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74-460: The male counterpart of an aunt is an uncle , and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece . The gender-neutral term pibling , a shortened form of parent's sibling , may refer to either an aunt or an uncle. Aunts by birth (sister of a parent) are related to their nieces and nephews by 25%. As half-aunts are related through half-sisters, they are related by 12.5% to their nieces and nephews. Non-consanguineous aunts (female spouse of

148-539: A children's show named De Show van Ome Willem ( The Show of Uncle Willem ). The Dutch poet Ome Ko also used uncle as part of his pseudonym. Rich, wise or otherwise eccentric uncles are also popular in works of fiction. Kinship In anthropology , kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that

222-779: A classificatory terminology groups many different types of relationships under one term. For example, the word brother in English-speaking societies indicates a son of one's same parent; thus, English-speaking societies use the word brother as a descriptive term referring to this relationship only. In many other classificatory kinship terminologies, in contrast, a person's male first cousin (whether mother's brother's son, mother's sister's son, father's brother's son, father's sister's son) may also be referred to as brothers. The major patterns of kinship systems that are known which Lewis Henry Morgan identified through kinship terminology in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of

296-533: A culture, some descent groups may be considered to lead back to gods or animal ancestors ( totems ). This may be conceived of on a more or less literal basis. Kinship can also refer to a principle by which individuals or groups of individuals are organized into social groups , roles, categories and genealogy by means of kinship terminologies . Family relations can be represented concretely (mother, brother, grandfather) or abstractly by degrees of relationship (kinship distance). A relationship may be relative (e.g.

370-421: A father and his brothers. Kinship terminologies include the terms of address used in different languages or communities for different relatives and the terms of reference used to identify the relationship of these relatives to ego or to each other. Kin terminologies can be either descriptive or classificatory . When a descriptive terminology is used, a term refers to only one specific type of relationship, while

444-470: A father in relation to a child) or reflect an absolute (e.g. the difference between a mother and a childless woman). Degrees of relationship are not identical to heirship or legal succession. Many codes of ethics consider the bond of kinship as creating obligations between the related persons stronger than those between strangers, as in Confucian filial piety . In a more general sense, kinship may refer to

518-403: A feature of humans, but also of many other primates , was yet to emerge and society was considered to be a uniquely human affair. As a result, early kinship theorists saw an apparent need to explain not only the details of how human social groups are constructed, their patterns, meanings and obligations, but also why they are constructed at all. The why explanations thus typically presented

592-406: A kind of relation on all peoples, insisting that kinship consists in relations of consanguinity and that kinship as consanguinity is a universal condition.(Schneider 1984, 72) Schneider preferred to focus on these often ignored processes of "performance, forms of doing, various codes for conduct, different roles" (p. 72) as the most important constituents of kinship. His critique quickly prompted

666-684: A language, both in the uses of terms for kin but also in the fluidities of language, meaning, and networks. His field studies criticized the ideas of structural-functional stability of kinship groups as corporations with charters that lasted long beyond the lifetimes of individuals, which had been the orthodoxy of British Social Anthropology . This sparked debates over whether kinship could be resolved into specific organized sets of rules and components of meaning, or whether kinship meanings were more fluid, symbolic, and independent of grounding in supposedly determinate relations among individuals or groups, such as those of descent or prescriptions for marriage. From

740-421: A man and a woman such that children born to the woman are the recognized legitimate offspring of both partners." Edmund Leach argued that no one definition of marriage applied to all cultures, but offered a list of ten rights frequently associated with marriage, including sexual monopoly and rights with respect to children (with specific rights differing across cultures). There is wide cross-cultural variation in

814-420: A maternal grandfather and his sister are referred to as paanth ngan-ngethe and addressed with the vocative ngethin. In Bardi , a father and his sister are irrmoorrgooloo ; a man's wife and his children are aalamalarr. In Murrinh-patha , nonsingular pronouns are differentiated not only by the gender makeup of the group, but also by the members' interrelation. If the members are in a sibling-like relation,

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888-451: A person's kinship to their parental female sibling or parental female in-law exists. Instead, there are specific terms describing a person's kinship to their mother's female sibling, and a person's kinship to their father's female sibling, per the following table: Aunts in popular culture have not always been portrayed as positive roles. Childless aunts are often subjected to othering in popular culture and presented as exotic or as having

