‘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 unfashionable. The promise of a unified and general theory of kinship has not been realized; indeed the very definition of the field is in dispute, some scholars arguing that the project of a comparative science of kinship rests on the illusion that in all societies ‘kinship’ systems are ordered on similar principles.
From about 1860 to 1920, the pioneer anthropologists attempted to chart the evolution of kinship and the family. Their characteristic concern was with the way in which marriage and the family had developed from what was assumed to be the promiscuous sexuality of early human bands. The gradual disillusionment of anthropologists with these speculative reconstructions led to a second phase (from about 1920 to 1970) when the central project was the classification of types of kinship systems.
The basis for most typologies was the kinship terminology, the native-speaker’s classification of kin. A widely agreed typology of kinship terminologies emerged in the early twentieth century. The types were all named after native North American peoples, but the assumption was that virtually all kinship terminologies in the world would fit into this classification. Drawing on cross-cultural statistical comparisons, researchers have attempted to relate these types of kinship terminologies to particular forms of descent or marriage rules (see Murdock 1949). Two general theoretical frameworks emerged. One emphasized descent and descent groups in the classification of kinship systems, the other gave pride of place to marriage arrangements.
These typologies were subjected to challenges. Since the mid-1970s, a cultural discourse on kinship has dominated the field, and it has deconstructed the notion that kinship is the universal basis of a social subsystem.
The family, descent and alliance
One of the generally accepted theses of the evolutionist writers in the nineteenth century was that in early communities the domestic unit and the band had been based on unilineal descent groups, descent being traced in the male line only (patrilineal) or in the female line only (matrilineal). The family had developed at a late stage of human history. By the early twentieth century this conclusion had been rejected, and it was agreed that the family was a universal feature of human societies. According to Malinowski, the family was a domestic institution, relying on affection, concerned above all with the nurture of children. The descent corporation was a public, political institution, with a role in the affairs of the community and in the regulation of property rights. However, Malinowski argued that the family was in a sense prior to the lineage, and that the descent group built upon the sentiments of solidarity generated within the domestic family (see esp. Malinowski 1929).
Radcliffe-Brown argued that the wider kinship system was built upon the foundation of the family; but while the family was universally bilateral—ties being recognized to both mother and father—most societies favoured one side of the family for public purposes. The essential function of descent was to regulate the transmission of property and rights in people from generation to generation (see Kuper 1977).
Fortes (1969) developed the idea that the social sphere should be analysed into two domains, defined as the domestic domain—the world of the family and household—and the politico-jural, or public, domain. General, biologically derived principles regulated domestic relationships and the developmental cycle of the family (Goody 1958).
The students of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown took the central importance of the family for granted, and were more concerned to develop the theory that large corporate groups of kin, recruited by unilineal descent, were the basic public institutions in most primitive societies. Even the bands of native Australians constituted descent corporations. In more complex societies, these corporations regulated political and economic life (Fortes 1969).
‘Descent theory’ claimed that it had identified a widespread type of social system, based on unilineal descent groups, that everywhere exhibited similar structural features. It seemed to many that a type of society—one of great historical importance—had been defined. Indeed a great deal of effort went into classifying this type of society into subtypes, on the basis of particular descent arrangements.
The main challenge to descent theory in this period was provided by ‘alliance theory’, launched by Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1949 in perhaps the most influential single work on kinship published in the twentieth century: Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté. Lévi-Strauss’s project was to provide an explanation that accounted at once for the incest taboo and for systems of preferential marriage with a specific category of kin. The key was the principle of reciprocity, expressed in the most basic social rule, the incest taboo. The incest taboo prevents men from mating with their own sisters and daughters, and so obliges them to exchange these for wives. The obverse of this rule was a positive marriage rule, found in many societies, enjoining marriage with a particular category of kin. Lévi-Strauss constructed a classification of social systems based on the ways in which they ordered the exchange of women in marriage.
The cultural critique
The most fundamental critique of the orthodox tradition of kinship was launched by David Schneider (1984). He began with the most basic issue, challenging the notion that kinship is a universal subsystem of societies. Beliefs about reproduction varied greatly. The mother-child bond might be universally recognized and valued, but the role of the father was highly variable. Anthropologists were accustomed to distinguish the genitor (the biological father) from the pater (the socially recognized father) but the notion of the genitor was culturally variable, and some peoples denied that reproduction was a result (primarily or even necessarily) of sexual intercourse. The social responsibilities of a man for his wife’s children also varied greatly. In consequence, there could be no cross-cultural definition of ‘father’.
