Social scientists commonly refer to social norms and behaviors—for example, as explored in Chapter 1, the ways that individuals are assigned to racial categories and what these categories mean about an individual’s place within that society—as sociocultural constructions. Such norms and behaviors create categories and rules according to social criteria (not biological truths) and thus vary across cultures. Kinship is also a sociocultural construction, one that creates a network of social and biological relationships between individuals. Through kinship systems, humans create meaning by interpreting social and biological relationships. Although kinship, like gender and age, is a universal concept in human societies (meaning that all societies have some means of defining kinship), the specific “rules” about who is related, and how closely, vary widely. Depending on the way kinship is determined, two individuals who would call each other cousins in one cultural group may not even consider themselves to be related in another group.
The common assumptions that kinship is static and created by biological relationships reveal the strength of sociocultural constructs in our lives. It is culture—not biology—that defines for us whom our closest relatives are. Biology relies on genetics, but kinship is determined by culture. One interesting and very familiar example of the sociocultural dimension of kinship is the practice of adoption, through which those who have no necessary genetic relationship to one another are considered both legally and culturally to be family. Biological relatedness is determined at the genetic level. This form of knowledge is detected through specialized DNA testing and typically has little meaning in our day-to-day lives except within legal and economic contexts where paternity or maternity may be in question. Otherwise, across history and cultures, including within our own society today, family are those we live with, rely on, and love. These individuals, whether or not they have a specific genetic relationship to us, are those we refer to using family terms of reference—my mother, my son, my aunt.
The study of kinship is central to anthropology. It provides deep insights into human relationships and alliances, including those who can and cannot marry, mechanisms that are used to create families, and even the ways social and economic resources are dispersed within a group. One of the earliest studies of kinship was completed by Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881), an amateur American anthropologist, in the mid-nineteenth century. Intrigued by the cultural diversity of the Haudenosaunee living in upstate New York, Morgan began to document differences in kinship terminology between cultural groups, based on historical accounts and surveys from missionaries working in other geographic locations. In Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), he defined three of the primary kinship systems that we still recognize today, identifying each with either descriptive kinship terms, such as “mother’s sister’s son,” or classificatory terms, which group diverse relationships under a single term, such as “cousin.” Although Morgan used different names, today we know these three systems as lineal kinship, bifurcate merging kinship, and generational kinship. The publication of his book marked the beginning of kinship studies in anthropology.
Left: Lewis Henry Morgan described the diversity of kinship structures and terms across cultures. Right: Bronislaw Malinowski researched the ways that kinship functions as a social institution. (credit: (left) “Lewis Henry Morgan” by Kelson/Rochester Historical Society/Wikimedia Commons, CC-PD-Mark (right) credit: “Bronislaw Malinowski” by Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
After Morgan’s research, anthropologists began a more methodical examination of kinship. W.H.R. Rivers (1864–1922) introduced the genealogical method in fieldwork in a 1910 article, “The Genealogical Method in Anthropological Query.” Using a series of basic questions about parents, grandparents, and siblings, Rivers approached the study of kinship as a systematic inquiry into the social structure of societies, seeking to understand how different cultures define family and family roles. Although he focused on small-scale societies, he argued that investigating kinship was a good way of establishing rapport with people and opening them up to sharing more detailed information about their lives regardless of the size of the society. Today, ethnographers continue to use a form of the genealogical method, through either face-to-face interviews or surveys, especially when doing fieldwork in small-scale societies. In this way, the ethnographer seeks to understand the sociocultural relationships in society and the ways that family affects those relationships.
In the 1920s, British anthropologists Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) expanded the understanding of kinship as a social institution by studying the ways that kinship intersected with other institutions in society, such as inheritance, education, politics, and subsistence. Malinowski did fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea, a matrilineal society where descent and inheritance were traced solely through mothers and grandmothers. In his work Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), he examined the functional role of kinship in Trobriand society, exploring how it works with other social institutions to address basic needs. Expanding kinship exploration beyond its early beginnings as a study of linguistic terminology only, Malinowski (1930, 19-20) says, “Kinship terminologies . . . are the most active and the most effective expressions of human relationship, expressions which start in early childhood, which accompany human intercourse throughout life, which embody all the most personal, passionate, and intimate sentiments of a man or woman.” He saw kinship as a driving force connecting individuals to each other by means of enduring bonds. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown also focused on kinship as a social institution in his study The Andaman Islanders (1922), but instead of looking at the function of kinship, Radcliffe-Brown examined the roles and statuses created for an individual by the practice of kinship.
Through these early studies in kinship, anthropologists began to better understand the diverse ways that cultural groups think about things like family and community. Kinship relationships determine both rights and obligations to other people. These connections contribute to the way a society functions and resolve problems associated with everyday life. In small-scale societies with low population density, kinship identity plays a significant role in most of the life choices an individual will have, while in larger-scale societies, kinship plays a smaller and more limited role. In all societies, however, kinship provides guidelines on how to interact with certain other individuals and the expectations that are associated with these relationships.
Cultures call attention to kinship relationships through the way people speak to and refer to one another. Anthropologists sort this kinship terminology into two categories: terms of reference and terms of address. Terms of reference are the words that are used to describe the relationship between individuals, such as “mother,” “grandfather,” or “father’s brother.” Terms of address are the terms people use to speak directly to their kin, such as “Mom,” “Uncle,” and “Grandpa.” Sometimes the same word is used as reference and address: “This is my father” and “Hello, Father.” These terms are important because they designate relationships between individuals that carry responsibilities and privileges that structure human societies.