962-712: A person's kinship to their parental male sibling or parental male in-law exists. Instead, there are specific terms describing a person's kinship to their mother's brother ( dajë in Albanian , daiyee in Persian , wuj (diminutive: wujek ) in Polish ) or a person's kinship to their father's brother ( xhajë in Albanian, amou in Persian, stryj (diminutive: stryjek ) in Polish ). An analogous differentiation exists using separate terms to describe

1036-484: A person's kinship to their mother's female sibling ( teze in Albanian, khaleh in Persian, ciotka (diminutive: ciocia ) in Polish ), and a person's kinship to their father's female sibling, ( hallë in Albanian, ammeh in Persian, stryjna (diminutive: stryjenka ) in Polish ). Furthermore, in Persian culture the terms used to describe a person's kinship to their maternal or paternal in-laws bear clear and unambiguous descriptions of that relationship, differentiating

1110-462: A relationship between two entities (e.g. the word 'sister' denotes the relationship between the speaker or some other entity and another feminine entity who shares the parents of the former), trirelational kin-terms—also known as triangular, triadic, ternary, and shared kin-terms—denote a relationship between three distinct entities. These occur commonly in Australian Aboriginal languages with

1184-449: A relative) are not genetically related to their nieces and nephews. In some cultures, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia, respected senior members of the community, often also referred to as Elders , are addressed as " uncle " (for men) and "aunt" for women, as a mark of seniority and respect, whether related or not, such as Aunty Kathy Mills . In several cultures, no single inclusive term describing both

1258-498: A second-best role, with motherhood preferred. Aunt Flo is a popular euphemism referring to the menstrual cycle . An agony aunt is a colloquial term for a female advice columnist . Fictional aunts include: Uncle An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent, as well as the parent of the cousins. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives . The female counterpart of an uncle

1332-412: 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

1406-445: A social relationship as created, constituted and maintained by a process of interaction, or doing (Schneider 1984, 165). Schneider used the example of the citamangen / fak relationship in Yap society, that his own early research had previously glossed over as a father / son relationship, to illustrate the problem; The crucial point is this: in the relationship between citamangen and fak

1480-457: A society who are not close genealogical relatives may nevertheless use what he called kinship terms (which he considered to be originally based on genealogical ties). This fact was already evident in his use of the term affinity within his concept of the system of kinship . The most lasting of Morgan's contributions was his discovery of the difference between descriptive and classificatory kinship terms, which situated broad kinship classes on

1554-425: A species (e.g. as in kin selection theory). 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 . Family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage), or co-residence/shared consumption (see Nurture kinship ). In most societies, it is the principal institution for

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1628-440: A systemic cultural model that can be elicited in fieldwork, but also when allowing considerable individual variability in details, such as when they are recorded through relative products. In trying to resolve the problems of dubious inferences about kinship "systems", George P. Murdock (1949, Social Structure) compiled kinship data to test a theory about universals in human kinship in the way that terminologies were influenced by

1702-456: A third pronoun (SIB) will be chosen distinct from the Masculine (MASC) and Feminine/Neuter (FEM). In many societies where kinship connections are important, there are rules, though they may be expressed or be taken for granted. There are four main headings that anthropologists use to categorize rules of descent. They are bilateral , unilineal , ambilineal and double descent. A descent group

1776-465: A wide array of lineage-based societies with a classificatory kinship system , potential spouses are sought from a specific class of relatives as determined by a prescriptive marriage rule. Insofar as regular marriages following prescriptive rules occur, lineages are linked together in fixed relationships; these ties between lineages may form political alliances in kinship dominated societies. French structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss developed

1850-512: Is a social group whose members talk about common ancestry. A unilineal society is one in which the descent of an individual is reckoned either from the mother's or the father's line of descent. Matrilineal descent is based on relationship to females of the family line. A child would not be recognized with their father's family in these societies, but would be seen as a member of their mother's family's line. Simply put, individuals belong to their mother's descent group. Matrilineal descent includes

1924-600: Is a descent group composed of three or more clans each of whose apical ancestors are descended from a further common ancestor. If a society is divided into exactly two descent groups, each is called a moiety , after the French word for half . If the two halves are each obliged to marry out, and into the other, these are called matrimonial moieties . Houseman and White (1998b, bibliography) have discovered numerous societies where kinship network analysis shows that two halves marry one another, similar to matrimonial moieties, except that

