Kinship and Family Systems

The First Social Technology

Before states or written law, kinship organized everything: marriage, residence, inheritance, and protection. Anthropologists map this with standard notation: triangles for men, circles for women, equals signs for marriage, and vertical lines for descent.

Societies choose which parental line transmits membership:

A crucial surprise: in a matrilineal system, descent through women is not rule by women. Authority belongs to the mother's brother, making your father legally an affectionate outsider to your lineage.

Marriage and Descent Rules

Exogamy requires marrying outside a defined group, while endogamy requires marrying inside one. Wealth moves via bridewealth (groom to bride's kin) or dowry (accompanying the bride).

Residence terms include patrilocal (with his kin), matrilocal (with hers), and neolocal (new home). Crucially, societies distinguish parallel cousins (same-sex siblings' kids) from cross cousins (opposite-sex siblings' kids). Often, parallel cousins are forbidden spouses while cross cousins are preferred.

$$\text{Matrilineal rule: child} \in \text{lineage}(\text{mother})$$

Because of $\text{lineage}(\text{mother})$, Ego's heir under matriliny is the sister's son, the closest male inside the lineage. Kinship is the skeleton beneath recorded history.