AN

ASSIGNMENT
ON
Descent, Alliance and Cultural Approach to the study
of Kinship

Submitted By: Submitted To:

Nitu Rauniyar Saumya sir

B.A.(H.) Sociology Sociology of Kinship

II Year, IV Semester Sociology

Department

Roll No.: 18/SOC/40

Radcliffe Brown’s work in “African Systems of Kinship and Marriage”, presents an
introduction to the general comparative and theoretical study of kinship
organization. The literature dealing with kinship is loaded with theories that are
pseudo-historical. History is entirely different from pseudo-history. We must not
enquire about social institutions which we study because societies we are studying
are very old and hence no written record can be found, so we construct its history.
He asked two questions:

 Is the institution part of system?

 If is, what is the role it plays in the system?

One must ask for function rather than history of the institution.

History for brown is methodologically important where Brown recommends;

1. Synchronic mode of analysis

2. Diachronic mode of analysis

In synchronic analytic study we are dealing with a system as it exists at a certain

time abstracting as far as possible from any changes that it may be undergoing.
Diachronic study is done to understand a process of change.

The understanding of kinship system as a working system linking human beings

together in an orderly arrangement of interactions by which particular customs are
seen as functioning parts of social machinery is done with synchronic analytic
study.

So, what is a kinship system or system of kinship and marriage?

Two persons are kin when one is descended from the other. Person are cognatic kin
or cognates when they are descended from a common ancestor or ancestress
counting descent through males and females.

Consanguinity is sometimes used as an equivalent of kinship but this must be

avoided. Consanguinity refers properly to a physical relationship but in kinship we
have to deal with a specifically social relationship.

Then, how descent is socially recognized?

There is a social father called as pater and genitor as physical father. E.g. in
African tribe women marry each other. Social father is women and physical father
is ascribed lover. The physical father only contributes to reproduction.
Marriage is a social arrangement by which a child is given legitimate position in a
society determined by parenthood in the social sense. Adoption is primary.

The complete social relationship between parent and child may be established not
by birth but by adoption. Kinship therefore results from the recognition of social
relationship between parents and children which is not the same thing a social
relation, and may or may not coincide with it.

Radcliffe Brown says that the descent is the most important component of kinship.
Descent is divided in cognatic descent which is both male and female and agnatic
descent which is only male line.

The closest of all cognatic relationship is that of children and of same father and
mother. The term sibling is referred to this relationship, a male sibling is a brother
and a female sibling is a sister. The key to understand kinship is descent and
descent is used in a social sense rather than biological sense.

The elementary family as the basic unit of kinship structure. Elementary family is
comprised of parents and their socially recognized children. We should also take
into account compound families which is formed when widower or widow with
children by first marriage enters into a second marriage into which children are
born. Compound families can also be seen as combination of many elementary
family. Elementary family is comprised of real brother and sister and compound
family comprise of cousin brother and sister.

Any kinship structure is characterized by ordering and range. Relationship of first

order are those within the elementary family because intimate link between
families e.g. sibling. Second order relationship is traced through one link e.g.
mother’s brother. Third order relationship is traced through two links e.g. mother’s
brother son. It can go till nth order. This network of marriage includes both
cognatic relationships resulting from marriage, a person’s own marriage and the
marriage of the cognates.

There are two kinds of kinship terminologies that is classificatory kinship

terminology and descriptive kinship terminologies.

The classificatory kinship terminologies are those in which terms that are applied
to lineal relatives are also applied to certain collateral relatives. E.g. father that is
vertical relation and father’s brother that is horizontal relationship. Thus, a
father’s brother is father and mother’s sister are also mother, consequently
children of father’s brother are also brother and sister, children of mother’s
sister are also brother and sister, these are called parallel cousins.

Children of father’s sister and mother’s brother are recognized as first cousins
but not as brother sister also known as cross cousin.

Morgan theory of distinction between classificatory and descriptive terminologies

emerged from the study of American tribe “Iroquois”.

Brown says that the classificatory terminology may be applied over a wide range of
relationship. The classificatory terminology is used as a method of dividing
relatives into categories which determine of influence social relations as exhibited
in conduct. In classificatory systems there are necessarily distinctions between
near and distant relatives included in the same category. The attitude and behavior
of a person towards a particular relative is affected not only by the category to
which he belongs but also by the degree of nearness or distance of the
relationship.

