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Kinship in Sociology: Definition in the Study of Sociology

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Kinship is the most universal and basic of all human relationships and is based on ties of blood, marriage, or adoption.

There are two basic kinds of kinship ties in sociology:

• Those based on blood that trace descent
• Those based on marriage, adoption, or other connections

Some sociologists and anthropologists have argued that kinship goes beyond familial ties, and even involves social bonds.

Defininition of Kinship in Sociology

Kinship is a "system of social organization based on real or putative family ties," according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. But in sociology , kinship involves more than family ties, according to the Sociology Group :

"Kinship is one of the most important organizing components of society. ... This social institution ties individuals and groups together and establishes a relationship among them."

Kinship can involve a relationship between two people unrelated by lineage or marriage, according to David Murray Schneider, professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago who was well known in academic circles for his studies of kinship.

In an article titled "What Is Kinship All About?" published posthumously in 2004 in " Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader ," Schneider said kinship refers to:

"the degree of sharing likelihood among individuals from different communities. For instance, if two people have many similarities between them then both of them do have a bond of kinship."

At its most basic, kinship refers to "the bond (of) marriage and reproduction," says the Sociology Group. But kinship can also involve any number of groups or individuals based on their social relationships.

Types of Kinship in Sociology

Sociologists and anthropologists debate what types of kinship exist. Most social scientists agree that kinship in sociology is based on two broad areas: birth and marriage; others say a third category of kinship involves social ties. These three types of kinship are:

• Consanguineal : This kinship is based on blood—or birth: the relationship between parents and children as well as siblings, says the Sociology Group. This is the most basic and universal type of kinship. Also known as a primary kinship, it involves people who are directly related.
• Affinal : This kinship is based on marriage. The relationship between husband and wife is also considered a basic form of kinship in sociology.
• Social : Schneider argued that not all kinship derives from blood (consanguineal) or marriage (affinal). There are social kinships where individuals not connected by birth or marriage have a kinship bond, he said. By this definition, two people who live in different communities may share a bond of kinship through a religious affiliation or a social group, such as the Kiwanis or Rotary service club, or within a rural or tribal society marked by close ties among its members. A major difference between consanguineal or affinal and social kinship is that the latter involves "the ability to terminate absolutely the relationship" without any legal recourse, Schneider stated in his 1984 book, " A Critique of the Study of Kinship ."

Importance of Kinship in Sociology

Kinship is important to a person's and a community's well-being. Because different societies define kinship differently, they also set the rules governing kinship, which are sometimes legally defined and sometimes implied. At its most basic levels, according to the Sociology Group, kinship in sociology refers to:

Descent : the socially existing recognized biological relationships between people in the society. Every society considers that all offspring and children descend from their parents and that biological relationships exist between parents and children. Descent is used to trace an individual’s ancestry.

Lineage : the line from which descent is traced. This is also called ancestry.

Based on descent and lineage, kinship determines family-line relationships—and even sets rules on who can marry and with whom, says Puja Mondal in " Kinship: Brief Essay on Kinship ." Mondal adds that kinship sets guidelines for interactions between people and defines the proper, acceptable relationship between father and daughter, brother and sister, or husband and wife, for example.

But since kinship also covers social connections, it has a wider role in society, says the Sociology Group, noting that kinship:

• Maintains unity, harmony, and cooperation in relationships
• Sets guidelines for communication and interactions among people
• Defines the rights and obligations of the family and marriage as well as the system of political power in rural areas or tribal societies, including among members who are not related by blood or marriage
• Helps people better understand their relationships with each other
• Helps people better relate to each other in society

Kinship, then, involves the social fabric that ties families—and even societies—together. According to the anthropologist George Peter Murdock:

“Kinship is a structured system of relationships in which kins are bound to one another by complex inter­locking ties.”

The breadth of those "interlocking ties" depends on how you define kin and kinship.

If kinship involves only blood and marriage ties, then kinship defines how family relationships form and how family members interact with one another. But if, as Schneider argued, kinship involves any number of social ties, then kinship—and its rules and norms—regulates how people from specific groups or even entire communities relate to each other in every aspect of their lives.

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Kinship: Meaning, Types, Degree, Importance, Descent, lineage

Read this article to learn about Kinship types and Importance

Kinship is one of the most important organizing components of society. From east to west or north to south, you will find this everywhere in society. This social institution ties individuals and groups together and establishes a relationship between them.

The basic type of bond is marriage and reproduction. Kinship refers to a bunch of relationship and relatives, these are based on blood relationship (consanguineal) or marriage (affinal)

Some basic definitions by different people:

“The social relationships deriving from blood ties ( real and supposed) and marriage are collectively referred to as kinship.”

