Page 25 - DSOC402_SOCIOLOGY_OF_KINSHIP_ENGLISH

Unit 3: Basic Terms and Concepts: Inheritance, Succession, Consanguinity and Affinity

Tertiary Relatives : Those who are secondary relatives of our primary relative or primary rela- Notes
tive of our secondary relative, are tertiary relatives.
Great grandfather is our tertiary relative because our father is our primary relative and father’s
father is secondary relative so grand father’s father will tertiary relative. Similarly brother-in-
law’s son will be tertiary relative because brother-in-law is secondary relative.
Mardock has mentiond 151 types of tertiary relatives. We can take this series further to fourth,
fifth, sixth category.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
1. A family can have eight type of ____________.
2. Grand father’s father will be our _______________.
3. A continuous process of acquiring a particular land by a species is called _____________.

3.3 Succession

This concept is use in two ways. First, this concept indicates an ecological process of acquiring
an area by eliminating someone forcefully who ownes the land. This process of throwing out
one species and acquiring by other is called succession. Succession occurs when an assailant
becomes double possessor of an area.
Second, this concept can be used for transfer of rights, seniority, election or on the basis of kin-
ship. Word ‘succession’ usually used as a synonyms of word ‘inheritance’ which explains the
process of transfer of post and property, so it is more appropriate to call it succession to post
because succession usually explains the process of transfer of post. Succession to post can be
maternal or paternal.

Inheritance

Transfer of legal rights of persons and assets (things) is called inheritance. According to some
sociologists inheritance doesn’t mean transfer of assets (property) only but includes post, status
and social status also.
When state gets transfered then things are also transfered naturally to the successor. So when we
take about transfer of state then not only property but it includes the head’s status also. Actually
inheritance is a comprehensive concept which included transfer of property and post both. It
will be more appropriate to use the concepts of inheritance and right to accession for seperate
processes of transfer for both. Professor W.H.P. Reiverse has shown clear difference among
the processes and succession, inheritance and rith to accession many years ago while searching
the facts related to succession in ancient societies. He recommended to use inheritance for the
transfer of property and succession for post and status. The word inheritance is used in English
for the transfer of property, but actually it includes both property and post. There are four laws
of inheritance—paternal, maternal, bilateral and collateral inheritance.

Bilateral Inheritance

The word bilateral is used for both transfer of property or succession by man and woman, when
the property is transfered to a person seperately both sides matrilineal and patrilineal, then it is
called bilateral inheritance.

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