Kinship | Definition, Theories, Sociology, & Facts

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[{"p":6,"t":318871},{"p":1,"t":201237},{"p":1,"t":158876},{"p":3,"t":228297},{"p":1,"t":497082},{"p":1,"t":111093},{"p":1,"t":305637},{"p":2,"t":366152},{"p":3,"t":381297},{"p":1,"t":318924}], "sequence": 1, "topics": {} }); </script> <article class="article-content container-lg qa-content px-0 pt-0 pb-40 py-lg-20 content md-expanded" data-topic-id="318871"> <div class="grid gx-0"> <div class="col-auto"> <div class="topic-left-rail md-article-drawer position-relative d-flex border-right-sm border-left-sm open"> <div class="drawer d-flex flex-column open"> <div class="left-rail-section-content"> <div class="topic-left-rail-header text-truncate bg-gray-50 position-relative text-right d-flex align-items-center"> <div class="tlr-title px-20 py-15 text-left"> <em class="material-icons text-gray-400 d-lg-none" data-icon="toc"></em> <a class="font-serif font-weight-bold text-black link-blue" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship">kinship</a> </div> <button aria-label="Close" class="js-sections-close-button btn-link btn-sm btn d-lg-none position-absolute top-0 p-10 right-0" > <em class="material-icons font-26" data-icon="close"></em> </button> </div> <div class="section-content pl-10 pr-20 pl-sm-50 pr-sm-60 pl-lg-5 pr-lg-10 pt-10 pt-lg-0 bg-gray-50 clear-catfish-ad"> <div class="toc mb-20"> <div class="font-serif font-14 font-weight-bold mx-15 mb-15 mt-20"> Table of Contents </div> <ul class="list-unstyled my-0" data-level="h1"><li data-target="#ref1"><div class="pl-25"><a class="link-gray-900 w-100" href="/topic/kinship">Introduction</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278962"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship#ref278962">The evolution of family forms</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278963"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><button class="h1-link-drawer-button btn btn-xs btn-circle d-flex rounded" type="button" aria-label="Toggle Heading"><em class="material-icons font-18" data-icon="keyboard_arrow_right"></em></button><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Descent-theory">Descent theory</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"><ul class="list-unstyled" data-level="h2"><li data-target="#ref278964"><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Descent-theory#ref278964">Personhood, cohesion, and the “matrilineal puzzle”</a></li></ul><ul class="list-unstyled" data-level="h2"><li data-target="#ref278965"><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Descent-theory#ref278965">Critiques of descent theory</a></li></ul></div></li><li data-target="#ref278966"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><button class="h1-link-drawer-button btn btn-xs btn-circle d-flex rounded" type="button" aria-label="Toggle Heading"><em class="material-icons font-18" data-icon="keyboard_arrow_right"></em></button><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Alliance-theory">Alliance theory</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"><ul class="list-unstyled" data-level="h2"><li data-target="#ref278967"><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Alliance-theory#ref278967">Reciprocity, incest, and the transition from “nature” to “culture”</a></li></ul><ul class="list-unstyled" data-level="h2"><li data-target="#ref278968"><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Alliance-theory#ref278968">Elementary structures</a></li></ul><ul class="list-unstyled" data-level="h2"><li data-target="#ref278969"><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Alliance-theory#ref278969">Critiques of alliance theory</a></li></ul></div></li><li data-target="#ref278970"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Kinship-terminology">Kinship terminology</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278971"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Kinship-terminology#ref278971">Historical materialism and instrumentality</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278972"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Kinship-terminology#ref278972">Households, residence rules, and house societies</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278973"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Kinship-terminology#ref278973">Culturalist accounts</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278974"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Feminist-and-gendered-approaches-to-kinship">Feminist and gendered approaches to kinship</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278975"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Feminist-and-gendered-approaches-to-kinship#ref278975">Challenging the conceptual basis of kinship</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li><li data-target="#ref278976"><div class="d-flex align-items-center"><div class="ml-25"></div><a class="w-100 link-gray-900" href="/topic/kinship/Reproductive-technologies-social-innovation-and-the-future-of-kinship-studies">Reproductive technologies, social innovation, and the future of kinship studies</a></div><div class="ml-40 toc-drawer sub-toc-drawer"></div></li></ul> <a class="toc-extra-link link-gray-900" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship/additional-info">References & Edit History</a> <a class="toc-extra-link link-gray-900" href="/facts/kinship">Quick Facts & Related Topics</a> </div> <div class="tlr-media-slider pb-10 mb-30"> <a class="section-header link-gray-900 font-serif font-14 font-weight-bold mb-10 mx-10" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship/images-videos">Images</a> <div class="slider js-slider position-relative d-inline-flex align-items-center mw-100 "> <div class="slider-container js-slider-container overflow-hidden d-flex overflow-hidden text-nowrap ml-15"> <a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/32/107032-050-BE1D2B3A/family-listing-births-deaths-marriages-kin-group.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/114545" class="media-overlay-link d-inline-block mr-5"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/32/107032-004-9576C737/family-listing-births-deaths-marriages-kin-group.jpg" alt="18th-century family register" height="50" /> </a> <a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/18/122818-004-66F6891E/terms-symbols-kinship-diagrams.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119383" class="media-overlay-link d-inline-block mr-5"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/18/122818-004-66F6891E/terms-symbols-kinship-diagrams.jpg" alt="Basics of kinship diagrams" height="50" /> </a> <a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/16/259516-050-78DFCF9E/second-cousins.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/313907" class="media-overlay-link d-inline-block mr-5"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/16/259516-004-02F899B8/second-cousins.jpg" alt="Cousin family tree" height="50" /> </a> <a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/20/122820-050-ACFE47F0/cultures-parallel-Ego-cousins-cross-cousins-siblings-marriage.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119386" class="media-overlay-link d-inline-block mr-5"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/20/122820-004-731240DB/cultures-parallel-Ego-cousins-cross-cousins-siblings-marriage.jpg" alt="Parallel and cross-cousins" height="50" /> </a> <a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/21/122821-004-48B02636/kin.