Kinship Terms and Kinship Concepts

Abstract

THE terms used in addressing and describing relatives are a source of constant wonder to the anthropologist, both for their near-infinite variety and for the glimpses they furnish of the operation of general, quasi-mathematical regularities in the patterning of human social forms. This paper aims at an exploration of this constancy in variation through an examination of kinship terms from two widely separated culture areas: Europe and the Southwest of North America. The interesting question of the degree to which kinship terms reflect realities of social classification and behavior will not be raised here. Rather, it is our purpose to examine the nature of the variations in patterns of kinship terminology against the background of the biological framework common to all structures of kinship. To what order of cultural facts do kinship terminologies belong? Are they independent of language? How are they affected by diffusion? How fast do they change? Are they internally symmetrical or consistent? How do they vary from one area of the world to another? We have tried to answer these questions by comparing terminologies as they are represented in a diagrammatic system designed to simplify the simultaneous treatment of large numbers of systems. The diagrams are a spatial representation of the structure of kinship terms in any given system against a background provided by the limited possibilities of human bisexual reproduction. We have restricted our attention to close consanguineal kinship and to referential terms, and have examined primarily two geographic areas: Europe and the American Southwest. Europe is represented by 31 systems; the Southwest by 35. For analytic (and diagrammatic) purposes it is convenient to begin by defining the persons of kinship designation. The first person implied in any kinship terms is the speaker, Ego on kinship charts. The last (or nth) person is the referent. Terms denoting kinship in the first degree are universally describable in two persons: man's father, woman's daughter, man's sister, etc. The exact description of other kinship positions, however, may require specification of an indefinite number of intervening relatives. These may be designated as the second, third, fourth . . . n-1 persons of kinship terminology. In addition to specifying persons in this manner, kinship terms define the biological or quasi-biological relationship between the persons, essentially three in number: (1) biological generation, i.e., parent, child, and the derivative child of my parent or sibling; (2) mating or marriage, and (3) accidentals (including decedence, divorce, and adoption). In this paper we shall be concerned only with the first of these relationships. Finally, the persons and relationships may be qualified by attribute: each person of kinship may be described in terms of sex; each relationship may be