9 - What Are Descent Groups?

Abstract

Two entirely discrepant kinds of theories about the fundamental nature of primitive descent groups appeared early in the history of ethnology and were maintained for over the 100 years. This chapter presents various works related to descent groups to have an overview of what descent groups are. Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law (1861) seems to have been the first important work to call attention to the general evolutionary significance of descent groups. An important aspect of the descent group was that it was an assemblage of coproprietors. However, Maine did not develop his ideas about the internal structure of the descent group as fully as did Fustel de Coulanges'The Ancient City in 1864. John Furgeson McLennan's Primitive Marriage (1865) introduced the concepts exogamy and endogamy, and, therefore, introduced, at least implicitly, the characteristic of descent groups called unilaterality. Lewis H. Morgan's interest in demonstrating similarity between the Iroquoian descent groups, which is usually called clans, and the Greco-Roman gens resulted in his calling the Iroquoian group a gens. Robert H. Lowie criticizes that the principle of unilateral descent—unilineal in the present usage—is closely related to the problems of the transmission of property rights and the mode of residence after marriage. The chapter also discusses non-unilinear descent groups.