Unilineal Descent
Groups
Matriliny, patriliny and the rule of
property
Combinations of
descent rules
• Lineages and clans: lineages are defined as kin
groupings in which direct descent is known, often goes
back to a great-great grandparent.
• Clans consist of several lineages, and are defined as
groups which believe they share a common ancestor,
but whose ancestor may be so far in the past that
descent cannot be traced.
• Clans and lineages can also combine in different ways:
– Several clans can join together to become phratries.
– More commonly, various clans are divided into two known
sections, called moieties.
Moieties and their
permutations
• Moieties are also referred to as dual organizations and are
widespread throughout the world.
• Not only do they order kinship, but also provide a conceptual
classification of the environment and the spiritual world.
– Winnegabo: ‘those above’ and ‘those on earth’, the former
comprising clans named after birds, the latter called after land and
water animals. The moieties formerly each occupied a definite half
of the village and were pitted against each other in lacrosse.
– Tlingit: a man never gives property to one of his own half-tribe, nor
employs him for any services. A Raven always gets a Wolf to put
up a house for him, to pierce his children’s ears, to initatie the
youngsters into secret societies and vice versa. Feasts are given
exclusively for the other half.
– They are usually exogamous: this applies particularly if crosscousin marriage is the rule. In fact, the exogamous marriage rule
can produce cross-cousin marriage patterns.
Unilineal Descent and
the status of the sexes
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Formerly, evolutionary theorists (Bachofen) postulated that
matriarchies dominated in an early stage of human history.
Lowie: cannot associate matriarchies with matrilineal descent.
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No society is purely matriarchal or purely patriarchal.
E.g. the Iroquois: descent is matrilineal and women have the right to
nominate and impeach chiefs. Can also withhold food if they wish to
terminate a war.
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However, men always hold political office and have the right to declare war.
Societies that we consider strongly patrilineal also often accord
special privileges to women.
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E.g. Women in the middle east, where descent is patrilineal and residence
patrilocal, also control the purse strings of the household, have control
over their dowry, and husbands are required to part with 1/3 of their
income to their wives.
Another example: Igbo society of Nigeria: dual sex-gender system.
Nominally patrilineal, there are special political and economic offices held
only by women. Those women who accumulate wealth can also become
‘social husbands.’
Intensive agriculture, the
rule of property and
transformations in kinship
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Historically, patrineality has become more frequent than matrilineality.
Today, 65% of the world’s peoples are patrilineal, 30% are matrilineal
and 5% are bilateral.
Patrilineality is found much more frequently among peoples that are
involved in intensive agriculture, i.e. that associated with the use of
ploughs, draught animals and irrigation.
These new technologies produced much greater surpluses than
previously imagined.
More concern with the control of wealth and of the importance of
inheritance to maintain a family’s status over generations.
Men also dominated production in plough agriculture and personal,
private property in land became increasingly important.
– Also increasing separation of public and private spheres.
– Men wished to pass inheritance to sons.
– Dowry became a form of inheritance for daughters, and dowry, i.e. the
payment through a bride to the husband’s family, became more
predominant.
Conical clan, kinship, and the emergence of an aristocracy:
What happens to kinship when wealth and property
differences become
Important?
Mini-lineage h is less
directly descended
from the founding
ancestor, being
descended from the
younger son of the
younger son.
Mini-lineage ‘a’ is
the direct
descendant of
the eldest sons of
the founding
ancestor
aristocracy
commoners
Radcliffe-Brown: A different
sort of functionalist
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Radcliffe-Brown: a social, not an individual interpretation of function: the
role of an institution was in fulfilling the needs (besoins) of SOCIETY,
especially for social cohesion.
Social Role: the generalized set of behaviours that individuals engaged
in as part of their normative expectation, e.g the mother’s brother in
south African Tswana society and a joking relationship. In a patrilineal
society, the joking relationship between mother’s brother and sister’s
son indicated familiarity, but also tension. The role of the joking
relationship was to diffuse the tension. Could be empirically
documented.
Social Structure: the combination of social roles that make up the
institutional milieu of a society.
Social Function: the use that this role played in supporting the social
structure.
An Example of Radcliffe-Brown’s
Analysis: The Role of the
Mother’s Brother in Patrilineal
Societies
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Previous explanation for the special joking relationship between the
mother’s brother and sister’s son in southern Africa: that it was a
survival from a prior matriarchal stage of evolution.
Radcliffe-Brown: a more important analysis answered the question of
what role it played in promoting social cohesion at a given moment in
time.
Southern african societies were considered patriarchal, i.e. they were
patrilineal, patrilocal, and patripotestal.
This meant that descent passed through the father, residence was
close to the father’s house after marriage, and the father was the
authority figure in the household.
No societies are completely patriarchal or completely matriarchal.
Dual Organization:
Respect and/or Familiarity
• Mother’s brother is treated with great familiarity:
• The nephew can eat his food, tease him,
• The father’s sister, however, is treated in just the opposite
way, with great respect and distance.
• R-B interpreted this as a general tendency in
patrilineal/patrilocal societies:
• The mother’s side of the family was associated with
tenderness, liberality, and familiarity.
• The father’s side of the family was associated with
authority and respect.
• Also, respect and distance were more associated with
opposite sex relations, e.g. between nephews and aunts.
• Same sex relations were more associated with familiarity.