Page 124 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Rosy Hastir, Lovely Professional University
Sonia Sharma, Lovely Professional Universit
Unit 5: Kinship

Unit 5: Kinship Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
5.1 Kinship Categories
5.2 Importance of Kinship
5.3 Features of Kinship
5.4 Summary
5.5 Key-Words
5.6 Review Questions
5.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Know the categories of kinship
• Understand the importance of kinship.
• Discuss the features of kinship.
Introduction

Kinship is a term with various meanings depending upon the context. This article reflects the long-
standing use of the term in anthropology, which is usually considered to refer to the web of social
relationships that form an important part of the lives of most humans in most societies, although its
exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated (see below).
In other disciplines, kinship may have a different meaning. In biology, it typically refers to the degree
of genetic relatedness or coefficient of relationship between individual members of a species. It may
also be used in this specific sense when applied to human relationships, in which case its meaning is
closer to consanguinity or genealogy.
In a more general sense, kinship may refer to a similarity or affinity between entities on the basis of
some or all of their characteristics that are under focus. This may be due to a shared ontological
origin, a shared historical or cultural connection, or some other perceived shared features that connect
the two entities. For example, a person studying the ontological roots of human languages (etymology)
might ask whether there is kinship between the English word seven and the German word sieben. It
can be used in a more diffuse sense as in, for example, the news headline “Madonna feels kinship
with vilified Wallis Simpson”, to imply a felt similarity or empathy between two or more entities.
This article is focused on the anthropological sense of the word kinship, its referents and how these
have been studied, theorized about and understood within the discipline. Within anthropology, kinship
can refer both to the study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures, or it
can refer to the patterns of social relationships themselves. Further, even within these two broad usages
of the term, there are different approaches, which are covered below. Over its history, anthropology
has developed a number of related concepts and terms, such as descent, descent groups, lineages,
affines, cognates and even fictive kinship and these are treated in their own subsections here, or in
linked articles.
Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related both by descent (one’s social
relations during development), and also relatives by marriage. Human kinship relations through
marriage are commonly called “affinity” in contrast to the relationships that arise in one’s group of

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