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119384" class="media-overlay-link d-inline-block mr-5"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/21/122821-004-48B02636/kin.jpg" alt="Lineal kin and collateral kin" height="50" /> </a> <a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/19/122819-004-8DA40E54/Unilineal-kin-systems-line.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119385" class="media-overlay-link d-inline-block mr-5"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/19/122819-004-8DA40E54/Unilineal-kin-systems-line.jpg" alt="Matrilineal kin system" height="50" /> </a> </div> <button disabled class="prev-button js-prev-button position-absolute btn btn-circle shadow btn-blue " aria-label="Previous"> <span class="material-icons md-24" data-icon="keyboard_arrow_left"></span> </button> <button disabled class="next-button js-next-button position-absolute btn btn-circle shadow btn-blue " aria-label="Next"> <span class="material-icons md-24" 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Emperor Shah Jahan fifth Mughal Emperor (reigned 1628-1658) India, Himachal Pradesh, Basohli or Jammu and Kashmir, Mankot, circa 1690 Drawings; Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper (see notes)" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div> <div class="card-body ilf-content"> <a class="font-weight-semi-bold d-block mb-5 font-16 ilf-title" href="/story/6-important-mughal-emperors" >6 Important Mughal Emperors</a> </div> </div> <div class="imagelink-with-image-on-the-side card card-horizontal tlr-img-with-side-link ml-15 link-gray-900 mb-10" > <div class="position-relative card-media" style="flex: 0;"> <a class="ilf-image position-relative" href="/list/inventors-and-inventions-of-the-industrial-revolution"> <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/34/193634-131-F5FF783D/factories-Industrial-Revolution-workers-house-machines.jpg?w=200&h=200&c=crop" alt="A Factory Interior, watercolor, pen and gray ink, graphite, and white goache on wove paper by unknown artist, c. 1871-91; in the Yale Center for British Art. Industrial Revolution England" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div> <div class="card-body ilf-content"> <a class="font-weight-semi-bold d-block mb-5 font-16 ilf-title" href="/list/inventors-and-inventions-of-the-industrial-revolution" >Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution</a> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <button class="drawerToggle btn position-sticky border btn-xs btn-white btn-circle rounded-sm d-none d-lg-flex " type="button" aria-label="Toggle Drawer"> <em class="material-icons font-18 text-blue" data-icon="keyboard_arrow_left"></em> </button> </div> </div> <div class="col"> <div class="h-100 ml-0 pr-lg-0 "> <div class="h-100 grid gx-0 gx-lg-20"> <div class="h-100 col-sm"> <div class="h-100 infinite-pagination-container d-flex flex-column position-relative"> <div class="position-absolute top-0 h-100 w-100"> <div class="toc-sticky-header d-none d-lg-none bg-gray-50 px-10 px-sm-30 position-sticky w-100 "> <div class="toc-sticky-header-inner-container align-items-center d-flex mx-auto h-100 w-100"> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-sm btn-white text-blue border-2 border-gray-100 gtm-mobile-toc-header-button js-sections-button d-lg-none p-10"> <em class="material-icons my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Contents </button> <div class="header-ai-simplify-button-placeholder"></div> <div class="header-ai-ask-button-placeholder"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="grey-box w-100 grey-box-top"> <div class="grey-box-content mx-auto w-100"> <script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement" : [ { "@type" : "ListItem", "position" : 1, "item" : { "@id" : "https://www.britannica.com/browse/Lifestyles-Social-Issues", "name": "Lifestyles & Social Issues" } } , { "@type" : "ListItem", "position" : 2, "item" : { "@id" : "https://www.britannica.com/browse/Sociology-Society", "name": "Sociology & Society" } } ] } </script> <nav class="breadcrumb mt-20"> <span class="breadcrumb-item "> <a class="link-gray-600" href="/browse/Lifestyles-Social-Issues">Lifestyles & Social Issues</a> </span> <span class="breadcrumb-item "> <a class="link-gray-600" href="/browse/Sociology-Society">Sociology & Society</a> </span> </nav> <div class="page2ref-true topic-content topic-type-REGULAR" data-student-article="false"> <script class="page-description-json" type="application/json"> { "url": "/topic/kinship", "shareUrl": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship", "browserTitle": "Kinship | Definition, Theories, Sociology, & Facts", "firstTopicPage": true, "topicId":318871 } </script> <div class="reading-channel"> <div class="desktop-header-image module-spacing"> <figure class="md-assembly m-0 mb-20 mb-md-0 card card-borderless print-false" data-assembly-id="13684" data-asm-type="image"> <div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media " data-type="image"> <a style="min-height: 160px;" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/32/107032-050-BE1D2B3A/family-listing-births-deaths-marriages-kin-group.jpg" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center media-overlay-link card-media" data-href="/media/1/318871/114545"> <picture> <source media="(min-width: 680px)" srcset="https://cdn.britannica.com/32/107032-050-BE1D2B3A/family-listing-births-deaths-marriages-kin-group.jpg?w=300"> <img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/32/107032-050-BE1D2B3A/family-listing-births-deaths-marriages-kin-group.jpg?w=400&h=300&c=crop" alt="18th-century family register" loading="eager" /> </picture> <button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"> <em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em> </button> </a> </div> <figcaption class="card-body"> <div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"> <span> <a class="gtm-assembly-link md-assembly-title font-weight-bold d-inline font-sans-serif mr-5 media-overlay-link" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/32/107032-050-BE1D2B3A/family-listing-births-deaths-marriages-kin-group.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/114545">18th-century family register</a> <span><span>An 18th-century family register listing births, marriages, and deaths within a kin group; 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Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. </div> <div class="label mt-20 mb-10">Select Citation Style</div> <select class="js-citation-format-select form-select"> <option selected value="mla">MLA</option> <option value="apa">APA</option> <option value="chicago">Chicago Manual of Style</option> </select> <div class="citation font-serif border rounded p-15 mt-20" data-authors="Carsten, Janet" data-authors-initial="Carsten, J." data-title="kinship" data-published-date="28 Jan. 2025" data-url="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship" > <div class="citation-text"></div> </div> <button class="js-copy-citation-button mt-20 btn btn-xs btn-outline-blue border shadow-sm pr-10" > <em class="material-icons md-icon ml-n10 my-n5 mr-5" data-icon="file_copy"></em> <span class="js-citation-status-text">Copy Citation</span> </button> </div> </div> </div> <div> <button class="js-share-modal-button js-modal btn btn-sm btn-link gtm-topic-tool font-weight-bold btn-link" data-modal="[data-topic-id=318871] .md-share-modal"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="share"></em> Share </button> <div class="md-share-modal size-lg d-none qa-share-modal"> <div class="md-modal-body"> <div class="h2 font-serif d-flex align-items-center pb-15 border-bottom"> <em class="material-icons text-blue mr-10" data-icon="share"></em> Share </div> <div class="label my-20">Share to social media</div> <div class="md-social-toolbar-circle