World constitution

INDORE INSTITUTE OF LAW
Topic, The institution of kinship survive in England. Explain?
Name , Avinash rai Marks………….
Class ……………………
Sub ……………………
Prof ……………………
Date …………………...
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am using this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who
supported me throughout the course of this world constitution
assignment. I am thankful for their aspiring guidance, invaluably
constructive criticism and friendly advice during this assignment. I am
sincerely grateful to them for sharing their truthful and illuminating
views on a number of issues related to the assignment.
I express my warm thanks to Mrs
for giving me this opportunity. I would also like to thank mr Sunil our
librarian for providing us with various required book.
Avinash Rai
BALLB
4th
sem

INTRODUCTION
Kinship is one of the universals in human society and therefore plays an
important role in both the regulation of behavior and the formation of social
groups. Kinship systems depend on the social recognition and cultural
implementation of relationships derived from descent and marriage and normally
involve a set of kinship terms and an associatedn set of behavioral patterns and
attitudes which, together, make up a systematic whole. All societies distinguish
various categories of relation-ship by descent or consanguinity, and most
societies distinguish relationships by marriage or affinity as well. Although
dictionary definitions differentiate these relationships, it is convenient to extend
the term “kinship” to cover both kinds. The resulting network of social relations
may constitute almost the whole social structure in some of the simpler societies
or be a relatively small part of a highly complex structure, as in modern industrial
societies. In either case, however, the system of kin-ship and marriage plays an
important role in maintaining group cohesion and solidarity and in orienting the
individual members to the social maze. The use of the term “system” implies that
there is a complex relation of interdependence between the component parts: the
social categories and the associated rights and duties.
Kinship systems are found to vary in different societies with respect to a number
of characteristics: (1) the extent to which genealogical and affinal relationships
are recognized for social purposes; (2) the ways in which relatives so recognized
are classified or grouped in social categories; (3) the particular customs by which
the behavior of these relatives is regulated in daily life; (4) the various rights and
obligations which are mediated through kinship; and (5) the linguistic forms
which are used to denote the various categories of kin. Often the domain of
kinship is clearly marked off, but there are frequently metaphorical and other
extensions which result in related systems or subsystems.

The near universality of the nuclear or elementary family and its role in mating
and reproduction have made it a focus for studies of kinship. Here are found the
“primary” relationships of parent and child, husband and wife, and brothers and
sisters, and it is possible to construct a network of genealogical relationships
encompassing the whole society by extension from this nucleus. But the
processes of mating and reproduction are regulated in all human societies by
incest rules and social convention, and although the resulting domestic family
group is often based on physiological parenthood, it is the social recognition of
parenthood that provides a child with a legitimate position in society. Thus, it is
often convenient to distinguish the pater,or social father, from the genitor, or
physical father, and sometimes it may even be necessary to distinguish the
culturally assumed genitor from the actual biological father. Moreover, in some
African societies women may play the role of “social fathers,” marrying and
“begetting” children with the aid of a biological father.
The family of orientation into which a child is born is often part of a larger
extended family which includes many additional relatives. When an individual
marries, he and his spouse may establish a new family of procreation or may join
a larger family structure. Normally he acquires a new set of relatives by
marriage, but in those cases where marriage is specified in terms of a particular
category of relatives, his affinal relations may also be his consanguineal ones. In
a few instances, as among the eighteenth-century Nayar of southern India, the
family of husband, wife, and children did not exist as a social unit, and kinship
was correspondingly modified. These examples indicate that the kinship system
may or may not coincide with the genealogical network; in every case, the degree
of relationship is a matter for empirical investigation.
The kinship categories found in various societies often cut across the distinctions
that seem logical in Euro-American societies. In the latter, lineal relatives are set
off from the collateral uncles and aunts, and the relatives through the father and
the mother are treated in parallel fashion. But in many societies throughout the
world the terms for father, mother, brother, sister, and so on may be widely
extended instead of being restricted to the immediate family group. In some cases
the extension is by generation, the term for father being extended to his brothers
and male cousins as far as genea-logical relatives are remembered, and
analogously for other relatives. In other cases the extensions may be vertical, in
terms of unilineal descent groups, so that all the members of a particular lineage

or clan may be classed as “fathers” and “father’s sisters,” or “mothers” and
“mother’s brothers,” regardless of generation or even of genealogical connection.
The resulting kinship systems often have a wide range, sometimes encompassing
the entire social group, in contrast to the narrow range of many Western systems.
The particular patterns of grouping kinsmen show considerable variety, and each
must be understood in its own terms before it can be compared with systems
based on other principles of grouping.
The patterns of behavior that prevail between relatives define their relationships
and as such are an integral part of’ the kinship system. In almost all societies the
family is responsible for the care and support of children during their period of
dependency and for their education and training for adult life. These tasks
involve both love and affection and authority and discipline. The potential
conflicts and ambivalences are often resolved by the allocation of authority to
one parent or the other or to some relative outside the immediate family. The
relationships established in the family group are affected by generation and
relative age and by similarities or differences of sex. Those members of the
parental generation who are in a position of authority are entitled to obedience
and respect; others may share an intimacy without subordination. Friendship and
support are expected of brothers and sisters, although often there are restrictions
on behavior between a brother and a sister after puberty. With relatives outside
the family group there is frequently a greater variety of behavior patterns, some
seemingly based on the model of relationships within the family but others
representing obligatory joking or teasing, on the one hand, or extreme respect or
avoidance, on the other.
During the long period of socialization within the family or domestic group, the
child gradually learns the proper attitudes and behavior patterns toward his
various relatives. These patterns are present in the society in terms of cultural
ideals and as behavioral norms, and their observance is reinforced in a variety of
ways. There is considerable evidence that in most societies children learn the
essentials of kinship rather early. At marriage an individual normally acquires a
whole new set of affinal relatives to whom he must make varying adjustments,
depending on the patterns of residence and interaction. Marriage is frequently an
alliance between two groups of kin and may be mediated by exchanges of
property as well as of spouses. The individual’s relation to his spouse’s relatives
is often an intensification of the attitudes of respect or familiarity he has toward

his own parents and siblings. Thus he may avoid his mother-in-law for a period
and may be required to joke roughly with his brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.
Some societies prescribe marriage with a particular category of kin, usually
“cross-cousins” (children of a brother and a sister), so that one’s new affines are
also consanguineal relatives and the new behavioral adjustments are more easily
handled. Such societies intensify the bonds between existing relatives at the
expense of securing a new set of relatives by means of marriage. In these
societies the opposition between “consanguinity” and “affinity” is often present,
despite the formal absence of distinct affinal terms.
In most societies the rights and obligations of members are channeled, in part at
least, through the kinship system. Thus, the right to membership in a descent
group may depend on the proper marriage of the parents, in which the
procreative rights in the wife have been formally transferred to the husband and
his lineage. Similarly, rights to the utilization of land or other kinds of property
may sometimes be secured only through member-ship in “corporate” descent
groups which are both integral parts of the kinship system and units in the larger
social structure. Succession to various offices or status positions usually depends
on kin-ship, even though the offices are controlled by descent groups or
associations. Even the rights to residence in one locality or another may be
specified in kinship terms. Rights normally imply obligations or duties and are
concerned with the larger society and its continuation, even though phrased in
kinship terms. Many center on marriage and the resulting family and involve
domestic service, labor, sexuality, procreation, and support, among other things.
Where rights and duties are codified in legal or jural terms they are more easily
seen, but they are an integral part of kinship behavior.
In all societies, kinship is marked by a set of relationship terms that define the
universe of kin and that may be extended metaphorically to nonkin and even to
various aspects of the world of nature. Kinship terms have been the center of
much interest on the part of both anthropologists and linguists, and considerable
progress has been made in their classification and analysis. In most societies,
kinship terms are utilized in daily life, both in reference and in direct address,
and often their use is required by custom. The terminological system frequently
represents a distinctive subset of the lexicon, and the linguist can provide greater
understanding of it by componential analysis, formal analysis, and historical
reconstruction of earlier forms. There is a basic logic to kinship terminology, in

that particular terms do not imply a status position so much as a relationship: the
use of a particular term implies its reciprocal. Thus, if you call a man “father,” he
responds with “son.” On the other hand, parallel terms in different societies may
or may not have the same significance or meaning. Social anthropologists have
been more concerned with the set of behavioral patterns between relatives and
have tended to consider the terms used as linguistic tags representing or
symbolizing the particular expected behaviors and attitudes between pairs or
groups of kin. But the two systems are not always in a one-to-one relationship,
and it is more profitable scientifically to consider them in a relationship of
dynamic interdependence and to examine the discrepancies as possible evidence
for social and cultural change.
The kinship system, in turn, has various and complex relations with the other
social institutions that together make up the total social system, or social
structure. Because kinship enters into economic, political, legal, and ritual
relationships in various societies, there is sometimes a tendency to ignore or
underestimate its significance. The function of kinship terminology in interaction
is a symbolic one. Whenit is used it defines for the participants the general mode
of behavior to be followed in particular social situations. The universality
andenduring character of kinship suggest its importance in binding men and
women together in society and providing a foundation for the building of more
specific social structures.

