KINSHIP is both a social phenomenon found in all human societies and one of the most central and contested concepts in anthropology. It is a pervasive symbolic practice of creating socially differentiated categories of people and the relationships...

‘Kinship is the central discipline of anthropology,’ one expert remarked in the mid-1960s. ‘It is to anthropology what the nude is to art’ (Fox 1967:10). This comment was true then, but kinship studies have since become rather...

Descent has been classified according to the way in which relatedness is traced through paternal and maternal ancestors. Patrilineal descent refers to common kinship traced consistently through male ancestors; the father, father’s father,...

Although some kin relationships, like those between ‘in-laws’, are seen as purely social, most Figure 4 Patrilateral cross-cousin marriage are felt to have a biological basis. †David Schneider found that Euro-Americans define...

Classic kinship writing emphasized jural rules, but conformity to such rules was usually seen as unproblematic and explanations were sought only when they were ‘broken’. Yet obedience and disobedience are both matters of choice, so it is...

It is crucial to understand that kinship relationships are quite distinct from biological relationships. Kinship systems vary greatly, but as physiological processes are the same everywhere, these variations are clearly social rather than biological....

The study of kinship is so central to anthropology that Robin Fox has likened it to logic in philosophy, as ‘the basic discipline of the subject’ (1967:10). This is hardly surprising, since it deals quite literally with matters of life and...

Kinship is one of the most basic principles for organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. It was originally thought to reflect biological descent, a view that was challenged by David M. Schneider in his work on symbolic kinship...