ANT 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Matrilocal Residence, Patrilocal Residence, Cheddar Man
1 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Kinship charts an ethnological and ethnographic tool. Kinship one of the most dominant institutions in many cultures. Recent genetic anthropological inquiry extends analysis of kinship to distant past. Sense of being related to another person(s) Often taken for granted as being (cid:494)natural(cid:495) rather than cultural. One society may stress women as bearers of children and base its kinship system on this fact. Another may trace connections through men, stressing the paternal role and reducing the maternal role. Even though these practices may contradict each other, all of these societies are an expression of the panhuman experiences of mating, birth, and nurturance. Kinship involves not only how we classify out relationship, but also how we organize our family, the support and assistance we can count on, whom we will marry, our residential patterns etc. Kinship defines our gender roles, how many children we will bear, what will happen to us in old age, and even what faith we will practice.
