Kinship
The culturally recognized system of relationships based on descent and marriage, and a central topic of anthropology.
Kinship is the system of culturally recognized relationships based on descent and marriage. Every society organizes kinship, but they do so in strikingly different ways: kinship terminologies, descent rules, and marriage regulations vary widely, which is why kinship became a foundational topic of anthropology, beginning with Lewis Henry Morgan's Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871).
Descent rules determine group membership and inheritance. Patrilineal systems trace descent through the father, matrilineal through the mother, bilateral systems through both, and double descent through each line for different purposes. Unilineal descent groups — lineages and clans — often function as corporate groups that hold property, rights, and obligations across generations, and they are common in societies without centralized states.
Marriage rules regulate who may marry whom. Exogamy requires marriage outside a defined group, endogamy requires marriage within it; both are found across cultures, and the incest taboo is the most widespread form of exogamy, though its scope varies. Marriage forms include monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry, and transfers such as bridewealth and dowry create and mark alliances between families.
Morgan's typology of kinship terminologies — Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Omaha, Crow, and Sudanese systems — groups cultures by how they classify relatives, for example whether the mother and her sister are called by the same term. These patterns correlate with social organization: classificatory systems that merge parallel cousins with siblings are typical of societies with unilineal descent groups.
Modern anthropology treats kinship as culturally constructed and variable rather than biologically fixed, examining how relatedness is created through care, residence, ritual, and law as well as through biology. Kinship studies remain the foundation for understanding household organization, inheritance, naming, and identity across cultures.
Tags
anthropology family kinship social structure
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