Historical development
The scientific study of kinship systems is only a century old, but in that brief
period it has engendered more controversy and a greater variety of theoretical
formulations than have most aspects of human society. The early studies
concentrated on the terminological systems, for the most part, and utilized them
as evidence for historical relationships or as survivals of assumed earlier stages
of society based on promiscuity and group marriage. The reactions against such
“conjectural” history led to a denial of the sociological significance of kinship
terms and to an attempted explanation in terms of psychological principles. This,
in turn, resulted in a renewed attempt to understand kin-ship in terms of the
behavioral system and with reference to the ongoing society. More recently,
some progress has been made in studying changes in kinship systems over time.
One recurring difficulty has been the limited number of societies for which there
is adequate information on kinship systems, but this situation is improving rather
rapidly. A further difficulty has been that the preliminary classifications have
been based on limited criteria, and there has been a tendency to study kinship
piecemeal and to search for simplified formulations in terms of causal
relationships rather than to treat the complex whole.
The foundations for the study of kinship were laid by L. H. Morgan in his
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871). [See the
biography of MORGAN, LEWIS HENRY.] In this work, the result of more than
a decade of concentration on kinship, Morgan assembled data on the
terminological systems he was able to collect or secure for nearly every major
area of the world. He grouped the terminologies into two great classes, the
“descriptive” systems, which he ascribed to the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralic
linguistic families, and the “classificatory” systems, which he thought were
characteristic of the American Indians, the Polynesians, and many of the peoples
of Asia. The “classificatory” systems merged lineal with collateral relatives in
varying degrees, in contrast to the Euro-American systems, which isolated lineal
relatives in the terminology. As W. H. R. Rivers noted later (1914, p. 4), no
discovery in the whole range of science can more certainly be credited to one
man than the discovery of the classificatory system of relationship to Morgan.

Morgan’s early interest in kinship systems was a historical one. Discovering in
1858 that the Ojibwa Indians had a pattern of grouping relatives that was almost
identical with that of the Iroquois, who spoke a quite different language, he came
to the view that kinship patterns were highly stable and set out to collect kinship
terminologies in order to demonstrate that the American Indians were of common
descent and had originally come from Asia. When he found an almost identical
system among the Tamils of India, he felt he had proved his historical
hypothesis. But in the meantime, the discovery of the Hawaiian (Malayan)
pattern of terminology, which was classificatory to an even greater degree, led
him to explain it as a result of assumed earlier forms of marriage for which there
was no existing evidence. The result in evolutionary development of social
institutions and cultural stages presented in Ancient Society (1877) aroused
extended controversies which long obscured Morgan’s important contributions to
the study of kinship.
In America, the criticisms by Kroeber in his “Classificatory Systems of
Relationship” (1909) were the most influential and far-reaching .He found the
distinction between “descriptive” and “classificatory” misleading and suggested
that kinship terminology be analyzed, instead, in terms of some eight
“psychological principles” based on the difference of generations, the distinction
of lineal and collateral relationships, the difference of age within a generation,
the sex of the relative, the sex of the speaker, the sex of the connective relative,
the distinction of blood and affinal relationship, and the condition of life of the
connecting relative. Kroeber came to the conclusion that terms of relationship
reflect psychology rather than sociology and are determined primarily by
language—hence they could be utilized for sociological inferences only with
great caution.
In England J. F. McLennan had dismissed kin-ship terms as a mere set of mutual
salutations, in the process of defending his own evolutionary formulations for
society. But Rivers, who had become interested in kinship during the Torres
Strait expedition of 1898–1900, where he had developed the “genealogical
method” for collecting accurate data on various aspects of social organization, re-
turned to Morgan’s basic ideas as a result of his studies of Melanesian society. In
Kinship and Social Organisation (1914) he proposed that kinship terminology is
rigorously determined by social conditions and particularly by forms of marriage
and hence can be utilized to reconstruct the recent history of social institutions.

These hypotheses and the accompanying illustrations have become one starting
point for the modern study of kinship systems.
Lowie has been the most influential American ethnologist concerned with the
study of kinship. Accepting Rivers’ position that kinship terminology is related
to social usages, but influenced by Kroeberas well, he sought to test the
hypotheses that had been proposed against the available ethno-graphic
information. His own comparative studies of the Plateau Shoshoneans and the
Hopi Indians led him to the conclusion that the kinship system of the latter is
functionally connected with their clan system. He summed up his general
position in a statement is still valid:
Relationship terms are studied by the anthropologist not merely as so many
words inviting philological analysis and comparison, but as correlates of social
custom. Broadly speaking, the use of a specific kinship designation, e.g., for the
maternal as distinguished from the paternal uncle, indicates that the former
receives differential treatment at the hands of his nephews and nieces. Further, if
a term of this sort embraces a number of individuals, the probability is that the
speaker is linked to all of them by the same set of mutual duties and claims,
though their intensity may vary with the closeness of the relationship. ([1929]
1959, vol. 19, p. 84)
In England Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown have been most influential figures
in the development of kinship studies. Malinowski, as a result of his study The
Family Among the Australian Aborigines (1913) and his extended field research
in the Trobriand Islands, emphasized the importance of the family as the “initial
situation” for the development of kinship, from which attitudes and terminology
could be widely extended. He also called attention to the significance of
“sociological fatherhood” in a matrilineal society that did not recognize the
genetic role; but he was more concerned with the function of kinship and other
social institutions in fulfilling individual needs. Radcliffe-Brown, an early
student of Rivers, is the central figure in the modern study of kinship systems. He
was the first to develop the conception of the kinship system as composed of
both terminology and patterns of social behavior and to see kinship as an integral
part of the larger social structure. As a functionalist he was concerned with the
significance of institutions in maintaining the social system, but he went further
and attempted to discover basic structural principles that were relevant to a
variety of different terminological groupings and social usages.

By the end of the 1920s the preliminary classification of kinship terminologies
was well underway. Morgan’s twofold classification was remodeled by Rivers,
and Gifford (1922) had utilized Kroeber’s categories for the classification of
Californian Indian terminologies. Spier’s classification (1925) of North
American Indian terminologies into eight empirical types, based on the patterns
of grouping for cross-cousins, was particularly influential. Lowie (1929)
proposed a world-wide classification into four major types, based on the
treatment of relatives in the parental generation. These were soon followed by
Radcliffe-Brown’s classification (1931) of Australian social systems into two
main types, in each of which kinship, preferential marriage, and clan groupings
were systematically interrelated.
During the following decade a number of field studies were carried out by
students of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown in which kinship received more
adequate treatment. Firth’s studies of the Tikopia (1936), Warner’s on the
Murngin (1930), Evans-Pritchard’son the Nuer (1951), Fortes’ on the Tallensi
(1949), Tax’s on the Fox (1937), Hallowell’s on the Ojibwa (1937), Eggan’s on
the Plains and Pueblo Indian groups ([1937b] 1962, pp. 35–95; 1950), and
Spoehr’s studies of the southeastern Indian tribes (1941; 1942; 1944) are among
those researches that have contributed to the development and modification of
the structural-functional approach.The clearest statement of this approach is
found in Radcliffe-Brown’s Introduction toAfrican Systems of Kinship and
Marriage (1950), in which he was concerned with the general comparative and
theoretical study of kinship organization as an arrangement which enables
persons to cooperate with one another in an orderly social life. In this discussion
he compared and contrasted the cognatic system of the early Teutonic peoples
with the agnatic lineage systems of ancient Rome and many modern African
tribes and indicated the relevance of the principles of “the unity of the sibling
group” and “the unity and solidarity of the lineage” for various aspects of social
life. Here he was particularly concerned with the significance of unilineal descent
in bringing about corporate kin groups that continue beyond the life of individual
members and may control resources, exact vengeance, regu-late marriage, and
engage in ritual. He saw marriage as essentially a rearrangement of social
structure and discussed in detail the significance of marriage in various African
societies. For a world-wide classification of kinship systems heproposed four
types: father-right, mother-right, cognatic systems, and double lineage systems,
each of which has a number of varieties.

Current development
Of kinship studies
In the modern period there have been a number of new directions in the study of
kinship which involve both method and theory. Some of these include cross-
cultural comparisons involving statistical and correlational techniques; others
involve linguistic analyses building on Kroeber’s earlier categories or utilizing
formal analyses; still others utilize models of various types, some derived from
linguistics and others from mathematics. These studies have stimulated a great
amount of new research and promise to broaden our knowledge of kinship
phenomena in various directions.
Of particular significance is Murdock’s cross-cultural study of family and
kinship organization in about 250 societies throughout the world, presented
inSocial Structure (1949). Utilizing the postulational method and statistical
analysis he found that kinship terminologies are primarily determined by such
sociological factor as descent and residence, with marriage rules of lesser
importance. He then established six types of kinship terminology, based in part
on Spier’s earlier classification, and combined these with rules of descent and
residence to give 11 major types of social organization. A proposed order of
social change, beginning with changes in the residence pattern, was then tested
against the evidence from linguistic reconstructions and other data and was found
highly reliable. “It seems clear,” Murdock wrote, “that the elements of social
organization, in their permutations and combinations, conform to natural laws of
their own with an exactitude scarcely less striking than that which characterizes
the permutations and combinations of atoms in chemistry or genes in biology”
(1949, p. 183).
Murdock’s study represents a notable advance in the application of social science
methodologies to the study of social organization, but there has also been
considerable criticism of the sampling involved, the statistical techniques used,
and the data selected for analysis. He responded with the more adequate “World
Ethnographic Sample” (1957) and with a revised classification (1959, pp. 135–
140) of five major types of social organization, based primarily on descent and