Families and Households
A family can be defined as two or more people in an adaptable social and economic alliance that involves kinship, whether perceived through blood, marriage, or other permanent or semipermanent arrangement. It frequently, but not always, involves reproduction and the care of offspring and coresidence within the same locale. Families vary greatly across cultures and also adapt to changing social and economic needs. Sometimes families aggregate into larger units for short periods to meet challenging needs, such as eldercare, illness, job loss, transition between college and career, etc. A household is a group of individuals who live within the same residence and share socioeconomic needs associated with production and consumption. A family and a household may be the same unit, but they do not have to be. Sometimes families live within larger households, where there may be two or more families residing; at other times a family may be physically separated as family members migrate to work or study temporarily in other locations.
Like the concept of kinship, family is a sociocultural construct. Family is defined and recognized differently across cultures according to differing social norms. Some cultures consider families to be only those people believed to be related to each other, living together, and sharing similar goals, while other cultures define family as a disperse set of individuals with an ancestral history. The definition of family that a cultural group endorses reflects such things as kinship and the social interpretation of biology, cultural traditions and norms, and socioemotional ties. It is commonly scaled from the intimate unit in which children are raised to a larger, more amorphous web of relatives.
Many Western societies perceive family to be a nuclear family of parents and their immediate offspring living together in a household. The extended family, on the other hand, is a loose collection of relatives with varying degrees of perceived kinship, from those referred to as blood relatives (consanguine) to those who have married into the family (affine). Among the Mundurucú in the lowland Amazonia of Brazil, the resident family includes only the mother and her preadolescent offspring, while the father resides in the tribal men’s house. Among the Mosuo of China (also called the Na), women form sexual alliances with men from outside of their families to produce offspring, and then remain with their brothers in their own households to raise their children. The children are considered to be part of the women’s lineage unit and family. This practice is sometimes known as "walking marriage" (but you can probably see why it more accurately a non-marriage).
The Mosuo of China do not formally recognize a separate fatherhood role. Mosuo girls (left) and Mosuo boys (right) remain with their mother and her extended family, and fathers have no social or economic obligations for their biological offspring, though they often have significant responsibility for their nieces and nephews. (credit: “P8310032” and “P8310036” by Sherry Zhang/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Reading and Using Kinship Charts
Anthropologists graphically illustrate relationships between family members with kinship charts (also called kinship diagrams). Anyone who has ever used an online genealogy program like Ancestry.com is already familiar with the ways that family relationships can be depicted. Anthropological charts use EGO as their starting point. The term EGO identifies the person whose chart is depicted. EGO marks the starting point for the kinship chart, and relationships are read as alignments between EGO and other individuals. The sum of kinship relationships identified through EGO is referred to as EGO’s kindred. Serving as a map and model, the kinship chart can be “read” like a text, with its own syntax and grammar identifying each individual within a society by means of their relatedness to each other.
Kinship charts depict two types of relationships, consanguineal and affinal. A consanguineal tie between individuals indicates a perceived biological connection (a connection “by blood”) and is indicated by a single line, regardless of whether it is drawn vertically or horizontally. A consanguineal tie is most often considered to be permanent. An affinal tie depicts a contractual relationship by marriage or mutual agreement and is drawn as a double line. Such ties usually can be broken, and if they are, a forward slash will be struck though the double line. There is also a hashed line (----) used for relationships that do not conform completely to type (e.g., to indicate adoption or an honorary family member). Hashed double lines are used to distinguish between a formal marriage and a relationship of cohabitation. The following is the most basic legend of the kinship chart:
An anthropological kinship legend. The iconography of kinship denotes such things as gender, relationships of marriage and descent, and individual terms of reference. (CC BY 4.0; Rice University & OpenStax)
Kinship charts can be read both vertically and horizontally. Individuals who share the same horizontal line are considered to be in the same cohort or generation, and individuals above and below EGO are in relationships of descent, meaning they are believed to be connected by blood or enduring kinship bond across generations. Anthropologists use common abbreviations to depict kinship relations across cultures, allowing us to compare families: father (FA), mother (MO), brother (BR), sister (SI or Z), aunt (AU), uncle (UN), son (SO), daughter (DA), and then compound terms, such as mother’s or father’s brother (MoBr, FaBr) or mother’s or father’s sister (MoSi, FaSi). Grandparents are usually designated as GrFa and GrMo.
The figure below depicts a kinship chart utilizing standard icons and abbreviations. Within this chart, EGO is depicted as a part of two different families: the family of orientation, which is the nuclear family unit in which EGO was reared and nurtured as a child and adolescent, and the family of procreation, which is the family that EGO creates, usually as a result of marriage. Test yourself and see if you can read it.
This generic kinship chart shows three generations, with a family of orientation. (credit: “Eskimo Kinship Chart” by Fred the Oyster/Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
As you can see in the figure above, EGO has multiple ties and embeddedness within the kinship network, leading to a complex web of rights and obligations. These concurrent ties with more than one family involve descent rules (how an individual traces relatedness across generations), residence rules (where an individual will live following marriage), and in some societies, even remarriage rules (how marriage will be reinstated following the death of a spouse). Each of these will be discussed later in the chapter.
Family Types across Cultures
Although family is difficult to categorize because of its diversity, anthropologists have defined four basic family types that are duplicated across cultures with minor variations. Each of these types is adapted to the social and economic needs of the family unit and is normally associated with particular subsistence strategies. Some families change to address immediate needs, such as when elderly parents can no longer live on their own independently. Regardless of its type, the family unit is a remarkably adaptive cultural mechanism.