Brown says exception to norms are equally important because they give an idea of
the equilibrium and disequilibrium of the system.

In particular there are three basic normative elements that come to force when
people study relationship that is:

 Affective element: Affective element recognize the existence of personal

sentiment. E.g. relationship of mother and child where affective element
dominates.
 Etiquette element: Etiquette element refers to conventional rules as to
outward behavior. It refers to what is proper and improper. Etiquette are
constituted by symbolic actions.
 Jural element.: Jural element pertains to relationship that can be defined in
terms of rights and duties. These rights and duties are customary rights and
duties that is enforced by custom and not by law. Jural right is further divided
into two kind of rights that is rights of personam and Right in rem.

A kinship system is therefore a network of social relations which constitute part

of that total network of social relations which is the social structure.

As Kinship is based on descent and what determines the character of a kinship is

the way in which descent is recognized and reckoned. According to Brown, there
are two ways in which descent is recognized that is cognatic principle and agnatic
principle within the agnatic principle there are two ways that is matrilineal descent
and patrilineal descent. Agnatic literally means patrilineal descent whereas
matrilineal is specified. Patrilineal descent is more common worldwide, perhaps
because of the added complexities involved when men transmit rights to other men
in the female line.

Marriage
Cognates related to male child

Sibling

Female
Male

Ego

For lineage group, agnatic or matrilineal descent are great important in social
organization. Incase of patrilineal descent, a daughter belongs to father’s descent
but not her children, on the other hand, in case of matrilineal descent as male/son
belong to mother’s lineage but his children do not.

Matrilineal descent
Agnatic Descent
Radcliffe Brown says the character of any kinship system depends on way in which
unilinear descent is used.

Leach emphasizes the need to maintain the distinction between

descent and filiation, a distinction which gets blurred in the hands of many
prominent descent theorists. Notion of filiation is the one by which one can
establish a step-by-step relation with any his ancestors or predecessors, either on
father's side or on the mother's. Whereas descent is more precise and refers to
the group to which one is recruited, patrilineal or matrilineal, after birth. In
Leach's own words it refers to, "the unambiguous permanent and involuntary
membership of a sectional grouping within the total society".

As Brown has discussed about descent approach, Lewis Strauss in “The Elementary
Structure of Kinship” discusses on two points: Nature and Culture and Prohibition
of Incest. Lewis Strauss aims to understand institutionalization of alliance in
various societies. He believes that in any kind of Kinship system the central part is
alliance or marriage.

According to Lewis Strauss, “Marriage is a social institution and it is premised upon

nature.

Edmund Leach says Marriage is culturally specific as we cannot have a universal

definition of marriage as marriage is a bundle of rights where some rights are
present in some society while not in others.

However, Gough says that for cross-cultural comparison we can have definition of
marriage. According to her for research we need definition which she presents
through the caste of Naiyers.

Lewis Strauss purpose is to understand the institutionalization of alliance in

various societies. He believes that in any kind of kinship system, the central part is
alliance or marriage. Levi-Strauss’s worked on relationship between Nature and
Culture and how nature ends and Culture begins.

The distinction between nature and society, while of no acceptable historical

significance, does contain a logic, fully justifying its use by modern sociology as a
methodological tool. Man is both a biological being and a social individual.
Culture is not merely juxtaposed to life not superimposed upon it, but in one way
serves as a substitute for life and in other uses and transforms it to bring about
the synthesis of a new order.

To understand the relation of nature and culture, he as discussed on prohibition of

incest. Every society have prohibited incest’s and there is no society which allows
all kind of sextual unions but what every society meant by incest is different. The
fact that nature is present everywhere have to be understood culturally and
prohibition of incest is both natural and cultural fact.

The prohibition of incest is a passage, when there is prohibition of incest then only
natural being becomes human being because they move from nature to culture.
Strauss says that which belongs to you have to give away in order to make
relationship with others. For example: Language which gives away to make
relationship.

When humans devised prohibition of incest, at that moment they became cultural
being. Strauss says prohibition of incest makes transition between nature and
culture. And if it is both natural and culture, it is dangerous.

