Distant Kin Research Articles

Women's lives viewed from an evolutionary perspective. II. patterns of helping

Three hundred randomly selected, white, middle-class Los Angeles women were interviewed to determine variations in patterns of helping among kin versus nonkin. Specific predictions arising out of the evolutionary theories of kin selection and reciprocal altruism were supported: helping among friends was more likely to be reciprocal than helping among kin, closer kin were more likely sources of help than were more distant kin; among kin, helping was an increasing function of the recipient's expected reproductive potential; and the larger the amount of help given, the more likely it was to come from kin. The data suggest that the effects of variables such as kinship, age, wealth, sex, and expected reproductive potential are small but persistent, and hence potentially of great functional significance when present generation after generation. Subjects reported seeking help from individuals who had been sources of help in the past more often than from individuals who owed them help. Hints of deception or self-deception are present: Subjects reported giving more than they received and paying back more often than they were paid back.

Migration and the Family in Colonial New England: the View From Genealogies

This paper describes the migrations of the married men of six New England families from 1620 to 1850 using published genealogies as the data source. Their location at the time of vital events is used to investigate (1) per sistence rates; (2) distances between fathers, sons, and brothers during their life times ; and (3) the extent to which kin were found in the same community. Our data show more mobility than do town studies and reveal the importance of the nuclear family over more distant kin.

Reciprocity and the Trade-Off Between Associate Quality and Relatedness

The inclusive fitness gains that individuals receive from associating with one another depend on their (1) relatedness, and (2) abilities to provide one another with aid which I term their associate qualities, as well as (3) the degree to which they provide aid. I show how these variables trade off to influence choice of social partners. Preferential association between distant kin can be naturally selected when their associate qualities to one another are only slightly greater than that between close kin. I describe conditions under which such associate quality differences are most likely to arise, and summarize results from an empirical investigation of some predictions from this model (Wasser 1981, in press) on female yellow baboons at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania.

The ontogeny of social relationships with group companions among free-ranging infant rhesus monkeys I. Social networks and differentiation

Social networks of infant rhesus monkeys ( Macaca mulatta) in a free-ranging, lineage-based group on Cayo Santiago are described by assessing the extent to which four measures of positive interaction between infants and finely-divided categories of companions are associated with (1) degree of relatedness through maternal lines; (2) sex of the companion; (3) age of the companion; and (4) dominance rank of the infant's lineage. The results suggest that the infant's social network mirrors that of its mother both in the first weeks of life and as late as 30 weeks of age. Infants have more positive social interaction with close kin than with distant kin or with unrelated individuals, and thus function as members of their lineage from the beginning. They associate more with female companions than with male companions, and more with younger immatures than with older immatures. Finally, infants in the top-ranking lineage spend more time with their own relatives than do infants in other lineages. The fact that these patterns change little as the infant gains independence from the mother supports suggestions that early maternal influence serves to pass on aspects of the mother's social network. It is suggested that the ontogeny of early social relationships resembles a process of differentiation.

An economic analysis of the extended family in the West Indies

Summary The economic portion of family life involves the exchange of goods and care. The paper argues that there are four identifiable kinds of utility that can be derived from participating in the extended family. Furthermore, as income increases, the total utility involved in giving care to distant kin falls. However, on the cost side the opportunity cost incurred by giving a gift away probably increases as income increases while the production cost falls. In neo‐classical terms the individual would have an incentive to evade responsibilities to distant kin as soon as his costs exceeded the utility he gained from these arrangements. The kin and the community, however, can and do levy an additional disapprobation cost on evaders; and the magnitude of this cost may well turn out to be critical in determining whether or not the extended family will break down in any community. The assertion that the extended family breaks down as income rises has been questioned on theoretical and empirical grounds. Furthe...

Closeness to Non - Primary Relatives in the American Kinship System

American ties with secondary or more distant kin are nearly always mediated through ties with both parents in one’s own household. The structuring of kinship through affinal linkages takes place distinctively within the domestic household cycle, with relatives more important in the childhood/young married rather than the puberty/middle age phase. Additionally further differentiation and patterning develops around sex, generational, lineal, and collateral divisions of family organization. In absence of clear-cut corporate systems of kinship the ties developing through affinal relatives take on a significance as yet unappreciated by students of American social organization. Seventeen substantive conclusions are listed at the close of the paper.

Inheritance, Property, and Marriage in Africa and Eurasia

This paper tries to utilize the cross-cultural material presented by G. P. Murdock in the Ethnographic Atlas to analyse the concomitants of differences in the system of inheritance, particularly with respect to the contrast between Africa and Eurasia. In the major Eurasian societies property tends to be distributed directly, from parents to children of both sexes (i.e. by diverging devolution); in Africa property largely devolves between persons of the same sex, laterally as well as lineally. An attempt is made to show the distribution of diverging devolution and its association with the payment of dowry, with monogamy, with in-marriage of various sorts, and with kin terms that differentiate the nuclear family from more distant kin. The tight control of property represented by diverging devolution is in turn seen as deriving from the intensive exploitation of resources which is also linked to the growth of complex political institutions. These associations are tested and held to be established.