Nuclear families: Also known as a single-couple family, a nuclear family is composed of one or two parents and their immediate offspring. It is the smallest family structure and is often found in societies where geographic mobility is valued. The nuclear family is common in small-scale foraging societies (bands) and industrial/postindustrial and market societies (states), both settings in which subsistence activities require families to relocate with some regularity. Although the model of the American nuclear family consisting of a two-parent household with one or more children has become less typical over the last several generations, it continues to be a norm. As of the 2016 census, 69 percent of US children under the age of 18 were living in a two-parent household, a decrease from 88 percent in 1960.
There are, however, other kinds of nuclear families. In the 2016 US census, 23 percent of children under 18 were living in a female single-headed household (mother), almost triple the number living in female single households in 1960 (8 percent). There was also an increase in children under 18 living in male single households (father), from 1 percent in 1960 to 4 percent in 2016 (United States Census Bureau 2016; Kramer 2019). Another growing nuclear family type is same-sex families. These may or may not include children. In the 2020 census, 14.7 percent of the 1.1 million same-sex couples in the United States had at least one child under 18 in their household (United States Census Bureau 2020). In cases where the alliance between adults is temporary or informal, these families may be nonconjugal nuclear families or cohabitation families. (Note: The above terminology related to sex, gender, and family relationships is consistent with US Census data collection and reporting terminology, and may not reflect the terminology used by readers.)
Extended families: The extended family can be very complex. It includes two or more family units functioning as a single integrated family. It may involve three or more generations (e.g., grandparents, parents, and children), polygamous families with multiple spouses and their offspring, or married siblings living together with their children, a type of extended family known as joint families. The extended family can be an effective social and economic unit because it involves multiple adults able to contribute to the household. Extended families have been most commonly associated with agricultural societies, where a high value is typically placed on labor and self-subsistence. In the United States today, we commonly see the emergence of the extended family during times of transition, such as when family members are changing jobs, returning to school, or recovering from economic hardship. Worldwide, the extended family is the most common type of family.
An extended family in Pretoria, South Africa, including several generations. A family functions as a combined socioeconomic unit, where family members cooperate and support each other within the same household. (credit: Henry M. Trotter/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Blended families: Blended families are families in which there is more than one origin point for the members. This typically occurs when one or more divorced and/or widowed adults with children remarry, combining two formerly independent units into a new blended family. Blended families are common in the United States and in societies in which we find serial monogamy. Although the US census does not collect data specifically on stepfamilies, in 2009 Pew Research estimated that 16 percent of all American children lived in blended families.
Fictive Kinship
Some families also include fictive kin, a kinship tie in which individuals are defined as family regardless of biology. Fictive kinship is based on intentional relationships such as godparenthood or other close social ties.
One form of voluntary fictional kinship is a type of godparent relationship called compadrazgo. Originally developed as a social institution within the Catholic Church, the godparents of a Catholic child are named during the ritual of baptism when the child is an infant. These godparents are selected by the child’s parents as role models to encourage their child in religious instruction and living a “godly” life. Godparents are most frequently chosen from among the child’s relatives, thus reinforcing kinship ties. Although godparenthood is not formally practiced in every society, families in all societies do cultivate non-blood relationships and close friendships.
The Spanish and Portuguese empires introduced godparenthood into Latin America following the 16th-century conquest. The institution was adapted to meet the particular needs of populations suffering from disease, warfare, and mass casualties. These social disruptions often left children without parents who were able to adequately take care of them. In such a setting, children’s godparents shifted from being chosen from among relatives to being selected from friends and acquaintances. This use of fictive kin relationships served as an extension of family for a child and created new kinship ties between families not previously related. It created a contract (Foster 1961) between the godparents (who referred to the child as ahijado/a), the child (who referred to their godparents as padrino and madrina), and the parents (who, along with the godparents, referred to each other as compadre and comadre), which provided an ever-widening social network.
Godparenthood (called compadrazgo in Spanish-speaking societies) is a formal designation and acknowledgement of fictive kin. It is commonly associated with Catholic Church rituals such as baptism. Here, an infant is photographed with baptismal godparents. (credit: “Godparents and Chris” by Brian Smith/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Over time, the practice of compadrazgo adapted to the specific needs of this new cultural setting. A symmetrical form developed in which parents choose friends and coworkers of their same socioeconomic status to serve as godparents for their children. An asymmetrical form also developed, in which parents contract with individuals or couples who are in a higher class or status group to provide opportunities for their child. This form functions very similarly to a social security system. Many members of the upper classes see it as their Christian duty to sponsor a large number of godchildren within their communities or workplaces.
In addition, compadrazgo extends beyond religious rituals into secular society, including the practice of naming compadres for such things as a child’s first haircut or the purchase of a new house. In smaller communities, compadrazgo is even practiced as the ritual sponsorship of community buildings or initiatives. In 1980 in Ica, Peru, the installation of a new water tower included the designation of compadres.
Those serving as compadres enjoy an enhancement of social status in Latin America. Over a lifetime, individuals typically have a series of new and expanding compadrazgo relationships. People gain new compadres through life changes such as marriage, the birth of children, and sometimes even the acquisition of expensive material items. While these relationships may change over time—for example, when a child has become an adult, the birth compadres may no longer send gifts or offer advice—the relationships themselves endure as (fictive) family connections. The respect and acknowledgement of these relationships remains important to all the individuals involved in the compadrazgo family.