residence patterns. He also modified his assumptions about the primary role of
residence in bringing about social change.
The contributions of Lévi-Strauss to the study of kinship systems are of a
different character, and in Les structures element Aires de la parente (1949) and
Structural Anthropology (1958) he presents some highly original views on the
nature of social structure in general and kinship in particular. “Social structure,”
for Levi-Strauss, is in itself concerned not with the empirical reality of social
relations but with models which give rise to them, and he discusses the relevance
of mechanical models (those on the same scale as the phenomena) and statistical
models (where the elements of the model are on a different scale) for various
problems, particularly those of communication. With regard to kinship he views
the terminology and the system of attitudes as representing quite different orders
of reality: “The modalities of behavior between relatives express to some extent
the terminological classification, and they provide at the same time a means of
overcoming difficulties and contradictions resulting from this classification”
([1958] 1963, p. 310), a dialectic which is responsible for change in both
systems. Levi-Strauss also proposes a some-different unit for kinship studies
from the elementary family, which is favored by Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown,
Murdock, and others. He believes “the relationship between ‘brothers-in-law’ is
the axis around which kinship structure is built” ([1958] 1963, p. 46) and thus
adds the wife’s brother to the family unit. All kinship structures are constructed
on this “kinship atom,” primarily by the organization of a series of oppositions
between attitudes of familiarity and reserve. The resulting kinship system “does
not consist in the objective ties of descent or consanguinity between individuals.
It exists only in human consciousness; it is an arbitrary system of representations,
not the spontaneous development of a real situation”
The principle of reciprocity, as manifested in various forms of exchange in social
life, is central to Levi-Strauss’s view of social institutions. Kinship in human
society is established and perpetuated through specific forms of marriage, and
marriage as a form of exchange involves the circulation of women. He is,
therefore, particularly concerned with what he calls “elementary structures,” or
those characterized by preferential marriage with a particular category of kin,
usually a “cross-cousin.” In this respect, Levi-Strauss has attempted the analysis
of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage systems, which are found in Australia and
in south eastern and eastern Asia as well as in a few other regions, and he sees

the resulting dual structure of “wife-giving” and “wife-receiving” groups
reflected in many other aspects of society and culture.
This complex and original contribution (summarized in English in de Josselin de
Jong 1952) has stimulated a number of important studies and engendered
considerable controversy. Homans and Schneider, in Marriage, Authority, and
Final Causes (1955), essay an alternate explanation based on Radcliffe-Brown’s
theory of sentiments. Needham attacked this strongly in Structure and Sentiment
( 1962) and went on to make a number of reformulations of what he calls
“prescriptive” marriage systems. Leach, in Rethinking Anthropology (1961),
shows the considerable influence of Levi-Strauss, as does Dumont, whose
Hierarchy and Marriage Alliance in SouthIndian Kinship (1957) emphasizes the
importance of treating certain categories of relatives as affinal rather than
consanguineal.
In recent years a number of anthropologists and linguists have returned to
Kroeber’s analysis (1909) of kinship terminologies and have developed a more
sophisticated approach, called “componential analysis.” The general framework
for componential analysis derives from linguistic theory, and the kin-ship
vocabulary is regarded as constituting a paradigm which can be analyzed in the
same manner as other paradigmatic sets in a language. Currently Lounsbury and
others are attempting to construct theories using a limited numbe of ordered roles
similar to those of “generative grammar.” The resulting “formal account”
specifies (1) a set of primitive elements and (2) a set of rules for operating on
these to generate a model which represents the empirical data (see
Lounsbury1964).
Goodenough (1956) treats Kroeber’s categories as essentially social components,
but Lounsbury’s (1956) and Buchler’s (1964) analyses are based upon strict
genealogical reckoning and operate in terms of the primary relations in the
nuclear family and their extensions to more distant relatives. Lounsbury assumes
that “the primary function of kinship terminologies is to delineate the relation of
ego to the members of his personal kindred in such a way as to express some
socially and legally important aspect of each of these relationships” (1964, p.
382). Friedrich, in “Semantic Structure and Social Structure: An Instance from
Russian,” is concerned with seeing their interrelationships: “The semantic
network symbolizes and is generated by the social network. Covariation between
both net-works is significant because it can lead to yet more general inferences

about native concepts” (1964, p. 132). And H. C. Conklin, in “Ethnogenealogical
Method,” illustrates the steps which may be taken from ethnographic
descriptionto final analysis:
The sequence I have followed has led us from specific-to-general-to-abstract-to-
correlational sub statements of Hanunoo ethnography. We have moved from
individuals occupying established genealogical positions in a well-recognized kin
net, to the examination of types of kin classes, to the analysis and articulation of
the defining features, or significata, which underlie the whole category system;
and finally to a brief consideration of one set of significant non terminological
correlates of the more highly structured parts of this system.
In this procedure he finds that the natives own “model” of their system is an
important part of the data.
The utilization of mathematical models for the elucidation of kinship structures
has had a long history, beginning with Galton (1889) and continuing with Weil’s
appendix (1949) to Lévi-Strauss’s monograph and, most recently, H. C. White’s
application of matrix algebra (1963). White is particularly concerned with
prescriptive marriage systems, such as the Kariera, Arunta, Murngin, and Purum,
but it remains to be demonstrated whether the logical manipulation of kinship
categories and marriage rules adds greatly to our understanding of kinship
systems.
The comparative study of kinship systems as wholes, and in relationship to
ecological and historical factors as well as to other aspects of social structure, has
had a more limited development. The initial model for such studies was
Radcliffe-Brown’s Social Organization of Australian Tribes (1931), which has
been carried further by African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (Radcliffe-
Brown & Forde 1950). For North America, Eggan (1955; 1966) has been
concerned with the classification and interpretation of kinship systems in a
number of regions, utilizing the method of controlled comparison and attempting
to study changes over time, and P. Kirchhoff has provided a preliminary survey
of the kinship systems in South America (1931; 1932).
On the basis of a detailed analysis of the Cheyenne and Arapaho kinship systems,
Eggan ([1937k] 1962) proposed a preliminary classification of the kinship

systems of the Plains region of North America into two major types: (1) a
“generational” type and (2) a “lineage” type. The tribes of the High Plains, who
wereorganized in terms of bi-lateral bands composing a camp circle and lived as
seminomadic hunters, were—with one exception —also organized in terms of a
wide-ranging “classificatory” kinship system, in which generation and sex were
emphasized. The tribes of the Prairie Plains to the east, on the other hand, were
organized in terms of unilineal descent and lived in permanent villages, from
which they went on periodic buffalo hunts; but they depended on horti-culture
for their basic subsistence. Their kinship systems were also “classificatory,” in
that lineal and collateral relatives were merged in the terminology, but they
utilized the lineageprinciple to provide a wide extension to the system. There
were two sub-types: (a) the “Omaha” system, associated with patrilineal descent,
and (b) the “Crow” system, associated with matrilineal descent.
A comparison of these two major types indicated that each represented an
adjustment to the eco-logical and social conditions of their respective regions and
that the “generational” systems of the High Plains were based on the relationship
of brothers, which was functionally of great importance in Plains life; whereas
the Prairie Plains tribes utilized the lineage principle to provide greater stability
and continuity over time. By examining the historical backgrounds of the High
Plains tribes it became evident that tribes coming into the Plains with different
social systems ended up with similar systems. The Crow Indians are a test case.
They split off from the Hidatsa several hundred years ago and gave up their
village-dwelling, agricultural life in North Dakota for the seminomadic life of the
High Plains. Their social system and kinship organization are intermediate,
partaking of both types. It seems probable that the conditions of life in the High
Plains favored a more amorphous and mobile type of social organization, which
could vary to meet changing ecological and social conditions. As Prairie Plains
peoples moved out onto the High Plains to take advantage of the greater
efficiency of the horse in hunting buffalo, they modified their kinship systems in
the direction of a “generational” type.
North and east of the Great Lakes, the Algonkian-speaking peoples have been
shown by Hallowell (1937) to have had kinship systems basedon cross-cousin
marriage, and he has proposed that the con-temporary variants are intelligible as
a result of modifications resulting from acculturative processes and local
conditions. Eggan (1955) has extended this hypothesis to northern Algonkian

groups moving into the Plains region and to the Dakota groups. The central
Algonkian tribes have been shown by Callender (1962) to have shifted from an
earlier kinship system based on cross-cousin marriage to a lineage-based system
of the Omaha type, as these tribes moved southward into the Prairie Plains and
expanded in population with the adoption of horti-culture.
The Omaha and Crow subtypes of kinship systems are not limited to North
America but are seen there in their most typical form. The Omaha systems are
generally associated with patrilineal line-ages or clans, and often with a dual
division of the society, while the Crow systems are associated with matrilineal
lineages or clans. In either casethe essential feature is that the lineage or clan is
treated as a unit for kinship purposes, an individual considering all his kinsmen
through the mother or father as of the same kind. This utilization of de-scent
groups for kinship extensions results in both a wide range and a continuity to the
social system.
In the southeastern region of North America, where all the major tribes were
organized in terms of a Crow-type kinship system, preliminary studies of the
Choctaw terminology collected for Morgan suggestedto Eggan (1937a) that
changes due to acculturation has been underwayin all of the south-eastern tribes
up to 1860 and that the degree of change in kinship terminology was related to
the degree and type of acculturative pressures. A field study of the modern
descendants by Spoehr (1941; 1942; 1944; 1947) not only confirmed these
hypotheses but provided demonstrations of the processes by which the Crow type
systems shifted to a generational pattern over the period of a century of
acculturation.
In the southwestern region the Western Pueblos have all been foundto have a
simple specialized type of social structure based on matrilineal line-ages and
clans and a Crow type of kinship system. The Eastern Pueblos, however, though
participating fully in the general Pueblo culture patterns, have a quite different
social structure, based ona dual organization and a bilateral “nonclassificatory”
kin-ship system which emphasizes generation and relative age (Eggan 1950). A
number of hypotheses have been advanced to account for this major difference in
a single culture type. Here, Dozier’s (1954) study of the Hopi-Tewa, a group of
Eastern Tewa who migrated to the Hopi region around A.D. 1700 and who have

