Genealogy
GENEALOGY. As formal structure, genealogy is foremost an intellectual discipline. Its concern is with recording and putting into systematic order the histories of families, differentiating them by rules of descent and allocating to each a share of those enduring human valuables that consist of privileges and honors, titles and powers. Although grounded in myth and circumscribed by tradition and, thus, seemingly a rote and rigid subject, genealogy is to be understood rather as a product of informed speculative reasoning about metaphysical, specifically ontological, matters. Its subject matter goes beyond the listing of pedigrees. It identifies and differentiates the forces and generative sources that give shape to and regulate the entire universe of life. From its cosmological concepts, it draws implications for human conduct and for the structure of the social order. Most directly, genealogies connect human families with their mythical origins, joining them as kinfolk within the universal community of gods, spirits, and other forms of life.
Principles of Genealogy
The genealogical discipline exercises a controlling influence upon everyday life, for it is the source of the morality and of the principles of systematic order that bind systems of descent into clans, lineages, and similar groupings. Among tribal societies especially, the genealogical order frequently dictates all social relations.
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