Adoption
Adoption of children is widespread across cultures, sometimes constituted legally, but more often through informal structures of support and sponsorship. There were an estimated 1.5 million adopted children under 18 in the United States in 2019, about 1 out of every 50 children, and adoption is increasing, especially among same-sex couples. In 2019, 43.3 percent of children of same-sex couples were adopted or stepchildren.
Across cultures, informal adoption and foster care have long been practiced to strengthen families and provide opportunities for young people. Anthropological studies in West Africa, Oceania, Latin America, and in minority communities in North America document the prevalence of these practices, as well as their benefits and risks. In general, cultures that see social relationships as open and fluid are able to provide a greater range of opportunities to children. One common form of informal adoption relocates children from rural birth families to relatives living in urban areas, where they have more opportunities for education, employment, and career training. Sometimes informal fostering helps to provide caretaking for shorter periods of time. A family may send an older child to temporarily live with a relative or even a friend who has a new infant or is facing a family crisis. These relationships may be mutually beneficial, allowing older children to meet new people and develop a wider network of friends and relatives. Historically, adoptive ties have played a major role in family security and in creating stronger social ties between families, some of which may provide future educational, work, and career opportunities.
Kinship Across Cultures
By defining relationships between individuals, cultural understandings of kinship create kinship systems or structures within society. This is the institutional aspect of kinship, and it is bigger than the family itself. In smaller societies with lower populations, kinship plays a major role in all social institutions. In larger societies with higher populations, kinship places the local and familiar in opposition to a wider, more amorphous society, where relationships have less and less significance. In effect, kinship frames the way the individual and family are viewed in relation to the larger society and embodies social values.
Types of Kinship Systems
In his early research, Lewis Henry Morgan distinguished three basic forms of kinship structure commonly found across cultures. Today, we refer to these kinship forms as lineal, bifurcate merging, and generational kinship. Each one defines family and relatives a bit differently and so highlights different roles, rights, and responsibilities for these individuals. This means that depending on the kinship structure used by a society, EGO will refer to a different set of individuals as kindred and will have a different relationship with those individuals.
Lineal kinship:Lineal kinship (initially referred to as Eskimo kinship) is a form of kinship reckoning (a way of mapping EGO to other individuals) that highlights the nuclear family. While kindred in a lineal system is traced through both EGO’s mother and father (a practice called bilateral descent), the kinship terminology clearly shows that the rights and responsibilities of the nuclear family far exceed those of other kindred. In effect, lineal kinship, associated frequently with North American and European societies, suggests a very small and nominal family with little power and influence across other social institutions.
A lineal kinship diagram. Note the distinction of the nuclear family. (credit: “Eskimo Kinship Chart” by Fred the Oyster/Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
On the lineal diagram (above), note the following: each of the members of the nuclear family have specific kinship terms, but bilateral kin (through both EGO’s mother and father) and collateral kin (EGO’s siblings and their offspring) are lumped together with similar terms. These relationships are not highlighted by individualized terms because there are minimal rights and responsibilities between EGO and kin outside of the nuclear family of orientation and procreation.
Bifurcate merging kinship:Bifurcate merging kinship (initially referred to as Iroquois kinship) highlights a larger family of orientation for EGO by merging EGO’s parents’ same-sex siblings and their offspring into the immediate family (creating parallel cousins) and bifurcating, or cutting off, EGO’s parents’ opposite-sex siblings and their offspring (creating cross cousins). The figure below depicts bifurcate merging kinship with unilineal descent (either patrilineal or matrilineal). This means that once descent is introduced into the diagram, EGO’s relationships, with associated rights and responsibilities, will shift toward either the mother’s or father’s side. This form of kinship reckoning, quite common to tribal societies, is found extensively, and it creates a distinction between the family of orientation, which is merged together from various lines, and other relatives, who are bifurcated, or cut away.
A bifurcate merging kinship diagram. Note the distinction between parallel and cross cousins. (credit: “Iroquois Kinship Chart” by Fred the Oyster/Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
On the bifurcate merging diagram (above), note that the members of the family of orientation share kinship terms that indicate a close intimacy with EGO. As an example, while EGO knows who his biological mother is (the woman who gave birth to him), his relationship with his biological mother has the same rights and responsibilities as his relationship with his mother’s sister(s), etc. Notice also that the category of individuals lumped together as “cousins” under the lineal diagram are here distinguished depending on EGO’s relationship with their parent. EGO’s mother’s sisters are called “mother” and his father’s brothers are called “father,” which means that any of their offspring would be EGO’s brothers or sisters. Notice, though, that the mothers and fathers highlighted outside of EGO’s biological parents are married to non-kin members; EGO does not refer to his mother’s sister’s husband as father—he is referred to as “mother’s husband.” Mother’s brothers and father’s sisters produce offspring who are bifurcated and lumped as “cousin.” Anthropologists distinguish between parallel cousins (EGO’s brothers and sisters through his parents’ same-sex siblings) and cross cousins (EGO’s cousins through his parents’ opposite-sex siblings). In many tribal societies, EGO would choose his (or her) marriage partner from among his (or her) cross cousins, thereby merging their children back into a primary kinship line. In this way, the family unit (the kindred) maintains a stable and significant presence across generations.
Generational kinship:Generational kinship (initially referred to as Hawaiian kinship) presents a very different case. Widespread in Polynesia, especially during the times of chiefdom societies, generational kinship provides a distinction in kinship terms only along gender and generational lines. Generational kinship has the least complicated kinship terminology of all kinship systems, but the impact of creating a family of orientation this large and powerful is immediately apparent. In reading this chart, it is obvious that the intimate family was as large as could be configured and it would have significant sociopolitical impact within the society.
A generational kinship chart. Note the family of orientation, which is now at its maximal size. This graphically indicates the important role family has in all aspects of EGO’s life. (credit: “Hawaiian Kinship Chart” by Fred the Oyster/Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
Descent
Kinship structure is highly diverse, and there are many different ways to think about it. Descent is the way that families trace their kinship connections and social obligations to each other between generations of ancestors and generations to come. It is a primary factor in the delineation of kinship structures. Through descent, the individual highlights certain particular relationships with kindred and drops or leaves off other possible relationships. Descent ultimately determines such things as inheritance, alliance, and marriage rules. There are two common ways that a cultural group can trace descent across generations:
Unilineal descent:Unilineal descent traces an individual’s kinship through a single gendered line, either male or female, as a collective social rule for all families within a society. The patrilineal or matrilineal relatives that connect to and from EGO form EGO’s lineage. This lineage is believed to be a continuous line of descent from an original ancestor. Lineages believed to be close in relationship are gathered into clans, a tribal social division denoting a group of lineages that have a presumed and symbolic kinship, and eventually into moieties (the social division of a tribe into two halves).
In patrilineal (or agnatic) descent, the descent of both males and females is traced solely through male ancestors. Females hold the patrilineal descent of their fathers, and males pass on the descent through their children.
A chart illustrating patrilineal descent across several generations. Note that all offspring individuals marked in blue are part of their father’s descent, but descent only passes through males. (CC BY 4.0; Rice University & OpenStax)
In matrilineal (or uterine) descent, the descent of both males and females is traced solely through female ancestors. Males hold the matrilineal descent of their mothers, and females pass on the descent through their children.
Cognatic descent: Cognatic descent is a kinship structure that follows descent through both men and women, although it may vary by family.
In ambilineal descent, an individual’s kinship is traced through a single gendered line, with each family choosing either the mother’s or the father’s descent line; in societies practicing this type of cognatic descent, some families will trace descent through the mother and others through the father. Usually families will choose their descent type at marriage based on the different opportunities presented by either the mother’s or father’s family, and they will use this for each of their children. While societies practicing ambilineal descent might initially look like those of unilineal descent, they are different. Within these societies, families are diverse and do not follow a single type of descent reckoning.
In bilateral descent (also referred to as bilineal descent), an individual’s kinship is traced through both mother’s and father’s lines. This is the most common form of descent practiced in the United States today.
A chart illustrating bilateral descent across several generations. Note that all offspring trace their lineage through both mother and father. (CC BY 4.0; Rice University & OpenStax)
Why does descent matter? It structures the way the family will be formed (who counts most in decision-making). It determines the choices individuals have in forming their own families. And it directs how material and symbolic resources (such as power and influence) will be dispersed across a group of people. As the example in the next section shows, descent affects the whole structure of society.
A Matrilineal Society in the United States
The Navajo are among the most populous of the Indigenous peoples in the United States, exceeding 325,000 members. Roughly half live in the Navajo Nation. Covering some 27,000 square miles, the Navajo Nation is an autonomous jurisdiction that crosses New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Traditionally a matrilineal society, the Navajo trace descent and inheritance through their mothers and grandmothers. Such a descent pattern would normally lead to the establishment of matrilocal households, with daughters bringing their husbands to live with or near their matrilineal kin following marriage.
In his study of the contemporary Shonto Navajo, however, William Yewdale Adams (1983), an anthropologist who spent part of his childhood living on the Navajo reservation, found that this wasn’t always the case. While matrilocal residence remained the ideal for Navajo families, it was not followed any more frequently than patrilocal residence (living with or near the groom’s father). Neolocal residence (a separate, independent household) was also practiced across the Navajo Nation. While the ideal Navajo family type endured as part of their identity, the actual everyday practices of families depended on their particular circumstances and might change over the course of their lives. When job opportunities and economic choices necessitated that families live in different areas, they adapted. When families became large and less manageable as a socioeconomic unit, they might splinter into smaller units, some into nuclear families living alone. However, during major life events, such as marriage and childbirth, it is the matrilineal family that will most support the couple by providing resources and any needed labor and help. Matrilineal descent also elevates the role of women in society, not by excluding men, but by recognizing the vital roles that women play in the establishment of both family and society.
A contemporary Navajo family (credit: “IMG_1123” by Neeta Lind/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Traditionally, the Navajo constructed houses (called hogans) of timber or stone frames covered with earth (Haile 1942). There are multiple types of hogans, including a male hogan, which is conically shaped and used for more private rituals, and a female hogan, which is circular and large enough to accommodate the whole family. Although today most Navajo live in Western-style homes with electricity and running water, many families still construct one or more hogans for ritual and ceremony. For families that continue traditional Navajo ceremonies, the most common hogan form today is the female hogan. As Adams aptly argues, the Navajo are very much like other societies in regard to kinship—while it defines an ideal within Navajo society, its primary function is to provide “possibilities and boundaries” around which individuals will construct kinship (1983, 412). It adapts to the changing environment and the needs of family.
Marriage and Families Across Cultures
Customers peruse goods in a market in downtown Lima, Peru. Some Indigenous people in Peru begin marriage with a practice known as servinakuy. In servinakuy , a couple establish an independent household and live together until the birth of their first child, after which they are formally considered to be a fully married couple. (credit: “Lima, Peru” by YoTuT/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Marriage is the formation of a socially recognized union. Depending on the society, it may be a union between a man and a woman, between any two adults (regardless of their gender), or between multiple spouses in polygamous societies. Marriages are most commonly established to provide a formal structure in which to raise and nurture offspring (whether biological or adopted/fostered), but not all marriages involve reproduction, and marriage can serve multiple functions. One function is to create alliances between individuals, families, and sometimes larger social networks. These alliances may provide political and economic advantages. While there are variations of marriage, the institution itself, with a few notable exceptions, is universal across cultures.