rearranged their kinship system to conform to the Hopi model, analyzes an
important instance of acculturation between Indian groups. The southern
Athabaskan groups, made up of the Navajo and the various Apache tribes, show
a furtherseries of changes in kinship, not only from their northern relatives in
Canada but from one another as well.
These brief summaries can only suggest the kinds of comparative regional
studies of kinship systems which have been developed on the basis of structural-
functional assumptions, with the added controls of ethnohistory, linguistic
reconstruction, and ecological factors. Along with them have been such studies
as Bruner’s (1955–1956) on the actual processes of change in Mandan-Hidatsa
kinship terminology under contemporary reservation conditions, where certain of
the factors affecting choice of Indian or Euro-American kin-ship models have
been clarified.
A different type of comparative study is exemplified by Schneider and Cough’s
Matrilineal Kinship (1961), which grew out of a cooperative Social Science
Research Council summer seminar organized by Schneider, with the additional
participation of Colson, Aberle, Fathauer, Basehart, and Sahlins. The distinctive
features of matrilineal descent groups are first stated in theoretical terms and in
contrast to their patrilineal counterparts. They are then examined against nine
matrilineal systems which are presented in detail, and more broadly, against a
larger number of cases available from Murdock’s “World Ethnographic Sample”
(1957). Here, with descent held as a constant, the variations in group structure,
residence, kinship, and marriage are examined in terms of structural theory,
cultural ecology, and evolutionary development. Of particular significance for
kinship theory is the discussion of the strength of the brother-sister relationship
in matrilineal societies as against the husband-wife bond, and its manifold effects
on the kinship structure, especially with regard to the tensions between a man
and the matrilineal descent group over control of his wife and children, which
had earlier been analyzed by Richards (1950). The considerable variety of types
of kinship structures associated with matrilineal descent (and the cor-responding
variety associated with patrilineal and cognatic descent) indicate problems for
future research.

Future developments
Kinship theory is set in the broader framework of social and cultural
anthropology, as is indicated in the article on culture, where Singer discusses the
structural versus the cultural analysis of kinship systems in terms of the
controversies between Kroeber and Radcliffe-Brown. In the perspective of
modern kinship studies the position of Radcliffe-Brown has been the more
productive, and Kroeber has partly modified his original position : “As part of
language, kin term systems reflect unconscious logic and conceptual patterning
as well as social institutions” ([1901–1951] 1952, p. 172). The current interest of
linguists in the componential analysis of kin term systems has clarified certain
aspects of terminology but at the expense of rejecting the advances made by
treating kinship as a social system. One promising move in this direction would
be to include social components, such as locality and lineage grouping, along
with those of generation, relative age, sex, and so on (see Leach 1961; Friedrich
1964). Levi-Strauss has been impressed with the relevance of structural
linguistics to the study of kinship:
Like phonemes, kinship terms are elements of meaning: like phonemes they
acquire meaning only if they are integrated systems. “Kinship systems,” like
“phonemic systems,” are built by the mind on the level of unconscious thought.
Finally, the recurrence of kin-ship patterns, marriage rules, similar prescribed
attitudes between certain types of relatives, and so forth, in scattered regions of
the globe and fundamentally different societies, leads us to believe that, in the
case of kinship as well as linguistics, the observable phenomena result from the
action of laws which are general but implicit.
But granted that the principles of duality and of reciprocity may be basic, their
relevance to many social systems has not yet been demonstrated. For Radcliffe-
Brown the recurrence of particular features in the diversity of kinship systems
throughout the world was evidenceof a limited number of general structural
principles, such as the equivalence of siblings and lineage solidarity, which were
combined in varying ways.

But if Kroeber’s reformulation is to be more than a compromise, it will be
important to relate systematically the linguistic, cognitive, and sociological
aspects of kinship in order to develop a more comprehensive theory. Thus, the
formal rules by which Lounsbury generates Crow- and Omaha-type
terminological systems are related to Radcliffe-Brown’s sociological principles,
as Lounsbury notes (1964, p. 357). And the principle of duality may find more
general expression in the relations of ego to alter and in the attitudes of respect
and familiarity than in the more specific matrimonial arrangements and dual
organizations of society.
The emphasis on descent systems with reference to kinship has been balanced in
recent years by a greater concern with bilateral or cognatic systems, but the
precise relationships between these two types are not yet clear. Both lineage-
based and bi-lateral kinship systems are faced with similar problems but solve
them in somewhat different ways. The historical changes noted above suggest
that greater efficiency in adaptation to particular ecological situations may be an
important factor. Whether there are broad evolutionary changes is not yet clear.
The early formulations of Morgan have been discredited but no large-scale
evolutionary sequence with regard to kinship systems has been developed to take
their place. L. A. White (1939, pp. 569–570) has proposed a more limited
development to account for the Iroquois-Dakota kinship terminology in relation
to the Omaha and Crow types: “When the clan system is young and weak the
kinship system will be of the Dakota-Iroquois type, regardless of the sex in
which descent is reckoned. As the clan system develops, however, and comes to
exert its influence more and more upon the social life of the tribe, the Dakota-
Iroquois terminology will be transformed into the Crow type in a matrilineal
society and into the Omaha type in a patrilineal society.” Murdock’s study (1949)
lends considerable statistical support to this view. It is clear, however, that the
Dakota type of kinship system can develop in association with cross-cousin
marriage without the presence of any clan organization (Eggan 1955). Where we
find the classic Omaha and Crow kinship systems they are generally associated
with well-developed “corporate” patrilineal and matrilineal groups, respectively,
but not all societies with well-developed corporate lineage groups have Omaha or
Crow kin-ship systems. For North America there is some evidence for a cyclical
oscillation between kinship systems based on a generational principle of
organization and those based on a lineage principle. These are thetwo major axes
for the classification of kin, and Murdock has provided a theoretical formulation

of change in social structures to be tested against the empirical evidence. Here,
studies of the type made by Krader (1963) with regard to the Turkic and Mongol
kinship systems and by Friedrich (1963) with regard to the historical
development of the Russian kinship system will be particularly important.
Studies of Euro-American kinship systems have so far been concerned primarily
with terminological patterns and their historical development. However,
Schneider and Firth are engaged in a large-scale comparative study of kinship in
Chicago and London, respectively, which should both yield new and important
results and bring our knowledge of kin-ship systems in contemporary industrial
society up to the level of those of nonliterate groups.
Our knowledge of affinal kinship—the relationships established through the
marriage tie—has been seriously neglected in most studies of kinship systems.
Some societies, such as the Ifugao inthe northern Philippines, reduce the
significance of the affinal tiealmost to the vanishing point, in contrast to
consanguineal relationships; others build much of their social structure on the
relationshipsbetween spouses. The contributions of Levi-Strauss, Dumont, and
Needham to our understanding of affinity in cases of preferential or prescriptive
cross-cousin marriage, where affinal terminology is disguisedin the
consanguineal system, have been mentioned. But there is no comprehensive
classification of affinal kinship terminology, nor any general theory of the nature
of affinity, although Aginsky (1935) long ago called attention to the importance
of the problem. Friedrich(see Goodenough 1964, pp. 131–166) has provided a
beginning with his detailed analysis of the Russian affinal system.
We can look forward to a continued flow of empirical data on kinship and to a
continuing dialogue between studies utilizing analytic variables and statistical
methods, on the one hand, and intensive studies of a more limited range but
concerned with kinship systems as wholes and in their ecological and historical
contexts, on the other. Outof this dialectic should come more adequate concepts
and classifications, as well as a greater under-standing of the phenomena of
kinship and the processes relevant to its development. At a more general level,
such studies also furnish a body of data to clarify the relations between culture,
as a set of ideas and symbols, and social structure,as a system of social
interaction. Kinship organizes social relationsin terms of cultural patterns.

DESCENT GROUPS
The analysis of descent groups is a special aspect of the study of kinship. In the
majority of preindustrial societies, kinsfolk are more than a narrow category of
persons linked to an individual actor by filiation and siblinghood. They constitute
a series of social groups that dominate the domestic organization and the process
of socialization, the use and transfer of property, the settlement of disputes,
religious activities such as ancestor worship, and certain political relationships.
Because these kin groups influence so many aspects of social life, their structure
and recruitment are highly important variables in the organization of
technologically simpler societies. It is not surprising there-fore that in the last
thirty years descent groups have been intensively studied by comparative
sociologists and that there has been much discussion of the meaning of the term
descent.
Comparative sociologists have generally accepted Rivers’ distinction between
inheritance, the trans-mission of property; succession, the transmission of office;
and descent, the transmission of kin-group membership. These three aspects of
the authorized transmission of property, office, and group membership from one
generation to the next are not entirely parallel. Inheritance, as usually understood,
refers to transmission after death; the total process of transmission between
holder and heirs, which includes certain types of transfer of property at marriage
(as in the dowry), is referred to as devolution. Second, whereas succession and
inheritance (or devolution) do not necessarily imply transfer between kin, descent
does; it signifies group membership of a special kind, handed down, like property
and office, from generation to generation.
Looking at the process of intergenerational trans-mission, from the standpoint of
the junior generation, an individual can receive any particular set of rights in the
following ways: (1) agnatic trans-mission, deriving exclusively from paternal
kin; (2) uterine transmission, deriving exclusively from maternal kin; (3) bilateral
(ambilateral) inclusive transmission, deriving from paternal and maternal
sources; and (4) bilateral (utrolateral) exclusive transmission, deriving from
either the paternal or maternal kin, depending on extraneous factors such as
residence.

