Cultural Anthropology [Kinship and Family]

The complex system of culturally defined social relationships based on marriage and birth.

Kinship relationships based on birth. (Bloodline)

Kinship relationships based on marriage.

A kinship rule that ties people together on the basis of reputed common ancestry.

A descent rule linking consanguine relatives through males only.

A descent rule linking relatives together through females only.

A descent rule linking relatives together through both males and females simultaneously.

Groups based on a descent rule.

Lineages, Clans, and Phratries.

A localized group that is based on a unilineal (patrilineal or matrilineal) descent rule and which usually has some corporate power.

A unilineal descent group composed of lineages whose members believe they are all descended from a common ancestor but cannot always trace their genealogical relationship to everyone in the group.

Large unilineal kinship groups made up of clans.

Groups based on bilateral descent. (Ramages)

Cognatic kin groups based on bilateral descent.

They resemble lineages in size and function but provide more recruiting flexibility.

A residential kin group made up of at least one couple and their children. Families often perform sexual, reproductive, economic, and educational functions. New kin-based residential groups such as single parent families and blended families complicate this definition.

Kinds of families consisting of just one couple and their children.

Consists of two or more couples and their children.

Residential groups that include children but are headed by only one parent or other relative such as a grandparent. Many of these are women-headed families.

The socially approved union of two people that confers sexual rights and legitimizes children.

Marriage outside a specified group.

Marriage within a specified group.

A marriage rule that permits an individual to marry only one other person at a time.

A form of marriage in which one person can be married to more than one person simultaneously.

The marriage of one man to more than one woman.

The marriage of one women to more than one man simultaneously.

- In the face of severe hardship imposed by grinding poverty and urban migration, will the close bond between mother and child always remain constant?- Women in Bom Jesus, a shantytown in Brazil became casual about the death of their children due to the conditions and the low likelihood of their children surviving.- Mother's only attached themselves to their children who appeared to be "survivors" or "fighters."

- In this article, David McCurdy argues that kinship forms the core social groups and associations in rural India in a system well adapted to family-centered landholding and small-scale farming. - He concludes by pointing out that Indians have used their close family ties to adapt to life in the emerging cash-labor-oriented modernizing world.

- In this article, Melvyn Goldstein describes the fraternal polyandry practiced by Tibetans living in Northern Nepal and seeks to explain why, despite having a choice of marriage forms including monogamy and polygyny, men and women often choose this rare form of marriage.

- He argues that, by marrying a single wife, a group of brothers can more easily preserve their family resources, whereas monogamous or polygynous marriage usually costs a man his inheritance and requires him to make a fresh start.

- In this article, Margery Wolf discusses how for women, the patrilineal family is temporary. Born into one family and married into another, women discover that their happiness and interests depend on bearing children to create their own uterine family.-This and the importance of a local women's group are the subjects of this article by Margery Wolf in her discussion of Taiwanese family life.