Kinship and descent
Kinship is the map of who is related to whom, and it organises far more of life than most city dwellers expect. You will learn how descent is traced and why an uncle can matter as much as a father.
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Kinship means the web of relationships created by birth, marriage and adoption. In a large modern state, much of life is run by strangers: employers, banks, courts and the police. In many tribal societies, those jobs are done by relatives. Kin provide land, labour, protection, a spouse and care in old age. Knowing exactly how you are related to someone tells you how to behave towards them.
Descent: which group do you belong to?
Descent is the rule that places a child in a group. There are three common rules. In patrilineal descent you belong to your father's group. In matrilineal descent you belong to your mother's group. In bilateral descent both sides count equally, and there are usually no clans at all. The diagram below walks through each one.
- 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.
Patrilineal peoples
Patrilineal descent is the most common rule worldwide. The Santhal, Munda and Bhil of India, the Maasai of East Africa and the Nuer of South Sudan all follow it. Children take their father's clan. Sons usually inherit land or herds. A woman remains a member of her birth clan after marriage, but her children belong to her husband's.
Matrilineal peoples
Matrilineal descent is less common but found on every continent. The Khasi, Garo and Jaintia of Meghalaya in north-east India are well-known examples. So are the Minangkabau of West Sumatra in Indonesia, often described as the world's largest matrilineal society, the Akan of Ghana, and the Diné and Hopi of the United States.
Matrilineal is not the same as matriarchal. Matriarchy would mean rule by women. In most matrilineal societies, men hold many public offices, but they hold them through their mothers and sisters. A man's heirs are often his sister's children, because they are members of his clan and his own children are not.
Kinship terms that work differently
Many peoples use what scholars call classificatory kinship. One word covers a whole class of relatives. Your mother's sister may also be called 'mother', and her children are your 'brothers' and 'sisters', not cousins. This is more than a habit of speech. It means a child has several adults with a parent's duties, and is never without family.
Aboriginal Australian societies take this furthest. Many groups have 'skin names', a set of named categories into which every person is born. The Warlpiri of central Australia have eight. A person's skin name fixes their relationship to every other Warlpiri person, and to visitors who are given one, including whom they may marry and whom they must treat with reserve.
Rules of behaviour between kin
- Respect relationships: towards elders, and often towards a mother's brother or father's sister.
- Avoidance relationships: in many Aboriginal Australian societies a man and his mother-in-law do not speak directly to each other.
- Joking relationships: certain relatives, or members of paired clans, are expected to tease each other freely.
- Sharing duties: a hunter may owe specific cuts of meat to specific relatives.
Why it matters today
Kinship is still central. Diné people introduce themselves by naming four clans: their mother's, their father's and those of both grandfathers. Māori speakers open with their whakapapa, their line of ancestors and their home mountain and river. Land claims, tribal enrolment and inheritance cases often turn on proving descent. And for many people, kin remain the first source of help when work or health fails.