paper by Zachàr Laskewicz
 |
9505-KIN
Comparing
the
Significance
of
Kinship in
Contrasting
Cultures
paper by
Zachār Laskewicz
KINSHIP has become certainly an important division of study
within the discipline of anthropology, largely because of its intimate
relationship with almost every social level, influencing how people interact
with one another, who they interact with and ultimately how they see and
understand themselves. According to the
dictionary, kinship is involved with "relationships by blood, or consanguinity;
affinity with relationships brought about by marriage." (Beattie, 1966). As will be demonstrated in this short
article, kinship is a much more complicated matter than envisioned in this
definition, involving "relations of authority and subordination, of economic
exchange, of domestic cooperation, of ritual" (Beattie, 1966).
It is important to note that we as Westerners should
be very careful in our analytical approach because of the restrictions provided
by our own 'kinship' system. Like in
other areas of anthropology, kinship studies have also been plagued by the
problem of ethnocentrism.
Firstly we have to understand that the notion of
'kinship' is as much a mental process as it is a practical one; the way people
consider their kin is based on different religious and philosophical
conceptions to our own resulting in an incredible contrast in the way people
view their environment and the people populating it. To be able to encompass this complexity it
has been necessary for anthropologists to develop a theoretical discourse which
encompasses modern conceptions of kinship within a larger pattern, rather than
developing simply a theory that uses our model as the standard.
In this article I will be discussing 'kinship' in the
context of large-scale, contemporary (western) societies, and demonstrating the
similarities and contrasts to those kinship systems existing in small-scale
societies. Our own kinship system has to
be placed into its own context, resulting from political and economic
developments. It is clear then that such
a system can and should not be used as a basis from which forms in 'simpler'
societies deviate. It will be
demonstrated that, in fact, our society with its emphasis on the individual and
scientific development, the strong bindings of 'kinship' have been replaced by
different types of social bindings with people who are not necessarily part of
our 'descent group'. It will also be
demonstrated that these societies which are sometimes referred to as 'simple',
have in fact a much more complex and all-encompassing view of the social
structures surrounding them, one that makes our own seem lightweight and
superficial. Only after discussing these
matters will be able to make some contrasts and conclusions.
To begin, it is important to consider the modern
'nuclear' family, one in which the central family core is the binding unit:
characterised by the roles father, mother and the children. According to Edward Shorter "the nuclear
family is a state of mind rather than a particular kind of structure or set of
household arrangements" (Shorter, 1977).
This conception of the family derives from a "single, basic
form-bilateral descent, strongly emphasised nuclear family, and a distinct but
secondarily important kindred" (Schneider and Homans, 1971). In this sense, our concept of the family is
more than simply a biological reality, but is closely connected to how we are taught
to think about this structure and the people that are directly involved in
it. The question is, why have we ended
up with this conception of the 'nuclear core' family unit. A combination of historical, economic and
scientific reasons can be proposed.
David Schneider presents us firstly with a scientific
proposal. According to Schneider the
basic belief underlying our conception of family can be taken from our
conception of the origin of children. He
states that it is believed that "both mother and father give substantially the
same kind and amounts of [genetic] material to the child, and that the child's
whole biogenetic identity or any part of it comes half from the mother, half
from the father." Our cultural formation
in which the 'biological' father and mother play the strongest roles is based
therefore on a scientific conception.
These scientific facts accepted in our cultural have helped to form the
basis for our 'nuclear' family system; kinship is defined by this "biogenetic
relationship" (Schneider, 1971) and is in fact a cultural formulation.
Economic and political developments can also be
related to the emergence of this particular social structure. The technological expansion since the
industrial revolution, and also since then the advent of the computer age, have
definitely affected the way people are bonded and the ties they hold with their
'families'. For economic purposes, it is more convenient for a small family
unit to be able to break away from the 'nest' and support itself rather than
being involved in a large community who lives together in the same
compound. This is inevitably coupled to
the technological and economic development resulting in the expansion of the
cities. It could be even suggested that
in modern societies the importance of kinship depends on socioeconomic
circumstances: 'Upwardly mobile' people
keep only shallow ties with members of their kindred, if they keep them at all;
in contrast 'downwardly mobile' people may be neglected by their kindred;
members of spatially static occupation groups can but need not, and so on.
(Schneider and Homans, 1971).
This introduces a factor that may seem obvious to us:
as members of post-industrial societies, we are forced to become involved in a
myriad array of different corporate groups as may be aligned to our professions
or situation within life. If it is
considered that in small scale societies, almost every person with which you
interact is considered in some way to be 'kindred', then the real contrasts
begin to arise. According to Keesing
"because our system is bilateral, has no descent groups, and distinguishes lineal
relatives from collateral ones, we think of kinship in terms of chains
of genealogical connection between individuals." He goes on to say that our conception of the
family in this way brings about great confusion and misunderstanding when observing
different cultures (Keesing 1986). It
will soon be made clear precisely how 'open-minded' we have to be when trying
to understand these smaller-scaled societies.