d-flex align-items-start inverted" data-value="share" title="kinship" data-url="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship" > <a class="social-icon facebook justify-content-center d-flex align-items-center align-self-center" data-provider="facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/BRITANNICA/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>Facebook</span></a> <a class="social-icon x justify-content-center d-flex align-items-center align-self-center" data-provider="x" href="https://x.com/britannica" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>X</span></a> </div> <div class="label pt-20 mt-20 mb-5 border-top">URL</div> <a class="font-serif text-truncate d-inline-block" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship">https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship</a> </div> </div> </div> <div> <button class="js-feedback-modal-button js-modal btn btn-sm btn-link gtm-topic-tool font-weight-bold btn-link" data-modal=".md-feedback-modal"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="message"></em> Feedback </button> </div> <div> <button class="qa-external-website-modal-button js-modal btn btn-sm btn-link gtm-topic-tool font-weight-bold btn-link" data-modal="[data-topic-id=318871] .md-websites-modal"> <em class="material-icons md-icon ml-n10 mr-5" data-icon="link"></em> External Websites </button> </div> </div> <div class="md-feedback-modal size-lg d-none"> <div class="md-modal-body"> <div class="h2 font-serif pb-15 border-bottom"> Feedback </div> <form method="post" action="/submission/feedback/318871"> <div class="my-20"> Corrections? 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Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). </div> <div class="type-menu"> <label for="feedback-type" class="label mb-10">Feedback Type</label> <select id="feedback-type" class="form-select mb-30" name="feedbackTypeId" required> <option value="" selected="selected">Select a type (Required)</option> <option value="1">Factual Correction</option> <option value="2">Spelling/Grammar Correction</option> <option value="3">Link Correction</option> <option value="4">Additional Information</option> <option value="5">Other</option> </select> </div> <label for="feedback" class="label mb-10">Your Feedback</label> <textarea id="feedback" class="form-control mb-30" name="feedback" maxlength="3000" rows="7" required></textarea> <button class="btn btn-blue" type="submit">Submit Feedback</button> </form> <div class="success-messaging d-none mt-30"> <div class="title">Thank you for your feedback</div> <p>Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="md-websites-modal size-lg d-none"> <div class="md-modal-body"> <div class="h2 font-serif pb-15 border-bottom font-weight-bold"> External Websites </div> <div class="pb-20"> <ul class="list-unstyled mt-20 lh-lg"> <li><a class="external" href="https://openstax.org/books/introduction-anthropology/pages/11-introduction" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">OpenStax - Introduction to Anthropology - Kinship</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/society2/chapter/marriage-and-family/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">BCcampus Open Publishing - Society: A Global Introduction, 2nd Edition - Family and Kinship</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3143492/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - The foundation of kinship: Households</a></li> <li><a class="external" href="https://pressbooks.nebraska.edu/anth110/chapter/social-structures/" target="_blank" rel="noopener ">University of Nebraska Pressbooks - An Introduction to Anthropology: the Biological and Cultural Evolution of Humans - Social Structures: Kinship and Marriage</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="toc-header-marker"></div> <button class="ai-ask-button btn btn-sm border-2 btn-outline-red-400 border-red-400 d-none mr-0 mr-lg-10 ml-5 ml-sm-10 ml-lg-0 p-10 px-sm-5 px-md-10 js-header-ai-ask-button"> Ask the Chatbot a Question </button> <div class="caption alternate-titles">Also known as: kin, kinsfolk</div> <div class="md-byline module-spacing "> <div class="font-serif font-12"> <span class="written-by text-gray-700"> Written by </span> <div class="editor-popover popover p-0"> <a class="d-block p-20 qa-editor-popup gtm-byline font-12 byline-contributor" href="/contributor/Janet-Carsten/5727" > <div class="editor-title font-16 font-weight-bold">Janet Carsten</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 clamp-description text-black">Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh. Author of <i>After Kinship</i> and <i>The Heat of the Hearth: The Process of Kinship in a Malay...</i></div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link gtm-byline font-12 byline-contributor text-decoration-underline"> Janet Carsten</span></div> <div class="font-serif font-12 text-gray-700"> <span class="qa-fact-checked-by">Fact-checked by</span> <div class="editor-popover popover p-0"> <a class="d-block p-20 qa-editor-popup font-12" href="/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419" > <div class="editor-title font-16 font-weight-bold">The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 text-black">Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link font-12 "> The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</span></div> <div class="last-updated font-12 font-serif"> <span class="text-gray-700"> Last Updated: <time datetime="2025-01-28T00:00:00CST" >Jan 28, 2025</time> •</span> <a class="byline-edit-history" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship/additional-info#history" rel="nofollow">Article History</a> </div></div> </div> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-outline-blue border rounded-sm shadow-sm mobile-toc-button gtm-mobile-toc-inline-button d-none d-sm-block js-sections-inline-button module-spacing btn d-lg-none"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Table of Contents </button> <div class="d-flex d-sm-none flex-row"> <button class="d-flex d-lg-none btn btn-outline-blue border rounded-sm shadow-sm mobile-toc-button gtm-mobile-toc-inline-button js-sections-inline-button module-spacing"> <em class="material-icons mr-5 ml-n10 my-n5 md-icon" data-icon="toc"></em> Table of Contents </button> <button class="ai-ask-button btn btn-sm border-2 btn-outline-red-400 border-red-400 module-spacing js-inline-ai-ask-button p-10 ml-5"> Ask the Chatbot </button> </div> <div class="js-qf-module qf-module px-40 px-sm-20 py-15 mx-auto module-spacing font-14 bg-gray-50 rounded"> <div class="facts-list mt-10"> <div class=""> <div class="js-fact mb-10 line-clamp clamp-3"> <dl> <dt>Key People: </dt> <dd><a href="/biography/Lewis-Henry-Morgan" topicid="392246">Lewis Henry Morgan</a></dd> <dd><a href="/biography/Richard-Thurnwald" topicid="594453">Richard Thurnwald</a></dd> <dd><a href="/biography/Maurice-Freedman" topicid="218494">Maurice Freedman</a></dd> <dd><a href="/biography/John-Ferguson-McLennan" topicid="355082">John Ferguson McLennan</a></dd> <dd><a href="/biography/Edward-W-Gifford" topicid="233380">Edward W. Gifford</a></dd> </dl> <button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-gray-50" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"> <em class="js-content link-blue">(Show more)</em> </button> </div> </div> <div class=""> <div class="js-fact mb-10 line-clamp clamp-3"> <dl> <dt>Related Topics: </dt> <dd><a href="/topic/consanguinity" topicid="133242">consanguinity</a></dd> <dd><a href="/topic/family-kinship" topicid="201237">family</a></dd> <dd><a href="/topic/kinship-terminology" topicid="318924">kinship terminology</a></dd> <dd><a