In any particular society, the inheritance of property, succession to office, and
recruitment to kin groups usually follow the same mode of transmission. Indeed,
the importance of descent groups lies in the fact that membership usually entails
a claim upon basic productive and reproductive resources, as well as channeling
succession to roles and offices. But this is not always the case. More-over, some
differences arise in the transmission of these various rights from the fact that
office is rarely divisible and its transmission is necessarily selective, whereas all
members of a society usually belong to one of the series of kin groups. Property
may be partible or impartible, and certain objects, such as weapons and cooking
pots, are, like office, often sex-linked; on the other hand, the membership of kin
groups is, in a sense, always partible and very rarely sex-linked. Moreover, it is
allocated to individuals at birth (or soon after), not simply through birth.
Unilineal descent groups
Rivers used descent to refer only to kin groups whose members are recruited
unilineally (or “unilaterally,” to use his own term); that is to say, groups such as
clans, which are recruited either through male (agnatic) or through female
(uterine) links. However, unilineal descent groups (UDGs) of this kind are not
defined by the manner of recruitment alone; all the members of a particular group
are also related to one another by common unilineal descent. A military regiment
like the Fanti asafo company in Ghana or an occupational group like the
widespread groups of Numu blacksmiths in west Africa may be recruited
exclusively by ties of paternal kinship; they do not constitute a UDG unless the
members are themselves linked with one another by similar ties and see
themselves as having a common ancestry.
When these links are demonstrable and can be genealogically plotted, the group
is known as a lineage; when the links are not demonstrable and descent is
“putative,” the group is known as a clan. Some authors have attempted to
establish the Roman term gens for a patrilineal UDG and clan for the matrilineal
type, but most authorities prefer patrician (or patrilineage) and matriclan (or
matrilineage ).

Distribution of UDGs
UDGs are found in all types of preindustrial economy and in all regions of the
world; they occur among the aboriginal hunters of Australia and among the
pastoralists of central Asia; among the shifting agriculturalists in Africa and
among the irrigation farmers in India. They occur most frequently in pastoralism,
then in agriculture, then in hunting and gathering, and only marginally in
industrial communities. Ethnographic samples (Murdock 1957; 1963; Aberle
1961) support the hypothesis of those writers (for example, Lowie 1948;
Radcliffe-Brown 1950; Forde 1947) who pointed to a positive association
between the presence of descent groups and the amount and type of property to
be transmitted. Forde (1947) observed that only when a certain threshold of
stability and density of settlement is reached do the tendencies for unilineal
transmission give rise to UDGs. Like other large-scale kin groups, they tend to
have less importance where membership no longer provides rights in the means
of production (i.e., when economies have become commercialized or
industrialized). Descent groups also lose importance when their function in
offense and defense is minimized by a highly centralized political system, and
they no longer serve as a focus for ongoing local ties when spatial and social
mobility increases.
As with all the wider ties of kinship, the disappearance of UDGs is linked with
the growth of economic and social individualism in industrial societies, where a
person tends to have direct ties with the political and economic agencies,
mediated by specialized associations such as trade unions and political parties
rather than by multifunctional units such as kin groups. In general, the role of
UDGs diminishes with the importance of governmental institutions. Patricians
were important within the state systems of the Zulu, early Rome, and China;
matriclans played a significant part in the kingdoms of Ashanti and the Congo.
But their characteristic functions of defense and retaliation were subsumed under
central administrations. For example, homicide, a matter for self-help by the kin
group in stateless and weakly centralized societies such as the bedouin tribes or
Anglo-Saxons, became a criminal offense, dealt with by the king’s court.

Corporate groups
The functional importance of UDGs and similar social groups is sometimes
expressed by the use of the term “corporate.” Following legal usage, Sir Henry
Maine described the early Roman gens as a corporation in order to indicate its
character as a property-holding unit that “never died.” But the word has also been
used (a) to translate Weber’s Verband (a group with a hierarchy of legitimate
authority); (b) for a group that regularly meets in either plenary or representative
session; and (c) for a compact, localized group (as distinct from either a
dispersed, or a non-localized, group, which often has few functions). The need
for differentiating the part played by kin groups in different societies is
recognized in the recent study of matrilineal systems edited by Schneider and
Gough. The authors refer to UDGs as “descent units,” while the term “descent
group” is used for “that descent unit or portion thereof which engages as a whole
in activities with respect to which decisions must be made from time to time and
in which all adult male members do not have equal authority” (1961, p. 4); the
descent group, essentially a decision-making, or “organized,” group, is compared
with what has elsewhere been called a “corporate descent group.” Murdock
(1960) makes a similar distinction between corporate, occasional, and
circumscriptive kin groups. The criteria that various writers have used to define
“corporate groups” appear too general and too con-fused for most analytic
purposes. The term can be restricted to certain aspects of the property-holding
function, or else set aside altogether.
Subdivision of UDGs
While UDGs are usually segments of the society, in the sense that they are
exclusive and exhaustive parts, they are rarely monolithic. Clans are often
divided into smaller units (subclans) and into genealogically based units of at
least five generations. In a patrilineal society, this basic lineage usually consists
of a man’s father, grandfather, son, and grandson—that is, the forebears and
descendants whom he actually encounters during his lifetime; it is this five-
generation unit around which most systems of kinship terminology are
constructed. But lineages may have a much greater generation depth; among the

Nuer of the Sudan, twelve to fourteen generations are reported, and lineages of
similar spread occur among other pastoral peoples of the Middle East, such as the
contemporary bedouins and the Hebrews of the first millennium B.C.
The genealogy of a lineage differs in function from a chiefly pedigree. The latter
acts as a validation of rights to an exclusive office; the former serves as a
calculus for the relationship of group members. Consequently, a correlation
exists between depth and span—that is, between order of segmentation and
number of living members. Adjustment between the two is made by
“telescoping” and similar mechanisms. Those ancestors whose presence in the
genealogy is inessential for the reckoning of contemporary relationships
gradually disappear from memory.
Morphologically, order of segmentation equals depth of genealogy, all levels of
which have some importance for social action. But certain levels act as points of
reference for specific subgroups of greater functional significance, for example,
in the context of ceremonial food sharing, or landholding, or payments of
compensation for homicide. The terms maximal lineage and minimal lineage are
used sometimes for the morphological, and sometimes for the functional,
differentiation of groups; terms for intermediate units, such as major lineage,
minor lineage, and nuclear lineage, refer to the functional ordering of groups.
In such a merging series of subgroups of increasing inclusiveness, two groups
that stand in contraposition at one level of segmentation merge when opposed to
a group of a higher order of segmentation. This process of segmentation is one of
opposition and identification and occurs in any series of “nesting” groups,
whatever the political system; counties and cantons conflict on many local issues
but unite when national interests are involved. But these processes have a greater
importance when centralized administration is absent; hence, stateless societies
that have a polyseg-mental structure (i.e., an extensive merging or nesting series),
and particularly those based upon a developed lineage organization, are often
known as segmentary societies, although the term acephalous is less ambiguous.
Some lineage systems extend to the limits of the society itself: the Tiv of eastern
Nigeria all regard themselves as descendants in the male line of an eponymous
ancestor, and the genealogy of his progeny lays out the complete outline of
descent group structure. Sahlins (1961) sees the function of these all-inclusive
lineages as one of predatory expansion. It is clear that the deeper the genealogy,

the larger the lineage and hence the greater the possibility of mobilizing support
on particular issues. But this mobilization may be equally as necessary in
situations of defense as of offense. Extensive lineage ties are of particular
significance where the population is sparse, and where local groups are bound to
be small and therefore able to provide little support in emergencies. They are
often important in pastoral societies where ecological conditions demand
transhumance and thus the passage of flocks through the territory of one’s
neighbors; the existence of ongoing ties of descent between such groups
facilitates the movements that such a way of life demands.
Systems of double UDGs. UDGs are found in 60.6 per cent of the 483 societies
in the “Ethnographic Atlas” (Murdock et al. 1963). In some societies (4.6 per
cent), two sets of UDGs (patrilineal and matrilineal) are found side by side. In
certain cases, one set of UDGs has relatively little significance. In others, both
sets of UDGs have important functions; among the Yakö of eastern Nigeria, both
sets are vehicles for the transmission of property (Forde 1950) and are therefore
corporate, in Maine’s sense. Some writers have confined the term “double
descent system” to those cases where both sets of UDGs are seen as property-
holding corporations and refer to other systems where two sets occur as unilineal
systems with secondary (or complementary) UDGs.
In such full-fledged double descent systems, the two sets of UDGs have more or
less differentiated roles. While both sets are exogamous at some level, rights to
particular kinds of property are split. By this division, the basic means of
production are vested in the patricians, while other wealth (money, livestock) is
linked to the matriclans. Thus, in agricultural economies with full double descent
systems, land passes within the patrician and movable property within the
matriclan. As women marry out, the core of the local group consists of male
agnates.
Systems of matrilineal descent. The “Ethnographic Atlas” shows a considerable
predominance of patrilineal over matrilineal systems of UDGs:
From many standpoints, agnatic transmission is more straightforward than
uterine transmission, since dominant sex roles and descent links coincide. For the
dominant sex (i.e., for males), the links are direct, running from father to
children. Daughters move away at marriage, for virilocal residence

overwhelmingly prevails where patrilineal UDGs occur. In this case, offspring
belong to the UDGs of the husbands.
On the other hand, in matrilineal systems the sex that counts in the reckoning of
group member-ship is nevertheless the inferior one in most social situations. It is
men who hold the major positions of authority in domestic and political
activities; yet socially the UDG reproduces itself through its female members,
who, because of the incest taboo, must take outsiders as husbands or lovers. In
the UDG, there is a greater interdependence of brothers and sisters.
If brothers and sisters remain together, as they traditionally did among the Nayar
of southwest India, the elementary family cannot exist as a residential unit. But
more usual than this duolocal solution to the “matrilineal puzzle” (the problem of
combining exogamy and local descent continuity) are two other alternatives: (1)
the woman joins the man (virilocal marriage); or (2) the man joins the woman
(uxorilocal marriage). In the uxorilocal solution, as among the Hopi Indians of
the southwestern United States, members of the dominant sex are living with
affines and hence separated from their own matriclansfolk and “estate.” The
virilocal solution leaves the men with their own clansfolk, but the children are
now separated from their UDG. In societies with localized matrilineal UDGs, this
form of marriage must be accompanied by “child return,” i.e., change of
residence at adolescence or the uxorilocal marriage of at least one male member
of the group of full siblings.
The nonresidential Nayar solution is rare (4 per cent of the matrilineal systems in
the 1957 sample); residence with the wife’s kin is the most common (49 per
cent), followed closely by residence with the husband’s kin (avunculocally—
with his maternal kin—26 per cent; patrilocally—with his father—18 per cent).
There is some tendency for avunculocal residence to be associated with the more
stratified societies. However, it should be added that these residence types are
rarely found in “pure” form; different patterns predominate, depending upon the
position in the developmental cycle of the domestic group (e.g., Ashanti), the
order in the sibling group (e.g., Yao), the relative status of husband and wife, and
upon other factors.
Comparative studies show that matrilineal UDGs are associated with horticulture
more frequently than with other types of economy. Although they are often found

in stable fishing communities, they are virtually absent from pastoral
economies— “the cow is the enemy of matriliny, and the friend of patriliny”
(Aberle 1961). Matrilineal UDGs tend to disappear with the development of
plough and irrigation agriculture; and, like all UDGs, they are absent from
industrialized societies.Secondary recruitment. We have so far assumed that
descent groups are recruited according to a single criterion, which derives not
simply from the observer’s classificatory schema but also from the ideology of
the group itself. But probably all societies use additional modes of entry to
increase the size of the group, to provide a particular member with an heir, or to
regularize an individual’s change in domicile when this becomes anomalous in
terms of the organization of UDGs. This last procedure is comparable to
changing one’s nationality.Various methods other than birthright are used to
assimilate an individual into a descent group (Maine’s “legal fictions”).
Assimilation may occur directly by the adoption of members of the relevant sex
(i.e., males in patrilineal descent groups) or by the purchase of slaves. More often
the assimilation is indirect: a woman in a patrilineal descent group is used to
recruit personnel by contracting a form of limited marriage whereby all, or some,
of her offspring are attached to her own natal UDG rather than to her husband’s
(the “appointed” daughter of China, India, and the Middle East); alternatively the
daughter may simply stay at home and produce children by a lover
(“institutionalized illegitimacy”); a woman may “marry” another woman, who in
turn takes a cicisbeo and breeds children for the female husband (as in
Dahomey); or a servant or slave girl can substitute for the infertile wife (as
Bilhah did for Rachel).However, assimilation is rarely complete, and social
situations such as sacrifices to ancestors may resurrect the differential status of
members recruited by secondary means. Where the secondary mode of
recruitment is by complementary filiation (that is, through the parent excluded
from the reckoning of descent), and where this is widely practiced, the group is,
in fact, recruited bilaterally, although de jure group ideology may impose a
fiction of common unilineal descent upon the members. But, like recruitment
itself, ideology is also a variable. In some societies, patrilineal attachment to the
group may be expressed as a preference rather than an imperative, while other
modes of recruitment are openly accepted, although of lower status. Here, we
come close, de jure as well as de facto, to kin groups of a cognatic kind; neither
in terms of recruitment nor of ideology (and this is as true of function as of form)
can a hard and fast line be drawn between descent and other kin groups.

Mono sexual kin groups
In the discussion of UDGs we have assumed that recruitment of the sibling group
is inclusive; in other words, in patrilineal systems both male and female children
be-long to the father’s UDG. But this is not the only way in which kin groups
may be recruited and organized. Logically, the sibling group may be
differentiated according to sex and age. Such mono-sexual groups may be
differently organized for men and women; among the Apinayé of central Brazil,
the brother belongs to a group of agnatically related males, the sister to a group
of women linked by uterine ties. Or men may be linked cross-sexually to their
mothers, and women to their fathers, to produce the alternating or cross-sexual
system of the “rope” described by Mead for the Mundugumor of northern New
Guinea. But such arrangements seem always to be ancillary to other more
important sets of kin groups (Maybury Lewis 1960). Monosexual groups do not
stand on their own, since the continuity of all kin groups must depend upon both
sexes; and, therefore, the most significant kin groups in a society demand control
of both sexes to ensure their character as ongoing units.
A further possibility exists, at any rate for agnatic systems: only one sex is
organized on a monosexual basis (i.e., the males), leaving the females as a free
floating element. But such an arrangement appears to run counter to the
importance of the sibling group (brothers and sisters) in childhood and
adolescence, and particularly to the sexual and marital prohibitions placed upon
full and, commonly, classificatory sisters (i.e., sisters of fellow clansmen). The
closest approximation to this logical possibility is the situation reported to exist
in some agnatic systems of east Africa, socie-ties in which a woman is
“incorporated” in her husband’s kin group, either immediately upon marriage or
after she has borne children (Southall 1959). In early Rome, according to Maine,
the wife was considered in manum viri and was, in law, the daughter of her
husband. The resultant unit would correspond to a segment of what Murdock
calls a “clan,” a compromise as distinct from a consanguineal kin group, for
which he uses Lowie’s term “sib.”
All patrilineal systems transfer some rights in the woman from the bride’s to the
groom’s kin group, i.e., rights in genetricem (over her procreative powers) and

usually the right of bride removal. The very fact of virilocal residence is bound to
place her in a structurally ambiguous position. Rather than using a simple
dichotomy between UDGs that “incorporate” spouses and those that do not, it
seems better to treat the degree of transfer of rights as a continuous variable and
to make some assessment of the extent of formal assimilation and alienation of
spouses, and the degree of their participation in the activities of the two groups
involved. The limiting case would be the complete severance of a spouse from
his or her natal group, but except in slave marriages it seems doubtful if this
situation occurs in practice. Certainly the evidence from Africa, Rome, and
China is equivocal here. The construction of such a scale would make it easier to
interpret the divorce statistics of patrilineal systems where incorporation has been
linked with rare divorce and nonincorpo-ration with higher divorce rates (Fallers
1957). But unless the concept of “incorporation” is broken down, one cannot be
sure that it does not already involve a consideration of the ease and frequency of
divorce.
Cognatic kin groups
Unilineal descent is not the only means by which kin groups are organized and
recruited. Societies lacking UDGs are frequently referred to as bilateral (or
cognatic). In such societies (and in unilineal systems) we find groupings based
upon ties traced unrestrictedly, through both males and females at one time, or
restrictedly through one parent or the other, with the particular selection
depending upon nonkinship factors.
Ties traced through both males and females give rise to fluctuating personal
kindred and descending kindred. The first is based upon the network of ties that
radiate out from any individual, through kin of both sexes, and then descend from
these ascend-ants to collateral kin. The most inclusive of these circles coincides
with a man’s relatives, i.e., the whole field of consanguineal kinship, but less
inclusive groups may emerge as significant social units. Personal kindreds, such
as the sib in Anglo-Saxon England, are necessarily ego-orientated; each man’s
grouping differs from the next (except a full brother), and the units are not true
segments of the society. There is some discussion as to whether affines should be
included in the definition of a kindred as such (see Freeman 1961, who uses
“kindred” for the category of cognatic kin and speaks of the sib as a “kindred-
based group”); for cross-cultural analysis, the problem is simply a matter of

selecting a verbal tool, but for the analysis of a single society it is a question of
establishing what happens in a particular case.
Like other cognatic kin groups, personal kindreds do not consist only of persons
linked to a central actor by specific genealogical connections; two individuals
may regard themselves as cousins simply because their respective fathers did.
The distinction between genealogical and derived kinship is the basis of the
formal distinction between lineage and clan.
The descending kindred is quite a different kind of unit. Unlike the personal
kindred, membership is traced from an ancestor, ancestress, or an ancestral pair.
Since ties are reckoned through both males and females, the resultant groupings
are overlapping in terms of membership; but the members all see themselves as
belonging to the same unit (“the descendants of X”). In the first respect, they
resemble kindreds, in the latter a UDG.
Goodenough (1955) refers to such groups as “unrestricted nonunilineal descent
groups” (Bohannan’s “omnilineal descent group”) and points out that they
emerge mainly in the context of claims on fixed resources, especially ancestral
land. Such nonunilineal descent groups (NDG, or Murdock’s “cognatic descent
group”) become restricted by the introduction of additional criteria of entry, such
as residence, parents’ residence, or the use of land rather than claims on land. If
these alternatives are exclusive (as usually with residence), then the result will be
a restricted kin group that is a true segment of the society; each individual is
normally allocated to one such unit and one alone, as with UDGs.
Where membership of a restricted NDG is either nonexclusive (i.e., plural
membership is allowed) or reversible (i.e., a man may alternate between the kin
groups of his father and his mother), then the group is said to be ambilateral
(Firth 1957). It is utrolateral where membership is exclusive and irreversible, as
in the case of the Iban bilek.
Where the membership of a restricted UDG is organized around a geneaology,
the group (a ramage) is, from this standpoint, the morphological equivalent of the
lineage.
On the question of the similarities and differences between UDGs and restricted
NDGs has turned the discussion as to whether groups of the latter type are
properly called descent groups. Most American scholars adopt the wider usage,