1998-534: Is an aunt , and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece . The word comes from Latin : avunculus , the diminutive of avus (grandfather), and is a family relationship within an extended or immediate family. In some cultures and families, children may refer to the cousins of their parents as uncle (or aunt). It is also used as a title of respect for older relatives, neighbours, acquaintances, family friends, and even total strangers in some cultures, for example Aboriginal Australian elders . Using

2072-482: Is called Mama. A paternal aunt's husband is called Fufa (or Fuva) and a maternal aunt's husband is called Mausa (or Masa) in Hindi (or Gujarati). Likewise, in neighbouring Bangladesh (and Pakistan), mother's brother is also Mama (or Mamu) as well father's brother as Chacha. A paternal aunt's husband is Phupha and maternal aunt's husband is Khalu. Due to the loving image of an old but wise and friendly uncle in many cultures

2146-475: Is considered most significant differs from culture to culture. A clan is generally a descent group claiming common descent from an apical ancestor. Often, the details of parentage are not important elements of the clan tradition. Non-human apical ancestors are called totems . Examples of clans are found in Chechen , Chinese , Irish , Japanese , Polish , Scottish , Tlingit , and Somali societies. A phratry

2220-524: Is fronted, however, the term nakurrng now incorporates the male speaker as a propositus ( P i.e. point of reference for a kin-relation) and encapsulates the entire relationship as follows: Many Australian languages also have elaborate systems of referential terms for denoting groups of people based on their relationship to one another (not just their relationship to the speaker or an external propositus like 'grandparents'). For example, in Kuuk Thaayorre ,

2294-488: Is not the only function of the family; in societies with a sexual division of labor , marriage , and the resulting relationship between two people, it is necessary for the formation of an economically productive household . Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology – for example some languages distinguish between affinal and consanguine uncles, whereas others have only one word to refer to both

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2368-452: Is one criterion for membership of many social groups. But it may not be the only criterion; birth, or residence, or a parent's former residence, or utilization of garden land, or participation in exchange and feasting activities or in house-building or raiding, may be other relevant criteria for group membership."(Barnes 1962,6) Similarly, Langness' ethnography of the Bena Bena also emphasized

2442-491: Is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged. When defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal . A broad definition of marriage includes those that are monogamous , polygamous , same-sex and temporary. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved, and any offspring they may produce. Marriage may result, for example, in "a union between

2516-624: Is the case in many societies practicing totemic religion where society is divided into several exogamous totemic clans, such as most Aboriginal Australian societies. Marriages between parents and children, or between full siblings, with few exceptions, have been considered incest and forbidden. However, marriages between more distant relatives have been much more common, with one estimate being that 80% of all marriages in history have been between second cousins or closer. Systemic forms of preferential marriage may have wider social implications in terms of economic and political organization. In

2590-556: The alliance theory to account for the "elementary" kinship structures created by the limited number of prescriptive marriage rules possible. Claude Lévi-Strauss argued in The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), that the incest taboo necessitated the exchange of women between kinship groups. Levi-Strauss thus shifted the emphasis from descent groups to the stable structures or relations between groups that preferential and prescriptive marriage rules created. One of

2664-468: The " House of Windsor ". The concept of a house society was originally proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss who called them " sociétés à maison ". The concept has been applied to understand the organization of societies from Mesoamerica and the Moluccas to North Africa and medieval Europe. Lévi-Strauss introduced the concept as an alternative to 'corporate kinship group' among the cognatic kinship groups of

2738-506: The 1950s onwards, reports on kinship patterns in the New Guinea Highlands added some momentum to what had until then been only occasional fleeting suggestions that living together (co-residence) might underlie social bonding, and eventually contributed to the general shift away from a genealogical approach (see below section). For example, on the basis of his observations, Barnes suggested: [C]learly, genealogical connexion of some sort

2812-464: The Batek people of Malaysia recognize kinship ties through both parents' family lines, and kinship terms indicate that neither parent nor their families are of more or less importance than the other. Some societies reckon descent patrilineally for some purposes, and matrilineally for others. This arrangement is sometimes called double descent. For instance, certain property and titles may be inherited through