href="/topic/godparent" topicid="236899">godparent</a></dd> <dd><a href="/topic/descent" topicid="158876">descent</a></dd> </dl> <button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-gray-50" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"> <em class="js-content link-blue">(Show more)</em> </button> </div> <div class="text-center"> <a class="btn btn-sm btn-link p-0" href="/facts/kinship"> See all related content </a> </div> </div> </div> </div><span class="marker before-article"></span><section data-level="1" id="ref1"><span class="marker PREMOD1 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph"><strong><span id="ref408027"></span>kinship</strong>, system of social organization based on real or <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="putative" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/putative" data-type="MW">putative</a> family ties. The modern study of kinship can be traced back to mid-19th-century interests in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/comparative-law" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">comparative legal institutions</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/philology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">philology</a>. In the late 19th century, however, the cross-cultural comparison of kinship institutions became the particular province of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/anthropology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">anthropology</a>.</p><span class="marker MOD1 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD2 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">If the study of kinship was defined largely by anthropologists, it is equally true that anthropology as an academic <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="discipline" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discipline" data-type="MW">discipline</a> was itself defined by kinship. Until the last decades of the 20th century, for example, kinship was regarded as the core of British social anthropology, and no thorough <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ethnography" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">ethnographic</a> study could overlook the central importance of kinship in the functioning of so-called stateless, nonindustrial, or traditional societies.</p><span class="marker MOD2 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD3 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Kinship is a universal <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-being" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">human</a> phenomenon that takes highly variable cultural forms. It has been explored and analyzed by many scholars, however, in ways quite removed from any popular understanding of what “being kin” might mean. As the theoretical core of the newly emerging discipline of anthropology, kinship was also the subject that made the reputations of the leading figures in the field, including scholars such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bronislaw-Malinowski" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Bronisław Malinowski</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-R-Radcliffe-Brown" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">A.R. Radcliffe-Brown</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/A-L-Kroeber" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">A.L. Kroeber</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-P-Murdock" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">George Peter Murdock</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Meyer-Fortes" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Meyer Fortes</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-E-Evans-Pritchard" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Edward Evans-Pritchard</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Levi-Strauss" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Claude Lévi-Strauss</a>.</p><span class="marker MOD3 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD4 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">These and other anthropologists held that the importance of kinship in “primitive” societies largely resided in its role as an organizational framework for production and group <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/decision-making" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">decision making</a>. They typically described these realms of traditional <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/culture" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">culture</a> (generally glossed as economics and politics, respectively) as being embedded in kinship and dominated by men. Studies of industrialized societies, by contrast, reflected <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sociology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">sociological</a> theories that tended to assume kinship <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="constituted" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/constituted" data-type="MW">constituted</a> a private, domestic domain rather than a central feature of social life. For those whose work featured such <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="cultures" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cultures" data-type="MW">cultures</a>, kinship was of minor interest because it was constituted by close family relations and was considered to be the female domain par excellence. During the mid-20th century, studies of kinship became increasingly abstract and removed from the practice of actual lived relations and the powerful emotions that they engendered. Indeed, anthropological and sociological studies of the era were typified by highly technical, or even mathematical, models of how societies worked.</p><span class="marker MOD4 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD5 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">The rise of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">feminist</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marxism" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Marxist</a> scholarship in the 1960s and ’70s was among several developments that challenged the basis of earlier kinship scholarship. The American Marxist-feminist anthropologist Eleanor Leacock and others brought to the fore the extent to which supposedly <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="holistic" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holistic" data-type="MW">holistic</a> practices of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ethnography" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">ethnography</a> were actually concerned with men only, often to the point of excluding most or all information on the lives of women. The relative foregrounding of men in anthropological studies became less acceptable, and women’s experiences became a <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="legitimate" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimate" data-type="MW">legitimate</a> topic of scholarship. Meanwhile, materialist studies of so-called traditional and industrial societies were increasingly able to show the political and economic inflections of the “private,” “domestic” domain of the family.</p><div class="module-spacing"> </div><span class="marker MOD5 mod-inline"></span><span class="marker PREMOD6 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Feminist anthropologists gradually shifted from documenting the world of women to analyzing the symbolization of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/gender-grammar" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">gender</a> itself. These studies of the late 1970s and ’80s challenged the <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="intellectual" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intellectual" data-type="MW">intellectual</a> edifice on which the study of kinship had been built and gave rise to a lively debate over the mutual definition of kinship and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/gender-identity" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">gender</a>. This debate was part of a much wider questioning of the central tenets of anthropological method and theory, including the division of the field into discrete domains such as politics, economics, kinship, religion, and theory. These developments seemed likely to result in the displacement of kinship studies. However, the advent of new reproductive technologies (including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/in-vitro-fertilization" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">in vitro fertilization</a>), family forms (such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/same-sex-marriage" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">same-sex marriage</a>), and approaches blending the separate <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="domains" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/domains" data-type="EB">domains</a> of anthropology instigated the revitalization of kinship studies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.</p><span class="marker MOD6 mod-inline"></span></section> <span class="marker h2"></span><section data-level="1" id="ref278962"> <h2 class="h1">The evolution of <span id="ref1005268"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/family-kinship" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">family</a> forms</h2> <span class="marker PREMOD7 mod-inline"></span><div class="assemblies"><div class="w-100"><figure class="md-assembly m-0 mb-md-0 card card-borderless print-false" data-assembly-id="119383" data-asm-type="image"><div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media" data-type="image"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/18/122818-004-66F6891E/terms-symbols-kinship-diagrams.jpg" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center media-overlay-link card-media" data-href="/media/1/318871/119383"><picture><source media="(min-width: 680px)" srcset="https://cdn.britannica.com/18/122818-004-66F6891E/terms-symbols-kinship-diagrams.jpg"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/18/122818-004-66F6891E/terms-symbols-kinship-diagrams.jpg?w=300" alt="Basics of kinship diagrams" data-width="320" data-height="220" loading="eager"></picture><button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"><em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em></button></a></div><figcaption class="card-body"><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"><span><a class="gtm-assembly-link md-assembly-title font-weight-bold d-inline font-sans-serif mr-5 media-overlay-link" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/18/122818-004-66F6891E/terms-symbols-kinship-diagrams.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119383">Basics of kinship diagrams</a><span>Common terms and symbols used in kinship diagrams.</span><button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-white js-content" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"><span class="link-blue">(more)</span></button></span></div></figcaption></figure></div></div><p class="topic-paragraph">The earliest attempts at the comparative study of kinship institutions were undertaken by 19th-century theorists of <span id="ref1005271"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/cultural-evolution" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">cultural evolution</a>. The most prominent of these scholars combined legal studies with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/cultural-anthropology" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">ethnology</a> and included <span id="ref1005273"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Maine" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Henry Maine</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johann-Jakob-Bachofen" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Johannes Bachofen</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Ferguson-McLennan" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">John Ferguson McLennan</a>, and <span id="ref1005223"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lewis-Henry-Morgan" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Lewis Henry Morgan</a>. They attempted to trace the historical <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">evolution</a> of family forms from the most “primitive” to the most “modern” and “civilized.”</p><div class="module-spacing"> <DIV class="marketing-INLINE_SUBSCRIPTION marketing-content" data-marketing-id="INLINE_SUBSCRIPTION"><style> .student-promo-banner-wrapper { container-type: inline-size; margin-bottom: 15px; } @container (min-width: 475px) { .student-promo-banner { flex-direction: row; } .student-promo-banner-img-wrapper { margin-bottom: 0; margin-right: 10px; justify-content: flex-start; } .student-promo-banner-text-wrapper { text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; } .student-promo-banner-button-wrapper { margin-right: 0; } }</style> <div class="student-promo-banner-wrapper"> <div class="student-promo-banner d-flex flex-column align-items-center bg-blue rounded p-20"> <div class="student-promo-banner-img-wrapper mb-20 mr-0 d-flex justify-content-center"> <img class="rounded" style="max-width: 100px; min-width: 80px" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/marketing/BlueThistle.webp" /> </div> <div class="student-promo-banner-text-wrapper ml-0 mb-10 text-center text-white"> <div class="h2 mb-10">Get Unlimited Access</div> <div class="h4 font-weight-semi-bold">Try Britannica Premium for free and discover more.</div> </div> <div class="student-promo-banner-button-wrapper d-flex justify-content-center align-items-center ml-auto mr-auto"> <a class="btn btn-m btn-orange" href="https://premium.britannica.com/premium-membership/?utm_source=premium&utm_medium=inline-cta&utm_campaign=august-2024">Subscribe</a> </div> </div> </div> </DIV></div><span class="marker MOD7 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD8 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">According to Maine’s theory, the earliest form of kin organization was a state of “patriarchal despotism” in which society consisted of an aggregation of families, each under the rule of the father. The evolution of society was <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="characterized" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/characterized" data-type="EB">characterized</a> by Maine as a movement from “status” to “contract” forms of relationship—in other words, a change from relations ordered by ascribed positions in a familial system to one in which relations were based on contractual obligations freely entered into by individuals.</p><span class="marker MOD8 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD9 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">In contrast, Bachofen, McLennan, and Morgan posited that the earliest societies were ruled by women and that the forms of kinship used by these societies were rather less regulated than Maine had suggested. Between what Morgan labeled a state of “primitive promiscuity”—in which sex and marriage were quite unregulated—and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/patriarchy" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">patriarchal</a> monogamous family form of “civilization” (the evolutionary stage in which he placed 19th-century European and Euro-American society) came a sequence of intermediate stages. These varied depending on the theorist but typically included variations such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/group-marriage" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">group marriage</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/exogamy" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">exogamy</a> (outmarriage), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/matriarchy" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">matriarchy</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/polygamy-marriage" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">polygamy</a>.</p><span class="marker MOD9 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD10 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Theories of cultural evolution were <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="conservative" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative" data-type="MW">conservative</a> in the sense that they demonstrated that the mid-19th century <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/bourgeoisie" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">bourgeois</a> family was the most “civilized” of kinship institutions. They were also speculative in that there was no direct evidence for the various early stages posited by Bachofen, McLennan, or Morgan; group marriage, matriarchy, primitive promiscuity, and so forth were merely colorful projections of the 19th-century imagination.</p><span class="marker MOD10 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD11 mod-inline"></span><div class="assemblies multiple medialist slider js-slider position-relative d-inline-flex align-items-center mw-100" data-type="other"><div class="slider-container js-slider-container overflow-hidden d-flex"><div class="rw-track d-flex align-items-center"><div class="position-relative rw-slide col-100 px-20 "><figure class="md-assembly m-0 mb-md-0 card card-borderless print-false" data-assembly-id="313907" data-asm-type="image"><div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media" data-type="image"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/16/259516-050-78DFCF9E/second-cousins.jpg" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center media-overlay-link card-media" data-href="/media/1/318871/313907"><picture><source media="(min-width: 680px)" srcset="https://cdn.britannica.com/16/259516-050-78DFCF9E/second-cousins.jpg"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/16/259516-050-78DFCF9E/second-cousins.jpg?w=300" alt="Cousin family tree" data-width="2000" data-height="2000" loading="eager"></picture><div class="position-absolute top-10 left-10 assembly-slide-tag rounded-lg">1 of 2</div><button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"><em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em></button></a></div><figcaption class="card-body"><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"><span><a class="gtm-assembly-link md-assembly-title font-weight-bold d-inline font-sans-serif mr-5 media-overlay-link" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/16/259516-050-78DFCF9E/second-cousins.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/313907">Cousin family tree</a><span>A cousin family tree names relationships across generations.</span><button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-white js-content" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"><span class="link-blue">(more)</span></button></span></div></figcaption></figure></div><div class="position-relative rw-slide col-100 px-20 "><figure class="md-assembly m-0 mb-md-0 card card-borderless print-false" data-assembly-id="119386" data-asm-type="image"><div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media" data-type="image"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/20/122820-050-ACFE47F0/cultures-parallel-Ego-cousins-cross-cousins-siblings-marriage.jpg" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center media-overlay-link card-media" data-href="/media/1/318871/119386"><picture><source media="(min-width: 680px)" srcset="https://cdn.britannica.com/20/122820-050-ACFE47F0/cultures-parallel-Ego-cousins-cross-cousins-siblings-marriage.jpg"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/20/122820-050-ACFE47F0/cultures-parallel-Ego-cousins-cross-cousins-siblings-marriage.jpg?w=300" alt="Parallel and cross-cousins" data-width="1600" data-height="800" loading="eager"></picture><div class="position-absolute top-10 left-10 assembly-slide-tag rounded-lg">2 of 2</div><button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"><em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em></button></a></div><figcaption class="card-body"><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"><span><a class="gtm-assembly-link md-assembly-title font-weight-bold d-inline font-sans-serif mr-5 media-overlay-link" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/20/122820-050-ACFE47F0/cultures-parallel-Ego-cousins-cross-cousins-siblings-marriage.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119386">Parallel and cross-cousins</a><span>In many cultures that differentiate between parallel cousins and cross-cousins, parallel cousins are classified as a given individual Ego's siblings, and cross-cousins are thought of as Ego's optimal marriage partners.</span><button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-white js-content" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"><span class="link-blue">(more)</span></button></span></div></figcaption></figure></div></div></div><button disabled="true" class="prev-button js-prev-button position-absolute btn btn-circle shadow btn-lg btn-blue-dark m-20"><span class="material-icons" data-icon="keyboard_arrow_left"></span></button><button disabled="true" class="next-button js-next-button position-absolute btn btn-circle shadow btn-lg btn-blue-dark m-20"><span class="material-icons" data-icon="keyboard_arrow_right"></span></button></div><p class="topic-paragraph">The evidence that these early theorists did use was partly derived from the comparison of the legal institutions and <span id="ref1005281"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship-terminology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">kin terms</a> found in different societies. Collections and analyses of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/linguistics" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">linguistic</a> data by philologists, among others, demonstrated that while some cultures <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="differentiated" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/differentiated" data-type="MW">differentiated</a> “<span id="ref1005289"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/lineal-kin" class="md-crosslink ">lineal kin</a>” (those in a direct parent-child relationship) from “<span id="ref1005287"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/collateral-kin" class="md-crosslink ">collateral kin</a>” (such as cousins, aunts, and uncles), others did not. In some cultures, for example, father and father’s brother, or mother and mother’s sister, were denoted by the same term. In such systems the terms for cousins would be the same as those for siblings—in other words, father’s brother’s son, father’s son, and brother are classed together, as are mother’s sister’s daughter, mother’s daughter, and sister.</p><span class="marker MOD11 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD12 mod-inline"></span><div class="assemblies"><div class="w-100"><figure class="md-assembly m-0 mb-md-0 card card-borderless print-false" data-assembly-id="119384" data-asm-type="image"><div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media" data-type="image"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/21/122821-004-48B02636/kin.jpg" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center media-overlay-link card-media" data-href="/media/1/318871/119384"><picture><source media="(min-width: 680px)" srcset="https://cdn.britannica.com/21/122821-004-48B02636/kin.jpg"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/21/122821-004-48B02636/kin.jpg?w=300" alt="Lineal kin and collateral kin" data-width="560" data-height="400" loading="eager"></picture><button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"><em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em></button></a></div><figcaption class="card-body"><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"><span><a class="gtm-assembly-link md-assembly-title font-weight-bold d-inline font-sans-serif mr-5 media-overlay-link" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/21/122821-004-48B02636/kin.jpg" data-href="/media/1/318871/119384">Lineal kin and collateral kin</a><button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-white js-content" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"><span class="link-blue">(more)</span></button></span></div></figcaption></figure></div></div><p class="topic-paragraph">Morgan called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship-terminology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">kinship terminology</a> that differentiated lineal kin from others “descriptive,” while systems that grouped lineal and <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="collateral" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collateral" data-type="MW">collateral</a> kin became known as “classificatory.” He posited that classificatory terminology reflected a system in which a group of brothers shared their sisters in marriage and that it was a cultural <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/survivals" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">survival</a> from an earlier time in which either father and father’s brother had been indistinguishable or the distinction held no social significance.</p><span class="marker MOD12 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD13 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">To Morgan this implied a system of marriage in which the identity of a specific father was unknowable while the identity of the mother was known but socially unimportant. The facts of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/pregnancy" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">pregnancy</a> and birth appeared to <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="differentiate" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/differentiate" data-type="MW">differentiate</a> motherhood from fatherhood in a crucial way. Motherhood was always recognizable—although not necessarily significant—whereas fatherhood required <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/regulation" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">regulation</a> to be identifiable. From this <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="premise" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/premise" data-type="MW">premise</a> Morgan posited a <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="hypothetical" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypothetical" data-type="MW">hypothetical</a> stage of “group marriage,” and it was but a small leap to suggest an even earlier era of “primitive promiscuity” during which sex and marriage were totally unregulated (in fact, modern anthropology has demonstrated that no human society exists nor has existed in which sex and marital relations are not regulated in some way).</p><span class="marker MOD13 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD14 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">These early attempts to systematize the study of human kinship institutions produced models that have since been discredited but that left an enduring mark on modern anthropology in at least two ways. First, <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="kin" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/kin" data-type="EB">kin</a> terminology long continued to be an important aspect of kinship studies. Indeed, the questions these early studies raised about the relationship between language and culture—e.g., Are kin terms a direct reflection of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/marriage" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">marriage</a> practices?—have occupied a central place in anthropology. Second, such studies made apparent an important distinction between motherhood and fatherhood, acknowledging the former condition as inherently recognizable and the latter as less obvious. This distinction marked out another crucial area of study for kinship—the cross-cultural study of beliefs about procreation. Both these topics are considered in further detail below.</p><span class="marker MOD14 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD15 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">For modern anthropology the most influential of the evolutionary theorists was Lewis Henry Morgan. While other 19th-century anthropologists generally based their work on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/library" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">library</a> research, Morgan carried out fieldwork among the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iroquois-people" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Iroquois</a> and other <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Native-American" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Native American</a> peoples. In <em><span id="ref1005224"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ancient-Society-or-Researches-in-the-Lines-of-Human-Progress-from-Savagery-through-Barbarism-to-Civilization" class="md-crosslink ">Ancient Society</a></em> (1877) he attempted to link the evolution of <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off eb" data-term="kinship" href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/kinship" data-type="EB">kinship</a> institutions to technological changes and the evolution of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/property-legal-concept" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">property</a> forms. He suggested a schema in which the earlier stages of kinship organization were linked to low levels of technology and to hunting, gathering, or fishing as modes of subsistence. In these early stages of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">human evolution</a>, there was an absence of ownership of property. Later the development of pastoralism and settled agriculture—and, more importantly, the greater investments of time and energy that these activities engendered—fostered a vested interest in owning the products of labor, such as herds or <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="cultivated" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cultivated" data-type="MW">cultivated</a> land. A man would wish to pass on such products to his offspring, and it thus became more important to know who those offspring were. As a result, men attempted to exert greater control over women, thereby causing humanity to move sequentially through the stages of primitive promiscuity, group marriage, matriarchy, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/patriarchy" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">patriarchy</a>, and polygamy, ultimately “achieving” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/monogamy" class="md-crosslink autoxref " data-show-preview="true">monogamy</a>.</p><span class="marker MOD15 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD16 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Morgan’s theories thus suggested a mechanism for the evolution of the family: technological developments and the <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="concomitant" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concomitant" data-type="MW">concomitant</a> changes in the ownership of property drove the development of new kinship institutions. His pioneering work on kinship terminology, as well as his grand evolutionary scheme, has retained a <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="niche" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/niche" data-type="MW">niche</a> in the modern study of kinship. Indeed, although anthropology has for the most part long abandoned any evolutionary ambitions, echoes of Morgan’s historical stages continue to crop up in some surprising places. This is partly through the historical coincidence that Morgan’s theories were taken up by German expatriates <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Karl Marx</a> and <span id="ref1005220"></span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/Friedrich-Engels" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Friedrich Engels</a> in their work on precapitalist societies.</p><span class="marker MOD16 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD17 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Marx and Engels were engaged in an ambitious project to analyze capitalist society and to demonstrate that the social institutions of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">capitalism</a> were neither historically inevitable nor desirable. Morgan’s work was of major interest to them for two reasons. The first was historical: his evolutionary scheme linking kinship institutions to technology and the ownership of property suggested how the particular social relations of capitalism might have developed from earlier social and economic systems. The second was comparative: Morgan had provided <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ethnography" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">ethnographic</a> evidence that the private ownership and control of property, which was dominant under capitalism, was not the only possible form that property relations could take. Indeed, ownership by a group such as a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/clan" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">clan</a> or a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/lineage-sociology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">lineage</a> was by no means unusual in precapitalist societies that were organized through kinship.</p><div class="one-good-fact-module"> </div><span class="marker MOD17 mod-inline"></span> <span class="marker PREMOD18 mod-inline"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Engels’s <em><span id="ref1005297"></span>The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State</em> (1884) was in fact largely based on Morgan’s <em>Ancient Society</em>. It traced the evolution of family forms, linking them, as Morgan had done, to changes in technology and arrangements for the ownership of property. Despite their similarities, however, the two works were set apart by a crucial difference—Morgan’s work was intended as a scholarly product, or an end in itself, while Engels’s was revolutionary in tone and spirit. Rather than regard mid-19th-century European society and family life as the <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="apotheosis" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apotheosis" data-type="MW">apotheosis</a> of civilization, Engels was highly critical of these institutions. He had some particularly <a class="md-dictionary-link md-dictionary-tt-off mw" data-term="acerbic" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acerbic" data-type="MW">acerbic</a> observations to make about the position of women in the patriarchal European bourgeois family—which, he argued, compared unfavorably to that of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/prostitution" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">prostitutes</a>. Marx and Engels were particularly influential on the kinship studies of Soviet and Chinese anthropologists, which retained a heavily evolutionist flavor long after such theories had been abandoned elsewhere. Engels’s <em>Origins of the Family</em> was also taken up much later by feminists and inspired a number of studies of the position of women in so-called simple societies.</p><span class="marker MOD18 mod-inline"></span> </section><span class="marker end-of-content"></span><span class="marker after-article"></span></div> <div id="chatbot-simplify-root"></div> <div id="chatbot-root"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ai-dialog-placeholder"></div> </div> </div> <aside class="col-md-da-320"></aside> </div> </div> </div> </div> </article> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> <div id="md-footer"></div> <noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5W6NC8" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>  <script> window.ap3c = window.ap3c || {}; var ap3c = window.ap3c; ap3c.cmd = ap3c.cmd || []; ap3c.cmd.push(function() { ap3c.init('ZO4siT4cLwnykPnzZWJtd3Byb2Q', 'https://engage.email.britannica.com/'); ap3c.track({v: 0}); }); ap3c.activity = function(act) { ap3c.act = (ap3c.act || []); ap3c.act.push(act); }; var s, t; s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = "https://engage.email.britannica.com/app.js"; t = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t); </script> <script class="marketing-page-info" type="application/json"> {"pageType":"Topic","templateName":"DESKTOP","pageNumber":1,"pagesTotal":6,"pageId":318871,"pageLength":1997,"initialLoad":true,"lastPageOfScroll":false} </script> <script class="marketing-content-info" type="application/json"> [] </script> <script src="https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-133/js/libs/jquery-3.5.0.min.js?v=3.133.36"></script> <script type="text/javascript" data-type="Init Mendel Code Splitting"> (function() { $.ajax({ dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: 'https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-133/dist/topic-page.js?v=3.133.36' }); })(); </script> <script class="analytics-metadata" type="application/json"> {"leg":"C","adLeg":"C","userType":"ANONYMOUS","pageType":"Topic","pageSubtype":null,"articleTemplateType":"PAGINATED","gisted":false,"pageNumber":1,"hasSummarizeButton":false,"hasAskButton":true} </script> <script type="text/javascript"> EBStat={accountId:-1,hostnameOverride:'webstats.eb.com',domain:'www.britannica.com', json:''}; </script> <script type="text/javascript"> ( function() { $.ajax( { dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: '//www.britannica.com/webstats/mendelstats.js?v=1' } ) .done( function() { try {writeStat(null,EBStat);} catch(err){} } ); })(); </script> <div id="bc-fixed-dialogue"></div> </body> </html>

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Kinship | Definition, Theories, Sociology, & Facts | Britannica