but some British authorities, such as Fortes and Leach, follow Rivers in making
unilineality an essential criterion. They do this because first, “bilateral” groups
may involve additional nonkinship criteria of eligibility. Second, these criteria
involve choice or optation. It should be remarked that it is the existence of
prescribed alternatives, rather than choice, that is important here; the selection of
alternatives may derive from factors outside the control of the individual
involved as in the case of parental residence. Third, the membership of these
bilateral groups may overlap. Last, the processes of segmentation, fission, etc.,
are very different where the genealogical links consist of both males and females.
Whether descent is taken to refer only to UDGs or to include other ancestor-
oriented kin groups is, however, not of great importance. What matters is that
groups of this kind are of basic significance in the social structure of a large
number of non-industrial societies. Because of their importance in the domestic,
political, economic, and religious spheres, an understanding of the way they
work and a knowledge of the principles of recruitment and organization are
central not only to the under-standing of particular societies but of human his-
tory itself and of the problems arising from the rapid social change of recent
times. Their importance is explicitly recognized by the fact that pre-industrial
societies are often classified by the types of kin group present, in particular by
the presence of patrilineal or matrilineal descent groups, of both (double
descent), or of neither (bilateral). This typology, while requiring much
refinement, has had considerable relevance for explaining differences in such
fields as domestic groups (Fortes 1958), incest rules (Goody 1956), rates of
divorce (Gluckman 1950), relationship between adjacent generations
(Malinowski 1927; Goody 1962), and developing agricultural organizations (Hill
1963).

PSEUDO-KINSHIP
Pseudo-kinship includes those relationships in which persons are described or
addressed by kin terms (or terms derived from the idiom of kin) but do not stand
in such a relationship by virtue of the principles, however they happen to be
conceptualized, of descent or marriage. It has been suggested that any
relationship which employs a kin term is kin, and in that case there would be no
pretext for the notion of pseudo-kinship. Nevertheless, such a viewpoint does not
evade the need to distinguish between such relationships and consanguineal or
affinal kinship. Every society has rules for ascribing kin status to its members,
but these do not determine a relation of pseudo-kinship, which depends always
upon the individual will of, at least, the initiator.
Three types of pseudo-kinship can be distinguished. (1) There is, first of all, the
figurative usage of kin terms, which may be little more than a convention of
speech or which may, on the other hand, designate a status within the society or
within a specific context. (2) There are also customs whereby a person is given
the status of kin by attribution rather than by birth—and this is commonly called
“fictive” or “artificial” kinship. (3) There are also institutions which, in some
ways, resemble kinship and are named by analogy with it, yet which possess a
separate nature and accord a distinct status. These are sometimes regarded,
rightly, as ritualized forms of friendship.
These three categories merge into one another; a figurative usage becomes an
attribution of status when it enjoins behavior appropriate to kin, while the fiction
of attributed kin status is no more than an analogy once the pseudo-kin are
differentiated from the genuine. Again, ritualized friendship can exist without
any analogy to kinship at all, as in the bond-friendship of Tikopia (Firth 1936),
and the institutionalized “best friend” is sometimes no more than a trading
partner. Trading partnership, on the other hand, may involve a relationship which
carries the analogy with kinship to the point of imposing a bar to the
intermarriage of descendants (Gorer 1938).

Figurative usage
Kin terms are used figuratively in many societies for the purpose of stressing
some particular quality associated with kin. They may be employed momentarily,
as when an old man is addressed as “grandad” in order to imply intimacy and age
difference and when “son” or “daughter” is used to underline the seniority of the
speaker. They may be particular to a given relationship, as when children are
encouraged to address friends of their parents who adopt an avuncular role as
“aunt” or “uncle.” Usages similar to all of these are found in other parts of the
world.
Such usages are clearly distinguished from genuine kinship even when they are
required by convention, since the kin relationship to the person addressed is
irrelevant. They are mere expressions of attitudes, part of the common currency
of personal relations. They imply a quality of behavior rather than a status,
fraternity rather than the relationship of sibling. Kin terms may also provide a
conventional title, as in the case of the Catholic priesthood, lay brotherhoods, or
guilds, or in connection with a role in a festival, as in the Pawnee Hako (Fletcher
1904). Here the quality of the role begs an analogy with kinship.
Fictive or artificial kinship
Whether kinship is a purely social tie or whether it has any necessary biological
basis is a question which has been much discussed, and the point of view taken
necessarily affects what is to be regarded as pseudo-kinship. However, it seems
advisable to consider as genuine kin those to whom the custom of the society
ascribes such status, whatever the criteria for ascription may be, and to regard as
pseudo-kin those who achieve the role otherwise. The distinction is not always
easily made in societies such as the Eskimo, which appear to ascribe kin status on
the basis of residence in a given household. When a person is adopted into a kin
status to which he was not born, the definition of kinship becomes even more
complex. He may acquire the status permanently and thus be established as a
member of a kin group. The adopted individual becomes almost equivalent to
one who was born into that status, is linked to all its members through ties of
kinship, and addresses them by kin terms. In Western as in Far Eastern
civilization, the desire for an heir is the common motive for such adoptions.

In Japan, the mukoyōshi, “groom-foster-son” as it has been translated, is adopted
as a husband for the daughter when there is no son or no suitable son to whom
the patrimony can be entrusted. Such an institution is reminiscent of the custom
of the French peasantry, expressed in the phrase entrer gendre (to go in as a son-
in-law), which defines the position of the bridegroom who joins the family farm
in order to succeed his father-in-law. In Japan, however, there are other forms of
adoption: the adoptive daughter who is later married to a “groom-foster-son,”
even the kaiyōshi, “buyer-adoptive-son,” who takes over the patrimony of a
bankrupt family and acquires kin status in it. A tenant can also become an
adoptive son, and his descend-ants form a branch of the family which adopted
him (Nagai & Bennett 1953; Norbeck & Befu 1958; Befu 1962). It must be
pointed out that the fiction here is not complete, in the sense that the adoptive
child does not become equivalent in every way to one born into the status.
Though he uses the terminology of kinship to all the members of his adoptive
parents’ kin, he is distinguished from the natural legitimate progeny in that his
rights of inheritance are not always equivalent to theirs, and he retains his ties to
his natural kin. Moreover, the very fact that he marries the daughter of his
adoptive parents demonstrates that the groom-foster-son is not equated to a
natural son with regard to the prohibition of incest. The oyabunkobun complex is
to be distinguished from adoption in that it sets up a whole system of artificial
kin-ship, quite separate from natural kinship, which endows a structure of
patronage in economic and political life with the ritual and terminology of
kinship. Bennett and Ishino (1963) have termed this “simulated kinship.”
Slaves of warlike tribes in Africa and North America were often adopted into the
lineage of their captor and thereby acquired kin, but they did not by the same
token acquire the status of son in all its aspects. Such a custom can be viewed as
a way of providing a kin affiliation for those who have none in a society where
this is essential for the conduct of social relations. Fictive kinship is also
established for specific purposes, as for example in Islam, where it allows a man
access to women who are not kin.
On the other hand, adoption may establish a person as a member of the family
equivalent to its offspring, as commonly in Western civilization. In some
societies, however (e.g., M. G. Smith 1962, p. 90), upbringing from infancy
defines the status of child rather than procreation; filiation has dispensed with the
supposition of physical maternity. In other societies, paternity is defined by

social rather than genetic criteria—a fact which has led anthropologists to
distinguish between “pater” and “genitor.” In neither case could one speak of
fictive kinship, since by definition the kinship is genuine. The genitor may at the
same time receive recognition as kins.
Genealogical relationships frequently involve a certain number of fictions
whereby the record of descent is adapted so as to conform with the reality of the
groups who believe themselves to share a common ancestor. In certain cases all
the members of a single small community are addressed and referred to by a kin
term, and their behavior is modeled upon that appropriate for kin, regardless of
any putative cognatic tie. The tie of neighborship is thus given the value of a tie
of kinship. This may be maintained even across differences of caste in India, as
Freed (1963) has shown.
Finally, we may describe as fictive kinship the instances where persons who are
related genealogically in one way adopt the forms of address and behavior
prescribed for a different relationship. This is commonly the case where their
roles in a household have constrained the members to mutate their kin ties to
conform to their mutual behavior.

Ritual kinship
There exist, throughout the world, institutions which establish ties analogous to
kin ties. The participants recognize a bond which is likened to, though it is not
confused with, kinship. These are commonly defined under the headings of blood
brotherhood and ritual coparenthood, or compadrazgo, and they are all best
classified as ritual kinship. To refer to them as “fictive kinship,” as many authors
have done, is to invite confusion, since no fiction is involved; these institutions
are conceptually distinct from and frequently contrasted with natural kinship
(Tegnaeus 1952, p. 13). Too often the ethnographer has written that persons tied
by ritual kinship are “as brothers,” yet a closer look at the ethnography shows
that they are not “as brothers” in any real sense (cf. Beidelman 1963). In order to
use the word “fictive,” we must ascertain that the pseudo-kinsman does in fact
acquire, at least in a relevant context, a status similar to that of the natural
kinsman. Moreover, just as there are fictive forms and usages of consanguineal
kinship, so there are of ritual kinship—and we can hardly speak of fictive “fictive
kinship.” In fact, the role of the ritual kinsman often resembles that of the
brother-in-law rather than the brother.
Blood brotherhood. Early studies of blood brotherhood (e.g., W. R. Smith 1885,
pp. 47–58) were dominated and obscured by the assumption that primitive
peoples regarded kinship, just as Westerners do, as a matter of blood. Even those
who perceived that it was the magical associations of blood which accounted for
its use in rituals continued to class together, as blood brotherhood, types of
relationship which have in common only this detail of the rite which initiates
them. Thus the discussions as to whether blood brotherhood was to be explained
as a form of kinship, a legal contract, or a political alliance reinforced by a
magical curse, a private pact, or a peacemaking ceremony were fundamentally
confused, for blood can be used in many different rites (Evans-Pritchard 1933).
The intimate identification implied by the exchange of blood represents a bond
between two persons which gives each a mystical hold over the fidelity of the
other. This bond does not as a rule entail the acquisition of ties with his kin.
Indeed, in some instances the pact thus established remains secret; this is
particularly the case where it is made for the purpose of political conspiracy or
entry into a secret society. Such a pact is also found in certain marriage
ceremonies and in love pacts (Sousberghe 1960).