Marriage is an effective means of addressing several common challenges within families. It provides a structure in which to produce, raise, and nurture offspring. It reduces competition among and between males and females. And it creates a stable, long-term socioeconomic household in which the family unit can more adequately subsist with shared labor and resources. All societies practice rules of marriage that determine what groups an individual should marry into (called endogamy rules) and which groups are considered off limits and not appropriate for marriage partners (called exogamy rules). These rules are behavioral norms in a society. For example, in the United States, individuals tend to marry within the same generation (endogamy) and usually the same linguistic group, but they marry outside of very close kin (exogamy). Those considered to be too closely related to marry are prohibited by rules of incest, a relationship defined as too close for sexual relations.
Across all cultures, there is an incest taboo, a cultural norm that prohibits sexual relations between parents and their offspring. This taboo sometimes extends to other relations considered too close for sexual relationship. In some societies, this taboo may extend to first cousins. In the United States, first-cousin marriage laws vary across states. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that incest is the original social structure because it naturally separates groups of people into two types—those with whom an individual has family ties (so-called biological ties) and those with whom an individual can have sexual relations and establish ties.
Defining marriage can be complex. In the southern Andes of Peru and Bolivia, Indigenous people begin marriage with a practice known as servinakuy (with spelling variations). In servinakuy, a man and woman establish their own independent household with very little formal social acknowledgement and live together until the birth of their first child, after which they are formally considered to be a fully married couple. Not a trial marriage and not considered informal cohabitation, servinakuy is, instead, a prolonged marriage process during which family is created over time. Andean legal scholars argue that these unions should carry with them the legal rights and protections associated with a formal marriage from the time the couple begins living together (Ingar 2015).
Like all social institutions, ideas about marriage can adapt and change. Within urban Western societies, the concept of marriage is undergoing a great deal of change as socioeconomic opportunities shift and new opportunities open up for women. In Iceland, in 2016, almost 70 percent of children were born outside of a marriage, usually to committed unmarried couples (Peng 2018). This trend is supported by national social policies that provide generous parental leave for both married individuals and those within a consensual union, but the change is also due to the more fluid nature of family today. As norms change in Iceland across generations, it will be interesting to see if the practiced form of consensual union we see today eventually comes to be considered a sanctioned form of marriage.
Forms of Marriage
Anthropologists group marriage customs into two primary types: a union of two spouses only (monogamy) or a union involving more than two spouses (polygamy). Monogamy is the socially sanctioned union of two adults. In some societies this union is restricted to a man and a woman, and in other societies it can be two adults of any gender. Monogamy, because it produces an overall smaller family unit, is especially well adapted to postindustrial societies and cultures where family units are highly mobile (such as nomadic foragers). Monogamy also includes same-sex marriage. In June 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the United States, following earlier legal recognitions in many other Western countries. Today, same-sex marriage is legal in 30 countries. While the movement to legalize same-sex marriage has been long and tumultuous in many of these countries, same-sex marriages and unions have historically played significant roles in both Indigenous and Western societies.
Serial monogamy:Serial monogamy is a form of monogamy in which adults have a series of two-person monogamous marriages over a lifetime. It is increasingly common in Western societies, but it is also practiced in some small-scale societies, such as bands. In serial monogamy, divorce and remarriage are common.
Polygamy: Polygamy is the socially sanctioned union of more than two adults at the same time. In polygamous societies, families usually begin with a two-person marriage between a man and a woman. In some cases, the marriage will remain as a single couple for a long period of time or for the duration of their lives because of lack of resources or availability of partners. Adding partners is frequently a sign of status and is considered an ideal for families in polygamous societies. In some cases, too, polygamy is practiced to address extreme social stress due to things such as warfare or skewed population distributions caused by famine and high mortality rates. In her cross-cultural study of polygamy, cultural anthropologist Miriam Zeitzen (2008) noted a great deal of diversity within polygamy, from de jure unions that are formal, legal contracts (such as is found in Gambia) to de facto polygamy, which may be just as enduring, stable, and acceptable within a society (such as is found in Ivory Coast).
There are two principle kinds of polygamy, depending on the partners involved, as multiple men and multiple women in a single marriage (called group marriage) is not common. Polygyny, which is the more common form of polygamy, is the marriage of one man to more than one woman. There is often marked age asymmetry in these relationships, with husbands much older than their wives. In polygynous households, each wife commonly lives in her own house with her own biological children, but the family unit cooperates together to share resources and provide childcare. The husband usually “visits” his wives in succession and lives in each of their homes at various times (or lives apart in his own). It is common, also, for there to be a hierarchy of wives based on seniority. Polygyny is found worldwide and offers many benefits. It maximizes the family labor force and the shared resources and opportunities available for family members and creates wide kinship connections within society. Commonly in polygynous societies, larger families are afforded higher social status and they have stronger political and economic alliances.
