Kinship

Kinship is the relation by the bond of blood, marriage and includes kindered ones. It represents one of the basic social institutions. Kinship is universal and in most societies plays a significant role in the socialization of individuals and the maintenance of group solidarity. It is very important in primitive societies and extends its influence on almost all their activities.A.R Radcliffe Brown defines kinship as a system of dynamic relations between person and person in a community, the behavior of any two persons in any of these relations being regulated in some way and to a greater or less extent by social usage.

Affinal and Consanguineous kinship

Relation by the bond of blood is called consanguineous kinship such as parents and their children and between children of same parents. Thus son, daughter, brother, sister, paternal uncle etc are consanguineous kin. Each of these is related through blood. Kinship due to marriage is affinal kinship. New relations are created when marriage takes place. Not only man establishes relationship with the girl and the members of her but also family members of both the man and the woman get bound among themselves. Kinship includes Agnates (sapindas, sagotras); cognates (from mother's side) and bandhus (atamabandhus, pitrubandhus, and matrubandhus).

Descent

A descent group is any social group in which membership depends on common descent from a real or mythical ancestor. Thus a lineage is a unilineal descent group in which membership may rest either on matrilineal descent (patrilineage) or on matrilineal descent (matrilineage). In a cognatic descent, all descendants of an ancestor\ancestress enjoy membership of a common descent group by virtue of any combination of male or female linkages. However, cognatic descent is sometimes used synonymously with either 'bilateral' or 'consanguine descent.

A clan is a unilineal descent groups the members of which may claim either partilineal (Patriclan) or matrilineal descent (Matriclan) from a founder, but do not know the genealogical ties with the ancestor\ancestress. A phratry is a grouping of clans which are related by traditions of common descent. Mythical ancestors are thus common in clans and phratries. Totemic clans, in which membership is periodically reinforced by common rituals such as sacred meals, have been of special interest to social anthropologists and sociologists of religion. Where the descent groups of a society are organized into two main divisions, these are known as moieties (halves). The analysis of descent groups is crucial for any anthropological study of pre-industrial society, but in most Western industrial societies the principle of descent is not prominent and descent groups are uncommon.


Primary, secondary and tertiary kins

Primary kins:

Every individual who belong to a nuclear family finds his primary kins within the family. There are 8 primary kins- husband-wife, father-son, mother-son, father-daughter, mother-daughter, younger brother-elder brother, younger sister-elder sister and brother-sister.
Secondary kins:

Outside the nuclear family the individual can have 33 types of secondary relatives. For example mother's brother, brother's wife, sister's husband, father's brother.

Tertiary kins:

Tertiary kins refer to the secondary kins of our primary kins.For example wife's brother's son, sister's husband's brother and so on. There are 151 types of tertiary kins.

Kinship Usages:

Kinship usages or the rules of kinship are significant in understanding kinship system. They serve two main purposes:

• They create groups or special groupings or kin. For example- family extended family, clan etc.

• Kinship rules govern the role of relationships among the kins.

Kinship usage provides guidelines for interaction among persons in these social groupings. It defines proper and acceptable role relationships. Thus it acts as a regulator of social life. Some of these relationships are: avoidance, teknonymy, avunculate, amitate, couvades and joking relationship.

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