On the other hand, such pacts are frequently a means of cementing peaceful
relations or economic cooperation. They are therefore made with potentially
hostile strangers, such as those early explorers of Africa who are often pictured
entering into blood covenants, and between tribal chiefs whose followers are
thereby committed to refrain from hostilities. The pact of blood may also be used
to end a feud or a personal enmity. Depending upon the recognized extension of
the tie engendered in this way, it serves to guarantee amicable terms between
tribes, kin groups, families, or individuals. In this sense the blood pact may be
put to the same purpose as alliance through marriage, as it is commonly a means
of formalizing an instrumental or a purely affective relationship between two
men. It is rarely found between two women, since the status of women
commonly precludes such independence of action.
Covenanted comradeship depends upon the individual will of the participants
(though they may be subject to their parents’ approval in this, or they may be
committed to such a relationship in infancy by the parents). Yet it is almost
always irrevocable. It prescribes reciprocal gifts and mutual trust, feelings of
amity and the obligation of mutual assistance. In some instances it imposes an
incest prohibition between the children of the comrades and even between their
descendants; in others it enjoins a preference for their union. This type of
comradeship is initiated by a rite which commonly involves the invocation of
divine powers who bear witness. The rite itself consists in exchanging some
personal substance, which is very frequently blood but also may be saliva,
semen, and the like, or in the ingestion of some sanctified substance in common,
a “loving cup” of blood or wine, for example, or an exchange of sacrifice. Foster
brotherhood may sometimes create a similar tie. Thus, by analogy, a man could
establish a tie of sacrosanct amity among the Caucasian tribes by pressing his lips
to the breast of the mother of his enemy, an act which obliged the latter to forgo
vengeance. Among the Plains Indians of North America, men who had sexual
relations with the same woman thereafter called each other “brother,” a custom
which may not be unconnected with the levirate.
A relationship similar to blood brotherhood may be initiated by a rite which
centers upon the role of sponsor to certain persons, festivals, or celebrations, the
passage together through a religious rite, or the exchange of sanctified gifts.
Thus, ritual kinship may be established in central India when groups of young

people “hear Ram’s name” together from a teacher (guru); they are then
considered to be ritual brothers and sisters (Mayer 1960, pp. 139 ff.). The tie thus
established bears a resemblance to Christian coparenthood. It is a particular form
of a relationship which exists throughout India between a guru and his disciples,
who are regarded as spiritual children to him and spiritual brothers and sisters to
each other.
“Compadrazgo,”, or coparenthood. The most fully documented form of ritual
kinship in the literature of anthropology is coparenthood. It derives from the
Christian notion of spiritual kinship, one of the three kinds of affinity, the other
two being affinity through blood and through marriage. Spiritual affinity
originated in the sacrament of baptism and grew to be separate from natural
affinity in the early Middle Ages, when parents were forbidden to stand as
sponsors to their own children. The dogmatic basis for this development was
provided by the opposition between natural generation, through which the sin of
Adam was transmitted, and spiritual regeneration, through which it was cleansed.
A corresponding opposition is found in those customs in which a spiritual parent
must replace the physical parent. Spiritual kinship involves ties of two sorts, both
of which impose an impediment to marriage: that which is established between
godparent and godchild and that between godparent and natural parent, the co-
parents, who address each other and are referred to as compadres (Spanish),
compari (Italian), koumbari (Greek), kum (Serbian and Russian). The pretexts for
establishing such ties vary. The Roman Catholic religion now recognizes
spiritual affinity only as arising from the rites of baptism and confirmation, and
only between the officiant and the child and between the godparent and god-
child. Wider extensions of spiritual affinity are still recognized by the Eastern
Catholic rites and by the Eastern Orthodox churches. The Council of Trent
(1545–1563) greatly restricted the range of this regard to the persons between
whom spiritual affinity was recognized (two spiritual parents of the same child,
the children of compadres) and to the number of godparents. Spiritual affinity
between coparents has lapsed in twentieth-century dogma in the Roman church,
though not in the Eastern churches.
The social functions of this institution are to be distinguished from its spiritual
function. In many parts of the world, popular custom ignores dogma and
institutes the social bond of compadrazgo through rites which give rise to no

spiritual affinity in the eyes of the church, though in the eyes of custom they may
imply an incest prohibition. Thus in Spain the marriage godparents have no
liturgical significance but have considerable social significance (except in
Catalonia); conversely, the god-parents of confirmation required by the church
frequently have no social functions. The baptismal godparents should act as
godparents in the first communion and, according to the custom of certain
regions, at the godchild’s marriage. A variety of preferential rules governs the
selection of the godparents; sometimes they prescribe a member of the family of
one or other parent. Sometimes the landowner is viewed as the appropriate
godfather for the tenant’s child, and sometimes simply a friend becomes
godparent (Foster 1953; Pitt-Rivers 1958). The significant differences are that in
Italy and the northern half of Spain the tie between compadres is generally
regarded as less important than that between godparent and godchild and that in
Italy the godparent of confirmation is given more importance than the baptismal
godparent (Anderson 1957).
On the whole the quality of the relationship of compadre is similar, although in
Italy the spiritual rather than the material aspect is stressed; it is even regarded as
preferable to choose someone with whom there will be no business
entanglements. In both countries it is a relationship of trust, mutual assistance,
affection, and respect— coparents traditionally use the formal third person in
address. It is said that one can deny one’s compadre nothing, but the reciprocal
duties are not stipulated. The duties of the godparent are more explicit, though
they vary from place to place. In sum, they involve payment for the ceremony of
fiesta, gifts of amulets and first articles of clothing, aid in starting out in life, and
special duties in the case of godchild’s death during childhood—in fact,
whenever the individual destiny of the child is at stake. The godparent also has
the theoretical obligation to act as guardian in the case of the death of the parents.
In exchange, the godchild owes only respect, obedience, and affection. The
relations between compadres, on the other hand, are always conceived of as
relations of equality, even where they cut across class barriers. Indeed their
significance in such cases is precisely that they provide a tie of intimacy between
persons of different classes which is not otherwise possible. Thus within the
compadrazgo there are ritual relations between superior and inferior (godparent–
god-child) or between equals (coparents), and there are social relations of
ritualized friendship between equals and also of patronage between social
classes. (Mintz & Wolf 1950). Therefore it is not surprising that the terminology

of the compadrazgo should have acquired a slang usage to describe the
maneuvers of intrigue, particularly in politics.
Coparenthood (kumstvo) in southeastern Yugoslavia establishes a lasting bond
between two extended families (zadruge) through the customary obligation to
renew the relationship, which is inherited from father to son. In this way a
collective tie is maintained from one generation to the next. Ritual kinship is
recognized, and the appropriate term used, between all members of the two
families.
The bond of compadrazgo takes on its widest extension and its fullest
significance in Latin America, as Tylor (1861, p. 251) was the first to note. The
tie between compadres is generally of greater importance than that between
godparent and god-child. It is sometimes recognized not only between the
compadres, as hitherto defined, but also between each one of them and the
ascendants of the other (certain Indians regard it as a relationship involving all
the members of each family). In addition, the occasions on which compadrazgo
is formed are many more than in Europe. Thus, baptism may provide the infant
with up to three or even more pairs of godparents (padrinos de pila, de
ceremonia, de arras, de vela, or de evangelios), all of whom become compadres
of the parents. Fresh godparents are chosen for other occasions, particularly the
rites de passage of the child. Compadrazgo may be formed on such pretexts as
the first hair or nail cutting of a child, the ceremony when it is first carried astride
the hip of an adult, a daughter’s ear piercing (this is found in Italy also), the
dedication of a house, an altar, a religious image, a rosary, or a new truck, a
healing ceremony, or simply the cosponsoring of a fiesta.
There are degrees of seriousness attached to different forms. Compadrazgo with
the godparents of the font (padrinos de pila) tends to be treated as the most
serious and sacred, while that which is established with the sponsor of a fiesta or
the “godparent” at the blessing of a truck is no more than fictive compadrazgo
which entitles the participants to call each other“compadre” as long as they feel
well disposed but which is unlikely to be recognized by their ascendants. An
influential man often has more compadres than he can remember. The degree to
which compadrazgo implies a genuine affective tie whose sacred character is
respected, rather than a perfunctory affability—and the distinction is inevitable in
communities where middle-aged people are nearly all compadres of one sort or
another—is sometimes expressed by the term “compadres de corazón”

(compadres of the heart), which is reserved for relationships of true friendship
and is usually ritualized by one of the more serious forms.
It is not easy to determine where to draw the line between genuine ritual kinship
and fictive ritual kinship. Seen from the liturgical point of view, all the
customary forms which do not involve spiritual affinity are fictive, but, if the
authority of custom is accepted, then any form of compadrazgo established on a
generally recognized pretext is genuine. Nevertheless, custom recognizes that
some pretexts imply a more binding relationship than others, and it is wiser
perhaps to regard the distinction here as a continuum rather than a dichotomy.

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