Polygyny is prevalent in Thailand today, with as many as one in four Thai men between the ages of 30 and 50 having a second wife, called a mia noi (minor wife). In her research in Thailand, cultural anthropologist Jiemin Bao (2008) studied polygyny among a group of lukchin Thai (Thai of Chinese descent). She found that the lukchin practiced polygynous marriages as a joint husband-and-wives economic enterprise, many times sending remittances back to family members still living in China. Bao found that husbands frequently seek their wives’ consent before adding another wife and that the family overall considers polygyny to create greater economic opportunities for all family members because multiple wives create a pool of stable laborers with individual skill sets. Even so, Bao observed turmoil and conflict even within economically successful polygynous families and observed that many marriages were conducted as if they were “cutting a business deal” (151). Gender politics of polygynous marriage among the lukchin often left women with few choices except to work for her husband’s family. Economic success for the family was culturally attributed to the male head of household and not his wives.
A second form of polygamy is polyandry. In polyandry, which is comparatively rare, there is one wife and more than one husband. Polyandrous marriages minimize population growth and may occur in societies where there is a temporary surfeit of males and scarcity of females or scarcity of resources. In fraternal polyandry, brothers marry a single wife. This is the most common in Nepal, where it is practiced by a minority of mainly rural families. Fraternal polyandry offers several benefits for societies like Nepal with scarce resources and dense population. Where there is extreme scarcity of land acreage, it allows brothers to share an inheritance of land instead of dividing it up. It reduces inequality within the household, as the family can thus collectively subsist on the land as a family unit. Also, in areas where land is scattered over large distances, it allows brothers to take turns living away from home to tend herds of animals or fields and then spending time at home with their shared wife. It also minimizes reproduction and population growth in a society where there is a very dense population (Goldstein 1987), as the wife can carry only one pregnancy at a time.
Postmarital Residence Rules
Following marriage, a couple begins a new family and establishes a shared residence, whether as a separate family unit or as part of an already established family group. The social rules that determine where a newly married couple will reside are called postmarital residence rules and are directly related to the descent rules that operate in the society. These rules may be adapted due to extenuating circumstances such as economic need or lack of housing. In the United States today, for example, it is increasingly common for newly married couples to postpone the establishment of a separate household when work, schooling, or children create a need for familial support.
There are five postmarital residence patterns:
Under neolocal residence, a newly married couple establishes an independent household not connected to either spouse’s family. This pattern of residence is mostly associated with bilateral descent. While this is a norm in our own society, during times of economic stress or familial need, couples in the United States do occasionally live in the household of one spouse’s parents.
More common worldwide is patrilocal residence, associated with societies practicing patrilineal descent. In patrilocal residence, the newly married couple establishes their new household with or near the groom’s father or the groom’s father’s relatives. What this means is that at marriage the groom remains within his household and/or family group, while the bride leaves her parents. Their future children will belong to the groom’s lineage.
Matrilocal residence is associated with societies practicing matrilineal descent. In matrilocal residence, the newly married couple establishes their new household with or near the bride’s mother or the bride’s mother’s relatives. At marriage the bride remains within her household and/or family group, while the groom leaves his parents. Their future children will belong to the bride’s lineage.
Less frequent but also associated with matrilineal descent is avunculocal residence, in which the newly married couple resides with or near the groom’s mother’s brother. In societies that practice avunculocal residence, the groom has commonly had a long-term relationship with his maternal uncle, who is part of his own mother’s matriline. By joining with household of the groom’s maternal uncle, the couple is able to benefit from both the husband’s and the wife’s matrilines.
Under ambilocal residence, the couple decides which spouse’s family to live with or near. Ambilocal residence is associated with ambilineal descent. In ambilocal residence, the newly married couple will usually have made their decision about which spouse’s family to join with prior to their marriage. Their future children will then trace descent through that particular line.
Marriage Compensation
In all cultures, marriage is a consequential matter not only to the adults immediately involved, but also to their families and to the broader community. In societies that practice unilineal descent, the newly married couple moves away from one family and toward another. This creates a disadvantage for the family that has “lost” a son or daughter. For example, in a patrilineal society, while the wife will remain a member of her birth lineage (that of her father), her children and her labor will now be invested mostly in her husband’s lineage. As a result, in societies practicing unilineal descent, there is a marriage compensation from one family to the other for this perceived loss. Marriage compensation is the transfer of some form of wealth (in money, material goods, or labor) from one family to another to legitimize the marriage as a creation of a new social and economic household. It is not seen as payment for a spouse, but as recognition that the marriage and future children are part of one lineage rather than another (Stone 1998, 77). There are several forms of marriage compensation, each symbolically marked by specific cultural practices.
Bride wealth:Bride wealth (also called bride price) is the transfer of material and symbolic value from the groom’s to the bride’s family. Depending on the cultural group, this may involve transfer of money, cattle, house goods, jewelry, or even symbolic ritual artifacts. Bride wealth is the most common form of marriage compensation across cultures. In her study of the Thadou Kukis of northeast India, Burma, and Bangladesh, Indian sociologist Hoineilhing Sitlhou (2018) explores how bride wealth has changed over time. Historically, the items exchanged included cows, copper gongs, silver earrings, and ceremonial clothing for the bride’s parents. Today, more contemporary items are offered, such as gold jewelry, cars, furniture, appliances, and land. One practice that has not changed is paying a portion of the bride wealth prior to the marriage ceremony and the remainder at some later point so that the groom remains in respectful debt to the bride’s family. In other societies, bride wealth must be paid in full before the marriage is considered legitimate. If marriages conducted using bride wealth end in divorce, normally the bride wealth (or equivalent value) is returned to the groom’s family to signify the dissolution of the contract.
