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Chapter 13

Chapter 13. Kinship and Other Methods of Grouping. Chapter Outline. Descent Groups Descent within the Larger Cultural System Bilateral Kinship and the Kindred Kinship Terminology and Kinship Groups Grouping beyond Kinship Grouping by Common Interest

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Chapter 13

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  1. Chapter 13 Kinship and Other Methods of Grouping

  2. Chapter Outline • Descent Groups • Descent within the Larger Cultural System • Bilateral Kinship and the Kindred • Kinship Terminology and Kinship Groups • Grouping beyond Kinship • Grouping by Common Interest • Grouping by Social Rank in Stratified Societies

  3. Kinship • A network of relatives within which individuals possess certain mutual rights and obligations.

  4. Descent Groups • Any kinship group with a membership lineally descending from a real (historical) or fictional common ancestor. • Descent groups act as economic units and may act to support the aged and infirm and help with marriages and deaths.

  5. Unilineal Descent • Unilineal descent (also called unilateral descent) establishes descent group membership exclusively through the male or female line. • The individual is assigned at birth to membership in a specific descent group, which may be traced either bymatrilineal descent or patrilineal descent.

  6. Lineage • A unilineal kinship group descended from a known ancestor or founder, who lived four to six generations ago, and in which relationships between members can be stated in genealogical terms.

  7. Clan • An extended unilineal kinship group, often consisting of several lineages, whose members claim common descent from a remote ancestor, usually legendary or mythological.

  8. Patrilineal Descent and Organization • The male members of a patrilineal descent group trace their descent through forefathers. • A man’s children trace their descent through the male line to their common ancestor. • Authority over the children typically rests with the father or his elder brother. • A woman belongs to the same descent group as her father and his brothers, but her children cannot trace descent through her relatives.

  9. Matrilineal Descent and Organization • Traces descent exclusively through the female line. • Although descent passes through the female line and women may have power, they share authority in the descent group with men. • One purpose for matrilineal systems is to provide continuous female solidarity within the female work group. • They are usually found in horticultural societies.

  10. Patrilineal Descent INSERT FIGURE 13.1 ON P. 252

  11. Matrilineal Descent INSERT FIGURE 13.2 ON P. 253

  12. Other Forms of Descent • Ambilineal Descent • A person has the option of affiliating with either the mother’s or the father’s descent group. • Double Descent (double unilineal descent) • A very rare system whereby descent is reckoned both patrilineally and matrilineally. • Bilateral Descent • A system where people trace descent from all ancestors, regardless of gender or side of the family.

  13. Lineage Exogamy • Lineage members must find their marriage partners in other lineages. • Advantages: • Curbs sexual competition within the group and promotes solidarity. • Makes marriage a new alliance between lineages.

  14. Fission • The splitting of a large lineage group into new, smaller ones, with the original lineage becoming a clan. • Clan residence is usually dispersed rather than localized. • In the absence of residential unity, clan identification is often reinforced by totems, symbols from nature that remind members of their common ancestry.

  15. Other Types of Social Grouping • A phratry is a unilineal descent group of two or more clans that supposedly share a common ancestry. • When a society is divided into two halves, each half consisting of one or more clans, these two major descent groups are called moieties.

  16. Organizational Hierarchy INSERT FIGURE 13.3 ON P. 256

  17. Bilateral Kinship and the Kindred • In bilateral societies, individuals are affiliated equally with all relatives on both the mother’s and father’s sides. • Such a large group is usually reduced to a small circle of paternal and maternal relatives called the kindred.

  18. Kinship Systems • The Eskimo system, used by English-speaking North Americans and many others, emphasizes the nuclear family and merges all other relatives in a given generation into a few large, generally undifferentiated, categories. • The Hawaiian system is the simplest with all relatives of the same generation and gender referred to by the same term. • In the Iroquois system, a single term is used for father and his brother and another for a mother and her sister. • Parallel cousins are equated with brothers and sisters but distinguished from cross cousins.

  19. Eskimo System of Kinship Terminology INSERT 13.5 ON P. 258

  20. Hawaiian System of Kinship Terminology INSERT FIGURE 13.7 ON P. 259

  21. Iroquois System of Kinship Terminology INSERT FIGURE 13.6 ON P. 259

  22. New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs) • Alternative means of reproduction such as surrogate motherhood and in vitro fertilization. • They impact traditional notions of kinship and force us to redefine established ideas about the status of relatives.

  23. Age and Gender Grouping • Grouping by gender separates men and women to varying degrees in different societies. • Age grouping is another form of association that may augment or replace kinship grouping. • An age grade is a category of people organized by age. • An age set is a formally established group of people born during a certain time who move through the series of age grade categories together.

  24. Common-Interest Associations • Common-interest associations are linked with rapid social change and urbanization. • They have increasingly assumed the roles formerly played by kinship or age groups. • In urban areas they help new arrivals cope with the changes demanded by the move. • Common-interest associations also are seen in traditional societies, and their roots may be found in the first horticultural villages.

  25. Stratified Societies • A stratified society is divided into two or more categories of people who do not share equally in wealth, influence, or prestige. • Societies may be stratified by gender, age, social class, or caste. • Class differences are not always clear-cut and obvious. • In an egalitarian society, everyone has about equal rank, access to, and power over basic resources.

  26. Social Class and Caste • A social class may be defined as a category of individuals of equal or nearly equal prestige according to the system of evaluation. • Caste is a closed form of social class in which membership is determined by birth and fixed for life. • Endogamy is particularly marked within castes, and children automatically belong to their parents’ caste.

  27. Social Class Indicators • Symbolic indicators, such as occupation, forms of recreation, residential location, and kind of car, are often used as markers of class ranking.

  28. Social Mobility • Social mobility is present in all stratified societies. • Open-class societies are those with the easiest mobility. • The degree of mobility is related to factors such as access to higher education or the type of family organization that prevails in a society. • The independent nuclear family makes mobility easier.

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