Similarly, ideas about consanguinity were not simply minor variations on a common theme, that a certain category of people were genealogically related blood-kin. The category translated as ‘kin’ might be built upon a variety of beliefs about common substance, and might incorporate ideas of spiritual relationship, relationships arising from initiation, shared domicile, commensality, etc.
Genealogies, which were based on the presumption that blood relationships structured kinship systems, simply imposed western categories on other peoples. Kinship terminologies, which were based on a genealogical grid, were accordingly artefacts of the observer. So-called ‘kin’ terms actually often had non-kinship connotations, and there was not necessarily a discrete domain of terms for consanguineal relatives. In sum, our notion of kinship encoded particular beliefs about the biology of reproduction. Other peoples had different biological theories and would not necessarily construct a comparable category of consanguineal relatives.
Contemporary research on kinship
The cultural critique had the effect of undermining the traditional cluster of interests that defined kinship studies. Moreover, feminist scholars appropriated some of the classical topics of kinship studies, though contextualizing them very differently (see e.g. Collier and Yanagisako 1987; Strathern 1993). In consequence there has been a loss of interest and of confidence in classical kinship studies, but some traditional research programmes nevertheless persist. First, ethnographic studies continue to describe the use of kinship values and kinship institutions in the business of social life. Second, particularly in France, some anthropologists pursue the agenda of Lévi-Strauss, constructing models that draw out the logic of systems of kinship classification and relate them to marriage rules. Third, there are studies concerned with what might be termed Schneider’s agenda: the variety of ways in which peoples conceptualize relationship, encoding quite different biological notions. These studies tend to be critical of any genealogically based comparative approach to kinship. Fourth, some scholars have attempted to make comparative studies of kinship systems within a cultural area, so escaping some of the problems involved in the cross-cultural definition of kinship.
A somewhat neglected field is the application of the methods of anthropological analysis to kinship in contemporary industrial societies. Sociologists have tended to concentrate on the family, although some anthropologists had drawn attention to the salience of broader kinship relationships in modern western societies (see, e.g. Firth et al. 1969). However, most anthropologists who worked in European societies tended to concentrate on kinship relationships in rural communities. Kinship theory has been applied in a more imaginative way by historians, and a new field, ‘family history’, draws on anthropological models.
Despite these developments, theoretical debate has been muted, the main problem being the challenge of the cultural relativists that there is no universal field of kinship. The critical strategy of the relativists is, however, suspect. They emphasize the exceptions, the picturesque variations in conceptions of biological relationship and the variety of forms of mating. However, it is evident that rather similar ideas about marriage, descent, family organization and kinship morality can be found in the great majority of human societies, including China, India, Indonesia, Europe, much of Africa and the Near East—in other words, in the societies in which over 90 per cent of people live. Even in isolated Amazonian and New Guinea societies, ethnographers seem to have little difficulty in identifying ‘family’, ‘marriage’ or ‘kin’. Indeed, the resemblances between domestic institutions in societies all over the world are so remarkable that it is hard to understand why anthropologists should have lost sight of commonalities. One reason is, perhaps, the persistent desire to emphasize that biology does not determine cultural forms; but it would be absurd to take the extreme position that institutions concerned with marriage and filiation are biologically determined or, on the contrary, that they are free from biological constraints.
In conclusion, there is surely room for comparison and generalization, and for a renewal of the theoretical study of kinship. It is likely that social anthropologists will once again recognize the central importance of subjects that have gripped historians, philosophers, dramatists and novelists in every literate civilization in every generation.
Adam Kuper
Brunel University
References
Collier, J. and Yanagisako, S. (eds) (1987) Gender and Kinship: Essays Toward a Unified Analysis, Stanford, CA.
Firth, R., Hubert, J. and Forge, A. (1969) Families and their Relatives, London.
Fortes, M. (1969) Kinship and the Social Order, London.
Fox, R. (1967) Kinship and Marriage, Harmondsworth.
Goody, J. (ed.) (1958) The Developmental Cycle of the Domestic Group, Cambridge, UK.
Kuper, A. (ed.) (1977) The Social Anthropology of Radcliffe-Brown, London.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1969) The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Boston, MA. (Original French edn 1949.)
Malinowski, B. (1929) The Sexual Life of Savages, London.
Murdock, G.P. (1949) Social Structure, New York.
Schneider, D. (1984) A Critique of the Study of Kinship, Ann Arbor, MI.
Strathern, M. (1993) After Nature, Cambridge, UK.
Further reading
Barnard, A. and Good, A. (1984) Research Practices in the Study of Kinship, London.
Kuper, A. (1988) The Invention of Primitive Society, London.
