ANTH 100A Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Fictive Kinship, Consanguinity, Matrilocal Residence
Document Summary
Kinship: the complex system of culturally defined social relationships based on marriage and birth. Family: a kin group consisting of at least one married couple sharing the same residence with their children and performing sexual, reproductive, economic, and educational functions. Kinship is the structural system (ideally formed system or relations), a family is the actual unit. Affinity (relations of marriage)/consanguinity (relations of birth) Descent: a cultural rule tying together people on the basis of reputed common ancestry. Patrilineal/matrilineal/bilateral: how lineage is transferred (father, mother, both) Patrilocal (virilocal)/matrilocal: going to live with the husband"s family/living with the wife"s family. Of course a split off is always possible. Endogamous/exogamous: married within a person"s own community/marry outside the community. Kinship diagrams are a way to schematizing some of the key familial relationships. English has a relatively simplistic vocabulary when it comes to kinship: Cousin: does not differentiate patrilateral/matrilateral, or by gender.