First, it is important to consider the problematic
element of searching for essential 'similarities' between kinship in large and
small-scale societies. Let's begin with
the concept of 'family'. According to
Keesing (1986) the biological connection between father, mother and child forms
the "basis of kinship bonds," although he is wary to make generalisations about
how this basic union can be generalised into social reality. To demonstrate the problems of ethnocentrism,
we can quote Tomkins who in his article on the Biopsychosociality of the
Family suggests that "the family is universal and that it had
to be so. It has to be so, because
mothers and babies are in fact drawn to each other, because human
development requires it, and it can happen on sufficient scale only
with biological mothers" (Tomkins, 1965).
If this is accepted as a given, we would expect that in all societies on
the earth, the only relationships which are considered valid in child-bearing
are those which involve the biological mother and her child. This is of course wrong, because even in our
society non-biological mothers are more often than not considered to be equally
good mothers for adopted children, just as in simpler societies this emphasis
on biological motherhood loses its importance when the belief system doesn't
even recognise that motherhood is in fact a 'biological' process. The suggestion of the everpresence of
'family' can also only be accepted as a given if the notion of 'family' can be
considerably extended from the strictly nuclear unit proposed by Tomkins.
Another important cultural factor connected to kinship
is that involved with exogamy and the avoidance of incest. It can be generalised that every culture has
to some degree been affected by incest avoidance conventions resulting in
'exogamy' where members of a given descent group are forced to marry out of
their own group. The concept of exogamy
and social conventions regarding incest has been a hot point for contemporary
anthropological research, brought under the lime-light when Freud proposed his
theories related to human sexuality. Since
then, we have come a considerably long way and these traditions are viewed
under a completely different light, under which a more general cultural theory
for exogamy can be viewed. According to
White "the prohibition of incest has at the bottom an economic motivation.
[...] Inbreeding was prohibited and marriage between groups was made compulsory
in order to obtain the maximum benefits of cooperation. If this theory be sound, we should find
marriage and the family in primitive society wearing a definite economic
aspect. Incest was defined and exogamous rules were formulated in order to make
cooperation compulsory and extensive, to the end that life be made more secure"
(White, 1971). I would suggest that such
a theory has wider implications than for simply 'primitive' societies,
explaining also our own cultural conventions concerning incest. Freudian theories based on western sexual
repression may have been significant to a middle-class Viennese society, but
are not plausible if tested with any number of small-scale societies. With such a theory based on the political and
economic importance of survival, misinformed Freudian conceptions concerning
the expression of unconscious sexual drives and aggressions, can be thankfully left in the past.
Another factor that is of some importance in both
large and small scale kinship systems is the necessity of 'names' and 'titles'
to distinguish different members of a given social group. In our society, it is considered not only
polite but necessary to call our relatives with the correct term. Jack Goody, in his article discussing the
different title used to refer to grandmothers as nannas quotes a
grandmother who is discussing her 'title':
"One of my grandchildren called me Kate the other day. Said his mum did so. I told him off proper. And her too.
What if he called you that in the street?" (Goody, 1969). In smaller-scale societies also, the
importance of 'naming' is important in that one is immediately recognised as
belonging to a certain cultural group.
According to Keesing (1968) "a man finds security and status and a firm
feeling of 'belonging' in his own group. [...]
The importance of this group difference is reflected in classificatory
terminology; father's brothers and even father's sisters may be called
'fathers'. [...] In such cases the effect of the classificatory terminology is
to stress the group membership of these relatives." Although contrasting
conventions of 'naming' exist, it is in both cases clear that this phenomena is
still highly important in both cases to help give a person a feeling of
security in his/her position within the social structure.
Other similarities can be demonstrated by examining
certain relationships between members of a given family group. It can be generalised that in most societies,
inheritance occurs usually unilineally, either patrilineally or matrilineally
both for particular types of properties as well as statuses. According to Beattie (1966) "in
The last factor which we can consider in both large
and small scale societies is that involved in the connections between social
groups that are emphasised in different ways and at different times in
life. Keesing (1986) suggests that "in
tribal societies the ties of kinship between individuals come out most
dramatically in the focal points of a person's life-birth, initiation, feasts,
marriage, death. The action group that
mobilises around a person in support, celebration, or mourning is in almost all
societies crystallised from networks of the individual's relatives and
in-laws." In large-scale societies also,
different social groups are called together for support or for other purposes
at important events, the kinship circle widening depending on the importance of
the event. Raymond Firth, in his
analysis of English kinship, confirms this: "there is a type of group which
assembles at a wedding or funeral and in which may be represented most of the
partinominal kin groups which have traceable genealogical relation to Ego. This is assembled on a bilateral basis. But in this it is similar to kin groups all
over the world." This presents a useful
image: the widening circle of connections in which different groups are
emphasised at different times, playing roles in the social life of an
individual as is important to the social structure involved.
Now that we have observed some points of similarity,
it is important to approach the matter a little more closely and observe some
of the primary 'differences' that could result in confusion when an analytical
methodology is taken from a modern perspective.
Firstly it is important to discuss in a little more detail the
conception of a kinship 'clan' from which basic corporate units are formed in
smaller-scale societies. Beattie
provides with some useful beginning points:
"clan members form a category of people rather than
any kind of closely-knit, cooperating group. [...] Sometimes they are unaware of the
genealogical connections, if any, which links them with their presumed common
ancestor and with each other. But they
usually think of their
interrelationships in kinship terms: a fellow clansman is always a brother, a
father or a son, however remote he may be genealogically" (Beattie 1969).
This 'mental' rather than 'biological' conception of
kinship has provided some difficulties to western analysts who have been trying
to impose western social categories where they simply are not wide enough
conceptually to be able to fit. Although
this lineage membership may be compared to some kinds of group memberships in
western society, they play a much more important and distinctive role in the
life of those belonging to a small-scale society. Further than that, in Western society most people
are members of a great many different associations and groups, all with
different aims and different membership, and most importantly with people who
are not members of the same descent group. In small-scale societies organized in terms
of unilineal descent, this one principle of organization forms the basis for
practically all of a man's social relationships outside his domestic family
(Beattie 1966). Almost every person with
which one has some type of interaction can be considered in some way a 'relative'
or 'kin', and this is certainly not true of large-scale modern societies. Beattie confirms this statement in the
following quote: "considerations of kinship are confined to only a small
portion of the total activities which Ego enters into." In addition to that, we can return to groupings
in which many relatives are considered under the same terminology. Beattie
provides us again with more useful material:
"Basically,
what is happening here is that a group of siblings are being thought of as a
kind of unit. They are all, in a way, the
same sort of relative, and so are thought of as being in a sense
interchangeable with one another, thus a man may have many 'fathers' and many
'mothers'" (Beattie 1966).
In a system of this kind, kin who would be reckoned as
quite distant relatives in Western European terminologies may be called the
same terms as very close ones. Even more
surprising from a western perspective, in many societies a father's sister is
called 'father', with the qualification of 'female' added, and mother's brother
is called 'mother', with the qualification 'male' added. According to Beattie (1966) "this kind of
usage seems at first sight very extraordinary to Westerners, for whom a
relative's sex and kind and degree of relationship involved are the important
things, not his or her group membership."
Further contrasts are presented by the ways in which
the concept of marriage and child ownership varies. In smaller-scale societies, the concept of
polygamy is quite common. From our own
conception, this has often been interpreted as highly 'unnatural' behaviour
because of the many taboos we have developed on this subject; a person is only
allowed to be married to one person at one time. Of course, in cultures where this is freely
accepted, polygamy can have useful social functions, involved intimately with
areas of power, politics and economics.
This contrasting perspective on marriage has an impact on child
ownership. In smaller-scale societies,
the ownership of children is not necessarily bonded to the biological mother herself
but the descent group to which she belongs.
Divorce, therefore, means to many women that the children have to be
left behind. It is considered quite
natural in these cases for another woman (for example the sister of the
ex-husband, or a replacement wife) to take over the role of 'mother'. In western society we have had considerable
problems adapting to this concept, expressed through the complexity of laws and
social conventions that help to define who has 'rights' over the children in
case of divorce. The role of a
'step-mother' and a 'step-father' have often particularly unpleasant social
overtones because of the non biological connection with the daughter or son
involved: consider all the western fairy tales in which the evil characters
take these roles. In order to understand
other cultures and their attitude to motherhood and fatherhood, we have to take
a good close look at our own and recognise that it is not in fact based on
'universal' truths (as Tomkins would like to suggest) but cultural
formulations.
It is clear then that although there are essentially
some similarities between kinship systems present in large scale and small
scale societies, the contrasts presented by small scale societies flagrantly
break some social conventions which we consider sacred. Traditional notions of
the home, the hearth, the 'nuclear' family with which we are familiar, have to
be viewed from a certain distance when trying to interpret other cultures that
don't follow the same rules. Although it
is sometimes a difficult process to escape from our ethnocentric conceptions,
especially regarding social structures, developments in contemporary analysis
of kinship demonstrate that it is well and truly possible for us to develop a
'theoretical language' which can encompass both small and large scale
societies. We have to be simply aware of the boundaries provided by our own
culture.
References
Beattie, J.
(1966). Other Cultures,
Firth, R.
(1971). The Nature of English Kinship. In
N. Graburn (ed.)
Freud, S.
(1918). Totem and Taboo.
Goody, J.
(1969). Comparative studies in
Kinship,
10: On Nannas and Nannies.
Keesing, R.
(1981). Cultural Anthropology.
Chapter 11: Kinship, Descent and Social Structure.
Schneider, D.
(1971). American Kinship: A Cultural Account. In
Schneider, D. Homans, G. (1971). Kinship
Terminology and the American Kinship System. In
Shorter, E.
(1977). The Making of the
Modern Family,
Tomkins, S.
(1965).The Biopsychosociality of the Family. In Aspects of the
Analysis of Family Structure (pp. 102-248).
White, A. (1971).
The Definition and Prohibition of Incest. In N. Graburn (ed.)
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