Bride service: Similar to bride wealth, bride service involves a transfer of something of value from the groom’s to the bride’s family, but in this case the arrangement involves the contracted labor of the groom, whether before or after the marriage. Future grooms may work for months or years for the bride’s family (usually her father’s household) prior to the marriage, or husbands may work for months or years with the bride’s family after the marriage. In the first case, the groom completes his service prior to the marriage and then moves with the bride back to his family after the marriage. In the second case, the newly married couple remains in residence with the bride’s family until the service is concluded. The advantage of the second type of service is that frequently the wife is living with her mother when her first child (or children) is born. While her children are aligned with her husband’s family as far as descent (and inheritance), her parents are able to support the couple and their first child or children for a period of time.
The contractual obligations of bride wealth and bride service are not without conflict. In many unilineal societies, these obligations create a great deal of strife and conflict that can go on for years. What if the marriage is temperamentally difficult? What if the wife is barren or a child dies? What if the husband’s family suffers economic challenges that create a disparity between what he can offer their family of procreation and what the wife’s lineage could offer the children? Each of these situations creates conflict. Sometimes these conflicts between lineages (because marriage is seen as a contract with the larger family) spill over into the larger society and create larger social divisions.
Dowry, a third form, functions differently than bride wealth and bride price. It is a form of material value, such as money, jewelry, house goods, or heirlooms, that the bride brings into her own marriage to provide her with wealth within her husband’s lineage. In some societies women turn their dowry over to their husbands, but in other societies they retain rights to this wealth as married women. Among Nepalese Brahmans, sons inherit land and property equally at the death of the father, while women receive a dowry of clothing, jewelry, and household utensils from their own patriline at marriage (Stone 1998). They will use this wealth for status within the marriage. In other societies, women create a dual inheritance for their own daughters from their dowry, passing their dowry down through their daughters. Regardless of how the wealth is used, a woman’s most stable route to higher status within a patrilineal society is through the birth of her sons. It is sons within the patriline who will bring wives into their father’s household and increase the size and prominence of the patriline through the birth of their children. In patrilineal societies, women with many sons typically carry a higher social status.
A display of a woman’s dowry in Turkmenistan, in Central Asia. These goods have been laid in preparation for the woman’s marriage. (credit: “wedding gifts 2” Salvatore D’Alia/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
While marriage compensation is most commonly associated with patrilineal societies, it is important to note that almost all marriages represent shared investments of one kind or another. Since marriage is the creation of a new family, spouses most often bring with them into their marriage their skills, traditions, and social networks, all of which carry symbolic weight within societies.
Remarriage Obligations
The many rules and corresponding obligations specific to marriage in unilineal societies (such as residence rules and marriage compensation) are evidence that families and communities invest a great deal in marriages and the formation of new families. So what happens if a young and newly married spouse dies? What about the marriage compensation and the new household? In many unilineal societies (most especially in patrilineal societies), remarriage obligations ensure that in these cases the marriage contract endures. Remarriage obligations require the widowed spouse to remarry someone from the same lineage in order to maintain the stability of the family unit.
There are numerous issues that affect when and how remarriage obligations are enacted. The factors that most affect remarriage obligations are the ages of the spouses and amount of time that has passed since the marriage occurred, the ages of the offspring and whether there are young children within the family unit, and the particular marriage contract and value of the marriage compensation. Cultures (and families) determine how best to enact these rules within their own value systems and based on current need. But the primary underlying purpose of remarriage obligations is to maintain the alliance that was made between the two lineages at the time of the marriage. These are intended to be enduring ties that benefit all members of each lineage.
If the husband dies and there is a surviving wife (now widow), under the levirate remarriage rule she will marry one of her husband’s surviving brothers. While levirate will not be invoked in every case, it is quite common when there are young children remaining within the immediate family unit. Because levirate is usually practiced in societies with polygynous families, a married brother taking an additional wife will not disrupt his existing family, and the new wife and her children will remain within the lineage where the children were born.
The sororate applies to situations in which the wife dies and there is a surviving widower. Under this remarriage rule, the deceased wife’s lineage must provide a replacement female, preferably the former wife’s sister. If her sisters are already married or there are no sisters available, another female from the same lineage can be sent as a replacement. Sororate allows young children from the first marriage to remain with their father in his lineage and also maintain a symbolic and emotional bond with their biological mother’s kindred.
Finally, there is also the highly variable practice of ghost marriage, where a marriage is performed between one or two deceased individuals in order to create an alliance between lineages. Among the Dinka and Nuer of South Sudan, a ghost marriage is similar to the levirate, with the deceased husband’s brother standing in for him in a ghost marriage. Unlike the levirate itself, any children from this second (ghost) marriage will be attributed to the deceased husband and not to the brother or the wider lineage itself. Among Chinese immigrants to Singapore, there are ghost marriage claims in which both spouses may be deceased (Schwartze 2010), continuing a tradition that began generations earlier (Topley 1955).
Arranged Marriages
While all marriages are planned, some are arranged, whether between the spouses involved and/or their families or through a third party. Today, an interesting adaptation of arranged marriages has developed involving online websites and hired marriage brokers to help individuals living in different countries find a suitable spouse from their birth culture. As transnational corporations spread worldwide and individuals become more highly mobile (even nomadic) for work, finding a spouse who shares the same cultural values can be difficult. Although there are marriage brokers for many different cultural groups, there is a proliferation of matchmakers for individuals of Indian nationality or descent. While not all of these sites are reputable, the explosion of marriage brokering businesses reminds us that marriage is, first and foremost, a cultural institution.
Kinship is an adaptive mechanism across cultures. While kinship systems vary, they each address critical elements for a social group. Through families of orientation and procreation and within kinship networks, households are created, offspring are produced, and alliances are established.
