Abstract
The synchronic, antievolutionary approach to kinship has made it impossible to grasp its nature and define it adequately. Understanding of the phenomenon is tobe found in the implications of Morgan's distinction between the classificatory and descriptive systems of kinship. These systems are based respectively on the tribal and family organizations, each giving rise to a different notion of kinship: one as recognition of common identity in a material substance, the other as the relationships established by common descent. These notions are irreconcilable and hence unamentable to a single definition, although one develops dialectically out of the other. In the evolutionary process whereby the family develops within the tribal organization, the family notion of kinship, developing concomitantly, butts against the classificatory system stemming from the tribal organization and modifies it according to the specific conditions of each tribe, giving rise to the great variety of kinship systems observed. As the ...
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