Kinship and Geographical Mobility in a Sample from a London Middle-Class Area

The total picture given of these Highgate families is a complex one. The individuals come from diverse origins, in geographical, social and occupational terms. Not only have many of them moved to London from other areas, but also most of their siblings and other kin have been equally mobile. In very few cases have kinship ties or obligations entered into decisions to move, either in the case of the informants themselves or their siblings and parents. Mobility in all generations, undictated by kinship ties, has led to a wide scatter of families all over the country and overseas. This mobility is largely a function of the sort of careers taken up by both the men and the women. Apart from this, however, it can be seen that it is also made easier by the relative independence of children from their parents at an early stage. There are explicit attitudes, held by both children and parents, that they should be independent of one another at least in the daily functioning of their lives. Children often go to boarding schools, later to colleges and universities, and are prepared, for the latter, to live at great distances from their families. This does not mean that relationships are ineffective or necessarily distant between parents and children, or between other sorts of kin. The expected patterns of behaviour are based on strong affective ties which are not, however, expressed in frequent and intense interchange of contact and services or mutual dependence. Just because there is not frequent and intense contact does not mean that the affective tie does not exist. Nor that, in certain circumstances, kin are not called upon for assistance or advice. It is significant that certain services are given regardless of the geographical distance between kin. For example, one of the situations in which mothers are most frequently called in to help is at the birth of a baby. Nearly all the young wives had their mothers to stay in the house at least during one confinement, i.e. when she herself was in hospital. Many mothers travelled from great distances to do this, one or two even from abroad. Thus it can be seen that distance is no barrier to the sort of services these sort of people tend to need. Neither mothers nor daughters expect or want daily exchange of household services in normal circumstances, neither do they generally want constant contact with each other. The type of relationship between parents and children obviously determines to a large extent the sort of relationships an individual will have with the rest of his or her kin. If a relationship with a parent is not manifested in constant interaction then two things result. Firstly, the ideology and attitudes with which a child is brought up will be of such a kind that he does not expect a close relationship with his extra-familial kin, and secondly, because of relatively infrequent contact with parents and siblings, genealogically more distant kin will enter into his life even less, and ties even with relatives who may be in constant contact with a parent may be dropped or maintained according to individual preferences. In this sense geographical distance may enable ties to be dropped without, generally, upsetting the relationships between other kin. Considering a wide divergence of occupations and cultural interests and, in some cases, of class background, a great many ties are maintained with relatives. Generally, contact is not frequent, but this seems to bear little direct relation to geographical distance except insofar as the latter acts as an extreme limiting factor. Where people want to see their kin, wide distances are covered relatively often. Expectations of extra-familial kin behaviour do not usually demand frequent contact, even when proximity allows it. With closer kin, specifically parents and siblings, there is more evidence to support the hypothesis (often held for all kin) that as much interaction will take place as possible at all times. Even for parents and siblings this is not entirely so, but here behaviour approximates more to this hypothesis, and this is so in spite of the ideology of independence with which children grow up, and the complex set of circumstances arising out of a wide range of occupations and cultural interests. Ties with kin outside the family of origin are maintained on a more selective basis, and they are often manifested only in contact of an intermittent nature. Partly this is because these ties are not often of a very strong kind - it is fair to say that to a great extent these people function independently of the majority of their kin. But it is also partly because more overt behaviour patterns of any more intense nature are not expected between members of these families.

Influence of Family Life on the Course of Schizophrenic Illness

Much of the literature on the family of the schizophrenic patient has suggested that a number of common features are present in the personalities of the parents, and that these are significant in the aetiology of the illness. Most studies have been con cerned with the parent-child relationship and only a few with the adult patient and his parents. Tietze's description of mothers as generally over-anxious, obsessional, and domineering is typical (Tietze, 1949); and Fromm-Reichmann (1948) coined the term schizophrenogenic to describe such women. The more systematic work has indicated a high frequency of domineering and over-solicitous be haviour among mothers (Mark, 1953; Freeman and Grayson, 1955; Gerard and Siegel, 1950; Kohn and Clausen, 1956). Two studies, however, have pro duced negative evidence (Neilsen, 1954; Hotchkiss, Carmen, Ogilby, and Wiesenfeld, 1955) and the second of these was the only one in which the behaviour of the mother and patient was directly observed. Even if differences exist between the mothers of schizophrenics and other mothers, this need not be of aetiological importance. The possibility must first be excluded that behaviour such as over protectiveness may be the result of the patient's unusual behaviour influencing the parents (Kasanin, Knight, and Sage, 1934). Once an illness has developed in one member of a family, a heightened level of tension is probably common. Once estab lished, tense relationships in turn may have an important effect on the later stages of the illness. Some evidence that family relationships can in fluence the course of schizophrenia was provided by a previous study, which showed that re-admission of long-stay patients was related to the type of living group to which they returned (Brown, Carstairs, and Topping, 1958; Brown, 1959). Patients who lived with wives and parents showed a higher re-admission rate than those going to brothers, sisters, or more distant kin, or in lodgings. There was evidence that the risk of deterioration in clinical condition was increased when prolonged contact with close rela tiv s in the house was unavoidable?when, for example, both patient and mother were unemployed. Results could not be explained entirely by the length or past severity of illness or by differences in clinical condition at the time of discharge; and it was concluded that it might not always be best for the schizophrenic patient to return to the close emo tional ties of affection or hostility often found in parental and marital homes. These close emotional ties are not, of course, confi ed to households of any particular kinship, c tegory. It was therefore decided to continue the work by studying the relationships within each home to which discharged patients returned. The majority of patients in this second study were short-stay schizophrenics, and a different survey method was used. Patients and their families were interviewed at the time of discharge and during the year, if the patient was re-admitted, as well as at the end of the follow-up period. In this way the difficulties inherent in the previous exploratory survey, which relied on one interview at the time of follow-up, were avoided. In particular, since patients and families were seen at discharge, predictions could be made about outcome which were not influenced by knowledge of the later course of the illness; and the clinical condition of patients (assessed at the time of discharge) could be controlled in testing the pre dictions. The two hypotheses were: