Tracing descent: through the mother or the father
Three common rules for deciding which family group a child belongs to, and what follows from each rule.
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- Rule of descent. Every society needs a rule for which group a baby joins. Anthropologists call this the rule of descent. It decides clan membership, and often inheritance and who may marry whom.
- Patrilineal. In a patrilineal system you belong to your father's group. This is the most common rule worldwide. The Nuer of South Sudan and the Santhal of eastern India both trace descent this way.
- Father's line. The line runs from father to children. Daughters belong to their father's clan for life, but their own children will belong to the clan of the man they marry.
- Matrilineal. In a matrilineal system you belong to your mother's group. The Khasi of Meghalaya in India, the Minangkabau of Sumatra and the Diné, or Navajo, of the United States all follow this rule.
- Mother's line. The line runs from mother to children. Among the Khasi, the youngest daughter by custom inherits the family home and cares for the parents and the family's rites.
- Mother's brother. Matrilineal does not mean women rule. Authority often sits with men of the mother's clan. A mother's brother may guide and discipline his sister's children.
- Bilateral. In a bilateral system both parents' sides count the same. Inuit families work this way, and so do most families in Europe and much of urban India.
- Personal kindred. Bilateral descent gives each person a kindred: a personal circle of relatives on both sides. Your kindred overlaps with your cousin's but is never identical to it.