Cultural Anthropology CH13: Kinship, Marriage, & Family

The social system that organizes people in families based on descent and marriage.

The family into which a person is born and (usually) raised.

The family formed by a married couple and their children.

A visual representation of family relationships.

Groups of real people who work together toward common ends, much like a corporation does.

Larger groups of relatives beyond the nuclear family, often living in the same household.

A group of relatives who claim to be descended from a single ancestor.

A social pattern in which members of a clan must marry someone from another clan, which has the effect of building political, economic, and social ties with other clans.

A group composed of relatives who are directly descended from known ancestors.

Reckoning descent through males from the same ancestors.

Based on descent through a single descent line, either males or females.

Reckoning descent through women, who are descended from an ancestral woman.

Reckoning descent through either men or women from some ancestor.

Structural process of forgetting whole groups of relatives, usually because they are not currently significant in social life.

A system of naming parents by the names of their children.

Exchange of gifts or money to compensate another clan or family for the loss of one of its women along with her productive and reproductive abilities in marriage.

A large sum of money or in-kind gifts given to a daughter to ensure her well-being in her husband's family.

Any form of plural marriage.

When a man is simultaneously married to more than one woman.

When a woman has two or more husbands at one time.

The prohibition on sexual relations between close family members.