2886-505: 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. In biology , "kinship" typically refers to the degree of genetic relatedness or the coefficient of relationship between individual members of

2960-459: The Human Family are: There is a seventh type of system only identified as distinct later: The six types (Crow, Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Omaha, Sudanese) that are not fully classificatory (Dravidian, Australian) are those identified by Murdock (1949) prior to Lounsbury's (1964) rediscovery of the linguistic principles of classificatory kin terms. While normal kin-terms discussed above denote

3034-549: The Iroquois proper are specifically matrilineal. In a society which reckons descent bilaterally (bilineal), descent is reckoned through both father and mother, without unilineal descent groups. Societies with the Eskimo kinship system, like the Inuit , Yupik , and most Western societies, are typically bilateral. The egocentric kindred group is also typical of bilateral societies. Additionally,

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3108-644: The Pacific region. The socially significant groupings within these societies have variable membership because kinship is reckoned bilaterally (through both father's and mother's kin) and comes together for only short periods. Property, genealogy and residence are not the basis for the group's existence. Marriage is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it

3182-831: The Western Pacific) described patterns of events with concrete individuals as participants stressing the relative stability of institutions and communities, but without insisting on abstract systems or models of kinship. Gluckman (1955, The judicial process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia) balanced the emphasis on stability of institutions against processes of change and conflict, inferred through detailed analysis of instances of social interaction to infer rules and assumptions. John Barnes , Victor Turner , and others, affiliated with Gluckman's Manchester school of anthropology, described patterns of actual network relations in communities and fluid situations in urban or migratory context, as with

3256-443: The actual bonds of blood relationship had a force and vitality of their own quite apart from any social overlay which they may also have acquired, and it is this biological relationship itself which accounts for what Radcliffe-Brown called "the source of social cohesion". (Schneider 1984, 49) Schneider himself emphasised a distinction between the notion of a social relationship as intrinsically given and inalienable ( from birth ), and

3330-437: The attempts to break out of universalizing assumptions and theories about kinship, Radcliffe-Brown (1922, The Andaman Islands ; 1930, The social organization of Australian tribes) was the first to assert that kinship relations are best thought of as concrete networks of relationships among individuals. He then described these relationships, however, as typified by interlocking interpersonal roles. Malinowski (1922, Argonauts of

3404-418: The avunculate in general society. Uncles by birth (brother of a parent) are related to their nieces and nephews on average by 25% (1750 centimorgans ) though this can vary considerably. As half-uncles are related through half brothers, they are related by average 12.5%. Non-consanguineous uncles (male spouse of a relative) are not related by blood. In Arabic, one's mother's brother is called Khal خال and

3478-460: The basis of imputing abstract social patterns of relationships having little or no overall relation to genetic closeness but instead cognition about kinship, social distinctions as they affect linguistic usages in kinship terminology , and strongly relate, if only by approximation, to patterns of marriage. Source: A more flexible view of kinship was formulated in British social anthropology . Among

3552-405: The behavioral similarities or social differences among pairs of kin, proceeding on the view that the psychological ordering of kinship systems radiates out from ego and the nuclear family to different forms of extended family . Lévi-Strauss (1949, Les Structures Elementaires), on the other hand, also looked for global patterns to kinship, but viewed the "elementary" forms of kinship as lying in

3626-476: The boundaries of incest . A great deal of inference was necessarily involved in such constructions as to "systems" of kinship, and attempts to construct systemic patterns and reconstruct kinship evolutionary histories on these bases were largely invalidated in later work. However, anthropologist Dwight Read later argued that the way in which kinship categories are defined by individual researchers are substantially inconsistent. This not only occurs when working within

3700-424: The community, known as elders , as "uncle" (and women as " aunty ") as a mark of seniority and respect, whether related or not, such as Uncle Archie (Roach) and Uncle Jack Charles . In India , unambiguous names are used for various uncles such as one's father's brother chacha (or kaka). If the brother of one's father is older than one's father then he is called Tauji (or taya or bapuji). One's mother's brother

3774-452: The context of Australian Aboriginal kinship . In Bininj Kunwok , for example, the bi-relational kin-term nakurrng is differentiated from its tri-relational counterpart by the position of the possessive pronoun ke . When nakurrng is anchored to the addressee with ke in the second position, it simply means 'brother' (which includes a broader set of relations than in English). When the ke

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3848-508: The early 20th century. Kinship systems as defined in anthropological texts and ethnographies were seen as constituted by patterns of behavior and attitudes in relation to the differences in terminology, listed above, for referring to relationships as well as for addressing others. Many anthropologists went so far as to see, in these patterns of kinship, strong relations between kinship categories and patterns of marriage, including forms of marriage, restrictions on marriage, and cultural concepts of

3922-518: The fact of life in social groups ( which appeared to be unique to humans ) as being largely a result of human ideas and values. Morgan's explanation for why humans live in groups was largely based on the notion that all humans have an inherent natural valuation of genealogical ties (an unexamined assumption that would remain at the heart of kinship studies for another century, see below), and therefore also an inherent desire to construct social groups around these ties. Even so, Morgan found that members of

3996-533: The formation of basic economic, political and religious groups. Kinship can refer both to the patterns of social relationships themselves, or it can refer to the study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures (i.e. kinship studies). Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms in the study of kinship, such as descent , descent group, lineage , affinity/affine , consanguinity/cognate and fictive kinship . Further, even within these two broad usages of

4070-457: The foundational works in the anthropological study of kinship was Morgan's Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871). As is the case with other social sciences, Anthropology and kinship studies emerged at a time when the understanding of the Human species' comparative place in the world was somewhat different from today's. Evidence that life in stable social groups is not just

4144-527: The male line, and others through the female line. Societies can also consider descent to be ambilineal (such as Hawaiian kinship ) where offspring determine their lineage through the matrilineal line or the patrilineal line . A lineage is a unilineal descent group that can demonstrate their common descent from a known apical ancestor . Unilineal lineages can be matrilineal or patrilineal, depending on whether they are traced through mothers or fathers, respectively. Whether matrilineal or patrilineal descent

4218-483: The mistake of assuming these particular cultural values of 'blood is thicker than water', common in their own societies, were 'natural' and universal for all human cultures (i.e. a form of ethnocentrism). He concluded that, due to these unexamined assumptions, the whole enterprise of 'kinship' in anthropology may have been built on faulty foundations. His 1984 book A Critique of The Study of Kinship gave his fullest account of this critique. Certainly for Morgan (1870:10)

4292-475: The mother's brother, who in some societies may pass along inheritance to the sister's children or succession to a sister's son. Conversely, with patrilineal descent , individuals belong to their father's descent group. Children are recognized as members of their father's family, and descent is based on relationship to males of the family line. Societies with the Iroquois kinship system, are typically unilineal, while

4366-472: The mother's sister is called Khalah خالة. On the father's side, one's father's brother is called Amm عم and the father's sister is called Ammah عمّة. In Turkish, one's mother's brother is called dayi , father's brother is amca , and aunt's husband is known as enişte . One's mother's sister is called "teyze". Father's sister is "hala". Uncle's wife is "yenge". In some cultures, like Albanian, Slavic, or Persian, no single inclusive term describing both

4440-423: The parental in-laws from blood-relatives. For example, there is a specific term describing a person's kinship to the spouse of their paternal uncle (i.e. zan-amou , literally 'wife-of-' amou ). This clarifies that kinship is to the spouse of the person's paternal male sibling, as opposed to a blood-relationship. Many Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples address male respected senior members of

4514-425: The primacy of residence patterns in 'creating' kinship ties: The sheer fact of residence in a Bena Bena group can and does determine kinship. People do not necessarily reside where they do because they are kinsmen: rather they become kinsmen because they reside there." (Langness 1964, 172 emphasis in original) In 1972 David M. Schneider raised deep problems with the notion that human social bonds and 'kinship'

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4588-493: The reversal of terms so that the old, dependent man becomes fak , to the young man, tam . The European and the anthropological notion of consanguinity, of blood relationship and descent, rest on precisely the opposite kind of value. It rests more on the state of being... on the biogenetic relationship which is represented by one or another variant of the symbol of 'blood' (consanguinity), or on 'birth', on qualities rather than on performance. We have tried to impose this definition of

4662-439: The social rules governing the selection of a partner for marriage. In many societies, the choice of partner is limited to suitable persons from specific social groups. In some societies the rule is that a partner is selected from an individual's own social group – endogamy , this is the case in many class and caste based societies. But in other societies a partner must be chosen from a different group than one's own – exogamy , this

4736-440: The socialization of children. As the basic unit for raising children, Anthropologists most generally classify family organization as matrifocal (a mother and her children); conjugal (a husband, his wife, and children; also called nuclear family ); avuncular (a brother, his sister, and her children); or extended family in which parents and children co-reside with other members of one parent's family. However, producing children

4810-411: The stress in the definition of the relationship is more on doing than on being. That is, it is more what the citamangen does for fak and what fak does for citamangen that makes or constitutes the relationship. This is demonstrated, first, in the ability to terminate absolutely the relationship where there is a failure in the doing, when the fak fails to do what he is supposed to do; and second, in

4884-419: The study of kinship is the study of what humans do with these basic facts of life – mating , gestation , parenthood , socialization , siblingship etc. Human society is unique, he argues, in that we are "working with the same raw material as exists in the animal world, but [we] can conceptualize and categorize it to serve social ends." These social ends include the socialization of children and

4958-537: The symbolic meanings surrounding ideas of kinship in American Culture found that Americans ascribe a special significance to 'blood ties' as well as related symbols like the naturalness of marriage and raising children within this culture. In later work (1972 and 1984) Schneider argued that unexamined genealogical notions of kinship had been embedded in anthropology since Morgan's early work because American anthropologists (and anthropologists in western Europe) had made

5032-440: The term in this way is a form of fictive kinship . Any social institution where a special relationship exists between a man and his sisters' children is known as an avunculate (or avunculism or avuncularism). This relationship can be formal or informal, depending on the society. Early anthropological research focused on the association between the avunculate and matrilineal descent, while later research has expanded to consider

5106-589: The term, there are different theoretical approaches. Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related by both descent – i.e. social relations during development – and by marriage . Human kinship relations through marriage are commonly called "affinity" in contrast to the relationships that arise in one's group of origin, which may be called one's descent group. In some cultures, kinship relationships may be considered to extend out to people an individual has economic or political relationships with, or other forms of social connections. Within

5180-597: The two halves—which they call matrimonial sides —are neither named nor descent groups, although the egocentric kinship terms may be consistent with the pattern of sidedness, whereas the sidedness is culturally evident but imperfect. The word deme refers to an endogamous local population that does not have unilineal descent. Thus, a deme is a local endogamous community without internal segmentation into clans. In some societies kinship and political relations are organized around membership in corporately organized dwellings rather than around descent groups or lineages , as in

5254-406: The ways that families were connected by marriage in different fundamental forms resembling those of modes of exchange : symmetric and direct, reciprocal delay, or generalized exchange . Building on Lévi-Strauss's (1949) notions of kinship as caught up with the fluid languages of exchange, Edmund Leach (1961, Pul Eliya) argued that kinship was a flexible idiom that had something of the grammar of

5328-491: The word has been used as a loving nickname for many people. In Tibetan mythology Akhu Tönpa ( Uncle Tompa ) is a familiar and well-beloved figure. The American national personification Uncle Sam serves as an allegorical fatherly figure to many Americans. Various children's TV hosts have used uncle as their nickname, including Walt Disney ( Uncle Walt ), Bob Davidse ( Nonkel Bob , literally Uncle Bob ), Edwin Rutten (who hosted

5402-634: The work of J. Clyde Mitchell (1965, Social Networks in Urban Situations). Yet, all these approaches clung to a view of stable functionalism , with kinship as one of the central stable institutions. More recently, under the influence of "new kinship studies", there has been a shift of emphasis from the being to the doing of kinship. A new generation of anthropologist study the processes of doing kinship in new contexts such as in migrant communities and in queer families. The concept of "system of kinship" tended to dominate anthropological studies of kinship in

5476-614: Was a natural category built upon genealogical ties and made a fuller argument in his 1984 book A Critique of the Study of Kinship which had a major influence on the subsequent study of kinship. Before the questions raised within anthropology about the study of 'kinship' by David M. Schneider and others from the 1960s onwards, anthropology itself had paid very little attention to the notion that kinship bonds were anything other than connected to consanguineal (or genealogical) relatedness (or its local cultural conceptions). Schneider's 1968 study of

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