If it is natural, is because it is universal and it is culture because it is relative in

nature.

Strauss discusses about the transition from nature to culture as a leap and not a
continuous process/ transition. This cannot be analyzed as evolutionary process.
Humanity was at point in nature and it leaped to culture.

The prohibition of incest as an idea combined characteristic of nature-culture in

itself. The incest is like a boundary.

Nature

Culture

Prohibition of incest
Culture is imposed upon nature and not grown out of it. The prohibition of incest
act as a boundary between nature and culture that belongs and not belongs to the
nature.

Lewis Strauss in elementary Structure of kinship talks about prohibition and

preferred relation. When preferred union are institutionalized, then it gives rise
to certain structure which are elementary structure of kinship.

Mc Leland, Spencer, Lubbock and Durkheim discusses on social explanation. Two

explanation were discussed by Strauss. One is Social Explanation supported by Mc
Leland, Lubbock, and Spencer. Another is Durkheim Explanation.

 Social Explanation: It is also called as evolutionary Explanation. This

explanation is discussed by Mc Leland, Lubbock, and Spencer, who argues that
prohibition of incest exists because it is the survival of past. The survival of
specific kind of marriage is known as marriage by capture. In pre historic times,
world populated by warriors, marriage took place with abduction of women. Men
used to marry women who were abducted from different tribes. This explanation is
pseudo-historic explanation.
 Durkheim Explanation: As according to this explanation, the prohibition of
incest exists because of fear of totem (menstrual blood). An individual cannot
come in contact with sacred until one violates sacred. The totems vitalize energy
flows through the lineage blood. Totem is sacred and hence has to be set apart,
cannot be in touch with it. When a brother involves in sexual act with his sister,
then he comes in contact with the blood of sister, which spoils sanctity of totem.
Hence, the person cannot come in contact with one of the same lineages.

The Evolutionary model is very simplistic, hence will not do. In Durkheim’s
explanation there is a logical problem. He implies that first the totem was
instituted, then came the prohibition of incest.

It is true that, through its universality, the prohibition of incest touches upon
nature, i.e., upon biology or psychology, or both. But it is just certain that in being a
rule it is a social phenomenon, and belongs to the world that in being a rule it is a
social phenomenon, and belongs to the world of rules, hence to culture and to
sociology, whose study is culture.

The prohibition of incest in origin neither purely cultural nor purely natural, nor is
it a composite mixture of elements from both nature and culture. It is the
fundamental step because of which, by which or above all which, the transition
from nature to culture is accomplished. The prohibition of incest is where nature
transcends itself. It brings about and is in itself the advent of a new order.

Louis Dumont’s work in “Marriage: Marriage Alliance” discusses on descent

approach exemplified by R. Brown, Murdock, B.Z. Seligman with reference to
particular kind of ethnographic data drawn from western aboriginal Australia’s
three tribes- (Kariera, Aranda, Ambrym.), discusses Strauss’s theory in elementary
structures of kinship and criticism to Strauss’s work.

The cross-cousin marriage is seen as preferable while parallel cousin as prohibited

and this decomposition is accompanied by exogamy. All people entertain same ideas
about kinship, and their classifying of relatives in different ways is due to
difference in behavior.

WHR Rivers recognized link between an actual marriage rule (cross cousin
marriage) and a certain type of terminology. For Rivers, marriage rule was cause
terminology effect. In Australian kinship system, descent is overstressed.

Radcliffe Brown was not content with finding underlying matrilineal exogamy in his
classic Australian patrilineal systems and with seeing in what is now called “double
descent” a widespread principle of Australian kinship.

However, Murdock criticized Brown by saying Brown had not gone far enough in
stressing descent because for Brown the importance of individual relationships and
marriage rules is more than arrangement of groups.

Strauss’s work in comparative study of positive marriage rules informed by general

theory of kinship. Prohibition of incest recognized as universal seen as basic
condition of social life, universal principle implies an opposition between
consanguinity and affinity as the cornerstone of kinship systems.

Dumont views marriage as a process of exchange (between man and other mem or
between one domestic group and others.

