affines/affinal: through marriage

* consanguines/consanguineal: through blood

Question 18

parallel cousins vs cross cousins

Answer 18

sex/gender of the linking relative is same

opposite (mother’s brothers children)

Question 19

fictive kin

Answer 19

ex: funcle who actually isn’t

Question 20

distinctions in kin terms

Answer 20

sex
generation
affinity (mother vs mother-in-law)
bifurcation
relative age
sex of linking relative

Question 21

bilateral kinship calculation

Answer 21

kin ties calculated equally through men and women.

Question 22

Iriquois Kinship Terms

Answer 22

matrilateral distinctions

-Ego’s mother’s sister is also referred to mother, and her offsprings will be Ego’s brother and sister too

Question 23

Bifurcate Merging Kinship

Answer 23

unilineal descent (patrilineal or matrilineal) group

Question 24

Bifurcate Merging Residence Rule

Answer 24

unilocal- patrilocal or matrilocal

Question 25

Bifurcate Collateral Kinship

Answer 25

6 terms for parental kin, M,F,MB,MZ,FB,FZ

Question 26

Kinship Systems

Answer 26

1) Bifurcate Collateral Kinship
- distinguishing collateral relatives both from lineal relatives of the same generation and from one another on the basis of the sex of connecting relatives

2) Bifurcate Merging Kinship
- identifying collateral relatives with lineal relatives of the same sex and generation when the connecting relative is of the same sex but distinguishing them when the connecting relative is of the opposite sex in a bifurcate merging terminology a father’s brother would be identified as father but a mother’s brother as uncle

3) Lineal Kinship