here are several boundary conditions included in the cultural

instantiation of these two relations: (1) if sMt or sFt is true, then s ≠ t,
(2) for no persons s, t is it the case that sMt and sFt are
simultaneously true, and (3) for each person, u there is presumed to
be a person s and a person t such that sMu and tFu. Another
condition, corresponding to the assertion that a single female has the
primary responsibility for the care and well-being of a child (Schneider,
1961), is that for persons s, t, and u, sMt and uMt are simultaneously
true only when u = s.
Since both of these statuses require that there be a person who is the
recipient of the behaviors, it follows that there is a reciprocal daughter
relation and son relation for the mother and father relations definable
from the perspective of the recipient of the BMo and BFa behaviors. The
daughter relation can be defined as follows.
Definition of Daughter Relation D: For persons s and t, let sDt (read ‘s
is the daughter of t’) be true when s is female and either tMs or tFs is
true.
A son relation may be defined in a similar manner.
The M and F relations are conceptually independent since s can be
recognized as the mother of t without a person being recognized as
father of t, or vice versa. However, cultural kinship systems are
bilateral, meaning that the mother relation and the father relation are
both axiomatic for generating kinship concepts. By itself, this would
lead to conceptually disconnected sets of kinship relations. Matrilateral
relations (those who are related to speaker through a sequence of one
or more relations beginning with the mother relation and then followed
by a parental or sibling relation when there is more than one relation in
the sequence) and patrilateral relations (defined similarly except
beginning with the