Kinship system is taken as combining number of features (descent, inheritance,

residence, affinity) and effort is made to characterize whole by relation that
prevail between these.

Dumont believes that the positive marriage rules are elementary structures of
kinship. There are two kinds of kinship systems:
 Harmonic-All transmission between generations takes place in one and same
line.
 Disharmonic-Some features transmit matrilineally and others patrilineally.

There are three types of cross cousin marriage:

 Bilateral-closed restricted exchange

 Matrilateral – It is Asymmetrical in nature and marriage is directional,
stability of distinction between wife givers and takers, are generalized exchange
(circulating connubium) in opposition to closed type. It requires at least 3 groups.
It is harmonic kinship system.
 Patrilateral – It seems generalized but rather restricted between 2
lineages, and is the weakest point in Elementary Structure of Kinship.

It highlights the importance of prohibition of incest as “zero phoneme of kinship

system” (does not have meaning in itself, gives meaning to others). That’s why for
Strauss the atom of kinship is extended to include maternal uncle of ego.

The work of Strauss has been criticized by Dumont.

Dumont views marriage as an exchange questioned on 2 counts:

a) it introduces an arbitrary analogy between women and chattels.

b) exchange here given a very wide meaning to be practically devoid of content.

Needham has made clear cut distinction between prescription and preference in
marriage rules. He claims Strauss only dealt with prescription which is defined
more as a characteristic of a system than as simply a marriage rule. It involves
combination of rules prescribing some relatives and prohibiting others.

The work of Strauss focusses mainly upon viripotestal marriage (masculine) and
Strauss’s discussion of prohibition of incest is tautological (always true but not
informative). It has neglected the presence of conscious marriage rules. Levi-
Strauss claims rules are prescribing people are unconscious but in most of cases
people work consciously and violate marriage structures. Leach argues that descent
plays a very important role in making alliances, and the local descent groups are
extremely critical in marriage alliance.

” Marriage Alliance” covers both general phenomenon of mental integration and

particular phenomenon of group integration. Strauss’s basic orientation is marriage
rules as unconscious but Schneider argues that Strauss forgot about anthropology
being empirical. Gayle Rubin claims Strauss’s work only takes patriarchal marriage
in focus. As women can also decide decisions of marriage. Marriage is more than
strategy of men.

Dumont discusses on expressions such as “cross cousin marriage” are technically

useful but basically misleading. Real understanding is reached when marriage rules
understood as marriage alliance is seen as giving affinity the diachronic dimension
that we tend to associate only with descent /consanguinity.

Schneider’s work in “What is kinship all about?”, basically is a critique of kinship

studies and it completely altered the practice of kinship studies. According to
Schneider, category of kinship is nothing but an invention by anthropologists.
People usually do not make a separate domain for relation called Kinship and at
cultural level, very few cultures have a separate called Kinship. There is no self-
contained domain called Kinship. Kinship was studied by anthropologists in isolation
as if it is a separate domain. Schneider says that as anthropologist we study people
and if the people itself do not have a category such as people the who are we to
impose that category on them or to make a separate category in order to study
them. Schneider raises one question- “Are the categories important for these
people?”

Schneider says that many people do not have separate kinship from culture and as
anthropologist we need to study them as they prevent themselves and not by
introducing one domain of kinship on them. Anthropologists compare other culture
on the basis of the ethnocentrism because we are reducing other culture as
compare to other culture, Schneider essay was a death blow/ throw in kinship and
as kinship was a very important domain of anthropologist. Thus, made the domain of
kinship internally plural. Schneider is referring to Talcott Parson, an American
Sociologist who provided Theory of social system, which focuses on how different
system works. The term “cultural system” was introduced by Parson and he argued
that this consists in the system of symbols and meanings embedded in the
normative system but which is a quite distinct aspect of it and can easily be
abstracted from it. “The cultural level contains complications for the general
directions in which normative patterns of actions ought to take place, but it does
not spell them out in the detail which normative themselves provide. The cultural
premise that there are two kinds of relative:

 Relatives by blood
 Relatives by marriage

Schneider’s also talks about cultural approach and it was borrowed by Talcott
Parson, who studied social system and Schneider’s culture as system. Schneider
says that this conception of culture is far narrower and far more precise than
those generally in use in anthropology today and it is explicitly tied into a wide
social theory rather than linked in a loose way and not always internally consistent
theories.

