International African Institute

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Comparative Studies in Kinship by Jack Goody
Review by: Rosemary Harris
Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr., 1971),
pp. 163-164
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1159426
Accessed: 12-07-2021 06:35 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

International African Institute, Cambridge University Press are collaborating with

JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Africa: Journal of the International
African Institute

This content downloaded from 104.205.113.37 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 06:35:25 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 [ 63]

Reviews of Books
Comparative Studies in Kinship. By JACK GOODY. London: Routledge, 1969. Pp. xv+ 26i. 42s.

THIS book reprints Dr. Goody's papers on kinship, from 'A Comparative Approach to
Incest and Adultery ', which originally appeared in I956, in the British Journal of Sociology,
to essays that were published last year. An extraordinary omission from the book, for which
the publishers must presumably be held responsible, is any list acknowledging the sources
and giving the dates of the first appearance of these papers. Such a list is surely essential,
not merely as a matter of record but in order to allow the reader to set these articles in the
context of concurrent discussions. Apart from this, however, the book has a great deal to
recommend it for, with the exception of the two final papers which are a little light in weight,
the essays here presented show a consistently high quality.
The first paper,' Comparative Sociology and the Decolonization of the Social Sciences',
gives a short introduction, but one which is usefully addressed to the problem of determin-
ing the role of anthropology in a world where societies become daily more 'complex'.
It is, however, with the second on 'Incest and Adultery' that we come to a paper typical
of Goody's approach, which is to tackle a problem through the careful and detailed com-
parison of a small number of societies. In this paper he argues that a careful analysis, based
on linguistic evidence and the types of sanctions imposed, shows that heterosexual offences
are placed by societies with unilineal descent into three categories: incest with close lineal
kin; adultery with wives of fellow descent group members; and adultery with wives of
other men. An examination of Ashanti, Tallensi, and Nuer material suggests that there is
a crucial, but previously overlooked, distinction to be made between true incest and ' group-
wife adultery'. Goody also argues that the differing attitudes to these offences shown by
patrilineal and matrilineal societies should alter the general interpretation of the relationship
between incest and exogamy.
The next paper,' The Mother's Brother and the Sister's Son in West Africa ', takes up the
theoretical problem concerning the relationship of these kinsmen, comparing again the
patterns found in societies with patrilineal descent against those in societies with matri-
lineal descent. In this case a comparison is made between the patrilineal LoWiili, and the
very similar LoDagaba, a society with double unilineal descent but where the relationship
of mother's brother to sister's son is typically ' matrilineal '. Goody argues that the crucial
factor accounting for the LoDagaba situation is that property here passes matrilineally.
He goes on to argue that indeed the crucial determinants of the relationship are the patterns
of rights in property within any society.
' The Classification of Double Descent Systems ' considers the literature dealing with this
subject, and argues that the definitions of double descent often used have been so wide as to
include societies which really have little in common. Pursuing a theme taken up in the
previous paper, he again stresses the significance of property rights for descent-group
structure. Where a so-called descent group has no common property rights it is unlikely
to be corporate. Such 'complementary' descent groups, like the soog of the Tallensi, have
much less significance for the structure of the society than have property-based descent
groups. The term 'double descent' should therefore, he argues, be reserved for systems
with fully corporate matrilineal and patrilineal groups.
'Inheritance, Social Change, and the Boundary Problem' deals with the relationships
between matrilineal and patrilineal societies in situations where their populations are

This content downloaded from 104.205.113.37 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 06:35:25 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
I64 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

intermingled, as they are in Northern Ghana. Contrary to the common assu

lineal systems may not only hold their own but can even extend their inf
situation. To understand the existence of' creeping matriliny ' it is necessary
situation in terms of individual attempts to manipulate a situation to advanta
structural terms.
Dealing with the same area ' Marriage Policy in Northern Ghana ' deals w
problem of the processes leading to cultural assimilation of migrants a
peoples living in the same political unit. Goody here analyses the situation
state of Gonja, and argues that people with very different cultural origins,
conquered, have developed a very similar kinship system primarily bec
intermarried frequently. Even today migrants with whom there is such in
become assimilated much more swiftly than those with whom intermarriag
The last two of the Ghana papers are written jointly by Jack and Esther
first, 'The Circulation of Women and Children in Northern Ghana ', they
that societies with patrilineal descent groups have patterns of high and re
wealth, low levels of fostering of children,' social paternity ' based on the pa
wealth, stable marriage, a high incidence of conjugal residence, and widow
By contrast local societies without unilineal descent groups have a pattern of
payments, 'biological' paternity, high levels of fostering, a high divor
incidence of sibling residence, and no widow inheritance. In the second pap
Cousin Marriage in Northern Ghana ' an attempt is made by studying the pa
spread and flexible preferential cross-cousin marriage, found in Northern G
light on recent discussions on prescriptive cross-cousin marriage in other ar
All these essays are of consistently high quality, and Dr. Goody, and his wi
grounds for feeling justly proud of this collection. I say this emphatically be
chosen to denigrate what he has done, most unfairly as it seems to me. An a
obvious, reviewer of this book in The Times Literary Supplement, sought to t
One recalls also the way in which Dr. Leach, in his introduction to Rethinkin
(p. 3) somewhat gratuitously singled out Goody's work for attack, asserting
basis of the distinction he draws between the LoWiili and the LoDagaba is
ous. Such an expression of opinion as fact in a context which gave Goo
defend himself seems at best irresponsible. The cause of the trouble, appare
has remained persistently interested in the nature of unilineal descent group
in particular in the different complications of patrilineal and matrilineal de
in which rules of descent and succession between kinsmen, the attitude to inc
stability can be correlated with other social patterns has provided the recur
Goody's work, and they appear to be unfashionable interests. In a sense he i
of a painter who insists on being representational when fashion decrees th
abstract. He insists on finding the subject of descent worth while when it is
that nothing more can usefully be said on the subject. Indeed Goody is so
maintain that concepts such as that of complementary filiation are useful a
totally superseded by alliance theory. Significantly, however, those who h
Goody's work have not themselves had experience of an African situation in
descent groups have been so obstinately significant. Those of us who have,
cause to admire and to be grateful for the meticulous ethnography and th
analysis that are demonstrated in the papers collected in this book.
ROSEMARY HARRIS

This content downloaded from 104.205.113.37 on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 06:35:25 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms