Kinship I

III. The Controversy on Kinship.

The layman is therefore not unjustifiably taken aback, when on opening a modern scien tific book on primitive society, he finds himself confronted by extreme dissension and acrimonious controversy about the very subject on which he expected a simple statement of obvious fact. Broadly speaking, anthropologists are divided on the questions: does the essential unit consist of the family, or of a wider group, such as the clan, the horde, the "undivided commune"; was mar riage between single pairs present from the outset or did it evolve from a preceding promiscuity or group marriage; was human kin ship originally individual or communistic? One school stands by individual marriage and kinship, and the importance of the family, the other affirms an original communism in sex, economics and kinship—and the two schools are still disputing the issue.

This great anthropological rift, however, is not due merely to the perversity and pugnacity of specialists, nor to any inherent vice of method or insufficiency of material. It often happens in science that the seemingly simplest and most fundamental prob lems are really the most difficult and remain longest debated and unsettled. As the physicists cannot make up their minds on matter, force or energy, as the chemists change their views on the atom and the elements, as the mathematicians are least certain about space, time and numbers, so the social anthropologists may be forgiven if they still debate, at times hotly, kinship—that con ception in which centre all their other problems and ideas.

IV. Modes of Counting Descent.

Kinship, indeed, appar ently simple when regarded as ties of union arising within the family out of procreation and the rearing of the young, becomes far more complex when we study it in its further ramifications in tribal life. On one point of great importance a correction has to be made in the traditional view that had undivided sway, before Bachofen, McLennan and Morgan revolutionised social anthro pology during the latter half of the r 9th century. Kinship is by no means invariably patriarchal ; it is not always based on the recognition of the father's primary importance in establishing descent ; nor is his right to exercise authority or to hand over his position, wealth and privileges to his son universal. In many soci eties the mother is the parent through whom kinship is counted, her brother is the male head of the family and inheritance of goods, succession of office and all rights, obligations and privileges are passed from a man to his sister's children.

This legal system is called mother-right (see MATRIARCHY), or more correctly matriliny; and the relation between a man and his sister's son, avunculate (q.v.). The circumstance that kin ship can be traced through both father and mother has been termed (by Lowie) "the bilateral principle of counting descent"; while the almost universal fact that in any given culture empha sis is laid upon one side only has been defined as the unilateral mode of regarding kinship. The bilateral aspect of kinship is never completely obliterated and unilateral counting only means a more or less limited emphasis on one side and never a complete elimination of the other.

V. The Hypertrophy of Primitive Bonds.

Another feature which rakes kinship in many a native culture very different from our own is its extraordinary hypertrophy : it transcends the limits of the family, of the local group, at times even of the widest circle of acquaintances.

Perhaps the most baffling and disquieting symptom of these col lective aspects of kinship is the queer linguistic usage known as the "classificatory" system of kinship nomenclature. In most savage tongues a man applies such terms as father, mother, brother, sister and so on, not only to the members of his family but, according to rules which vary with the social organization, to classes of people who stand in a definite relation to his parents. In some communities, indeed, for example in Australia, kinship terms go as far as actual social relations and even beyond—that is, even distant strangers never met or seen are regarded as poten tially belonging to one class of kindred or another.

Thus language and linguistic usage seem apparently to break the bonds of family, to obliterate parenthood by substituting a "group of fathers" for the individual one, a "group of mothers" for the real mother, and so on. Nor is this usage a mere rule of politeness : the "classificatory" terms are applied according to strict rules, to a number of people, whose relationship is traceable by pedigree or by membership in a clan or class. Behind the linguistic usage there is always a set of mutual obligations between an individual and all those whom he calls "fathers," "mothers," "brothers," etc. The "fathers" or "brothers" act as a group on certain occasions and they are therefore a well-defined social class and not merely a name.