Schneider argues that one must look at every culture in order to see whether it
has a separate category of kinship or not (whether Kinship is a central idea for it
or not). If not, then we don’t have a right to impose the domain of kinship on it or
the category of kinship associated with it. If is present, we must see that if
kinship is important for them, then it is to, in terms of what category and to what
extent.

If culture consists in the society of symbols and meanings of a particular society,

and if a social system consists in the manner in which social units are separate of
the forms are cross-cultural comparison, while by definition, comparative
operations of the latter are cross-cultural comparison but rather cross-social
comparison.

Schneider says that kinship is very central composition of any culture and he
provided two assumption. One, Kinship is universal, self-contained and isolable
domain in a precise sense which mean that it is a separate domain in every culture
and Second, Kinship is essentially about societies which means that Kinship
regulates all social issues. Schneider mentioned that work of Morgan and Mc Lenin,
Mc Lenin Morgan focused on terminology which makes us understand the kinship
and believed that essential thing is biological for kinship.

There are two parts of Morgan’s paradigm, which are distinct from each other.
One, the mode of classification and the other is the manner in which mode of
classification is established that is, by means of the analysis of the kinship
terminology.” For Morgan, kinship was the way in which a people grouped and
classified themselves as compared with the biological facts of consanguinity and
affinity.

Schneider argued that Morgan’s paradigm is wrong and that no matter how
elegantly it has been revised, amended, altered, embellished, or tightened up, it
does not what it purposes to do it, it holds the position of eminence in the
anthropological world today and they all follow Morgan’s use of the genealogical
grid as the basic analytic tool and they all remain wedded to Morgan’s definition of
what Kinship is all about. Schneider argued that three domains (kinship, religion
and nationalism) are all part of one system. They are culturally one but socially
they are not. These domains have conglomerate and pure element. In conglomerate
element, each of these elements is mixed with other domains while in pure element,
domains are specifically concerned with the system. Schneider says that if
conglomerate level consists in units made up of elements from different pure
systems, then the question arises of how the different components, then the
question arises of how different components relate with each other in the
conglomerate unit.

Schneider raised one question that instead of social question, what happens when
we raised a cultural question? Schneider also explains what is a cultural question
and also what is culture in order to answer and understand the question. Schneider
says that any action in as society as patterned (normative) and also argued that
actions are social system. Schneider argued that if we ask a cultural question to
kinship.

“If we study different cultures, we do not do the same thing as when we study
different social systems. When we study different cultures, we study different
conceptual schemes for what life is and how it should be lived, we study different
symbolic and meaningful systems. We do not study the different ways in which
different theoretically defined functions are actually or ideally carried out. There
is a major difference between cultural anthropology and what has been called
social anthropology or comparative anthropology.”

Talcott Parson says that cultural system is irreducible to any other system and
which is true to any other system as well. Schneider wanted to ask a cultural
question, pertaining to eh realm of symbols and meanings. If we apply this
understanding to American culture, than we find the domains, which are commonly
differentiated and these domains are culturally non differentiate as there is a
distinction between kinship, Nationalism and religion at cultural level. These
domains are non-differentiable because all are defined by how very important
element: one is element of blood and the other is sense of diffuse enduring
solidarity, so the order of nature and order of law.
Schneider says that what anthropologists before him have done is that they have
taken elements of conception and parturition and which are bio-genetic element as
defining features or elements which was simply treated as state of affairs, which
every society ha sand he says that instead of treating biological elements as given
but they should also treated as symbolic elements , so for example: Blood does not
refer to as biological element but referred to as symbolic element, So, he says
that earlier theorists too biological element as defining feature but also says that
they should be understood better as symbols for kinds of social relationships and
they do not stand for biological material, they purposed to order functionally
rather they are cultural facts and cultural facts have to be isolated analytically
from biological and so on. The central criticism for anthropologists who have
worked on kinship before him is that they worked on kinship within a criteria and
this criteria are consanguinity, affinity, etc., but if we study kinship at a cultural
level, then we will realize analytical apparatus and has no concrete counterpart of
the culture of any society study. Hence, kinship like totalism and patriarchy are
non-subject, since it does not exist in any culture known to human being.

Schneider says that the approaches that went before him, have been influenced by
classic Weberian approach, the basic frame of reference is the institution socially
or sociologically defined and they seldom focus on the cultural level or even when
the focus is on the cultural level, it is subordinated to the social system but
Schneider is saying that cultural level, its anatomy must be recognized, it must be
seen for ‘ What it is ‘, we must focus on the level and we will see that the questions
that we think are the most obvious questions when it comes to kinship dissolves
away when our focus is shifted.

To understand the idea of Descent alliance and cultural approach to study kinship,
Veena Das work “Masks and Faces: An essay on Punjabi Kinship” discusses on the
idea that every society defines for itself the relationship between nature and
society. In the case of Punjabi families that Veena Das has studied kinship rules
are constituted by the dialectic between rules of nature and rules of culture.
There is the pre-social domain of biology, consisting of procreation and copulation,
and the social or moral domain which is in opposition to it. Human conduct amongst
the Punjabis is shaped by these two domains, the biological substratum and the
socially constructed rules (nomos) which transcend it. 
Amongst the Punjabis conduct is shaped by these two domains and the central
belief is that while the biological substratum cannot be suppressed it must keep in
check and closely regulated by the moral order. 
There are two important elements in kinship as biology: procreation and copulation. 
"The Punjabi theory of procreation is that the woman provides the field and the
man provides the seed". So, man's role is conceived as the gift of seed or gift of
conception, seen as garbhadan and the quality of offspring is determined by seed
but field (woman's role) should also be able to bear it.
"The bones of the child are formed by the semen and the blood is formed by the
mother's blood". According to the Punjabi theory of kinship the relationship
between mother and child is pre-social. 
When the child is in the womb it is thought that the mother must carefully
observe her diet and thoughts because they have an indelible influence on the
child. The act of keeping the child in womb for nine months is conceptualized as
sacrifice, in return of which mothers expect filial piety from their children.
The other aspect of Kinship as biology is copulation and just like the mother-child
relationship it is also kept on backstage. Fulfillment of sexual needs for both men
and women is considered important but it is not explicitly recognized at the level
of social kinship. Women's sexuality has to be controlled and can only be allowed
expression within the bounds of marriage. The way the relations differ according
to an individual relation and how the same individual has different relation to
relate to differs as per their cultures.

The work by Radcliffe Brown on the descent approach in African Systems of

Kinship and Marriage help to understand the important component of kinship i.e.
Descent. The work of Brown discussed on the kinship as an institute and how the
descent alliance has an important part to it. Likewise, the work Levi-Strauss in the
Elementary Structure of Kinship and Louis Dumont’s work in “Marriage Alliance”
gives a vivid view on Kinship as an autonomous domain and Kinship is not only about
descent but has more to it. The work of Strauss introduced affinal relationship
and preference between cross-cousin marriage which are Matrilateral, patrilateral
and bilateral. The work of Dumont and Strauss was more based on exchange as
relationship and roles. Schneider’s work in “What is all kinship about?” helps
understand the cultural approach to the kinship. The categories of kinship are of
European and in the process of studying others, culture through these, we
misinterpret them. He abandons the categories and focused on how people relate
to relation, how one relates to each other as per their culture.
Reference
 Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. and D. Forde (eds.),1950, African Systems Of Kinship and
Marriage, London: Oxford University Press, Introduction, Pp.1-39
 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 1969, The Elementary Structure of Kinship, London: Eyre
and Spottiswoode, chapters 1&2, Pp. 3-25
 Dumont, L., 1968, Marriage Alliance’, in D. Shills (ed.), International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, U.S.A.: Macmillan and Free Press, Pp.19-
23
 Schneider, D., 2004, ‘What is Kinship all About?’, in R. Parkin and L. Stone (eds.)
Kinship and Family: an Anthropological Reader, U.S.A.: Blackwell, Pp.257- 274
 Das, V., 1994, “Masks and Faces: An Essay on Pujani Kinship”, in Patricia
Uberoi (ed.), Family, Kinship and Marriages in India, Delhi: Oxford University
Press, Pp. 52-63