– Abercrombie et al

‘Kinship is the recognition of relationships between persons based on descent or marriage. If the relationship between one person and another is considered by them to involve descent, the two are consanguine (“blood”) relatives. If the relationship has been established through marriage, it is affinal.’ – L. Stone

Types of Kinship

The kinships are based on two broad aspects 1) Birth (Blood relationships) 2) marriages

• Consanguineal kinship : this kinship is based on blood the relationship meaning the relationship between parents and children also among immediate siblings. It is said to be the basic and universal in relationships.
• Affinal kinship : this kinship is based on marriage. The relationship between husband and wife is the basic kin relations.

Kinship and its degree:

The relationship among individuals or people depends on the level of closeness and separation of its relationship. Closeness and distance are based on how these individuals are related to each other.

Primary Kinship

Primary kinship is based on direct relations. Individuals or people that are directly related are said to be primary in nature. Primary kinship is further divided into two:

Primary consanguineal kinship: this kin refers to that kin that is directly related to each other by birth. For instance association with or amongst parents and children and among siblings.

Primary Affinal kinship: the relation that takes place with marriage is said to be Primary Affinal kinship. The direct primary affinal kinship is the husband-wife relationship.

Secondary kinship

Secondary kinship alludes to the primary kinship. As it were, the individuals who are specifically identified with primary kinship (i.e. primary kin of our primary kinship) become secondary kinship. In other words, it means relations that come through primary kinship are said to be secondary kinship.

There are two types of Secondary kinship:

Secondary Consanguineal kinship :

This kind of kin refers to primary consanguineal kinship. The basic example of secondary consanguineal kinship would be the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren.

Secondary Affinal kinship:

This kind of kinship refers to primary affinal kinship primary kinship. For example, Anita’s husband is her primary affinal kinship and for Anita’s husband, her parents and siblings are his primary kin. Therefore meaning the relationship between Anita and her sister in law/ brother in law or parents in law and more vice versa is said to be Secondary Affinal kinship. Also, your sibling’s spouse and his/her parents in law will be his secondary affinal kinship.

Tertiary kinship:

Tertiary kinship is the secondary kinship of our primary kin or primary kin of our secondary kinship. For example, wife of our brother in law would be related to us as tertiary kin.

Tertiary kinship is further divided into two:

Tertiary consanguineal kinship:

An example of tertiary consanguineal kin would be our primary consanguineal kins (i.e. our parents) primary kins (i.e. our parents’ parents meaning our grandparents) primary kins. (i.e. our grandparents’ parents)

Tertiary Affinal kinship:

It means primary affinal kins primary kin or secondary affinal primary kin or primary affinal kins secondary kin. For example our spouse’s grandparents or grand uncles and aunties.

Descent : it refers to the socially existing recognized biological relationships between people in society. Every society looks at the fact that all offspring and children descend from their parents and usually it is said biological relationship exists between parents and children. Therefore descent is used to traces an individual’s ancestry.

Lineage : it refers to the line from which descent is traced. This is done by looking into fathers’ line or mothers line or from both the lines. Descent and lineage work together.

Importance of Kinship :

• The kinship system maintains unity, harmony, and cooperation among relationships.
• Kinship sets guidelines for communication and interactions among people.
• Where marital taboo exists decides who can marry whom.
• Kinship regulates the behaviour of different kin.
• Kinship act as a watchdog of social life.
• In rural areas or in the tribal society kinship defines the rights and obligations of the family and marriage also the system of production and political power.
• It helps people to better understand their relationship with each other.
• It builds and develops and helps better relate to one another in society.

Also Read: Understanding Key Concepts in Kinship

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Kinship of Family Essay

Kinship refers to the link that exists among people who are related to each other either by marriage or blood. This link is important because it defines somebody’s history. Kinship is used in most communities to dictate how properties are distributed among one’s descendants. The volume of properties received is dependent on the beneficiary’s number in the family order.

Among communities that speak the same vernacular language, the language is used as the unifying factor because it is used to distinguish that community from other communities. Residing in a common geographical location was responsible for fostering strong bonds due to frequent interaction.

There are two ways through which kinship can be acquired and they include marriage and through blood. The strength of these links does not rely on their source. A link based on marriage can disintegrate after the marriage has collapsed. In contrary affiliation by blood is thought to have the strongest foundation and is said to end when death walks in.

In my typical family setup the affiliation that exists among family members is used to hold it together. For instance, if my father was to divorce my mother, my link with the two of them would remain intact unless I take sides. This is because the link between me and both of them is based on blood while theirs is based on love.

In the above mentioned scenario it is certain that links that are based on blood are stronger and cannot be compared to links based on the marriage because the partners in marriage are united by their strong feelings towards each other and when these feelings fade away the link between them is then broken.

In our culture, the first born male is accorded the same respect as his father and is responsible for the continuation of family name. Female children are not able to participate in family name continuation because traditions dictate that when a woman is married she becomes more attached to her new family.

The male first born is usually consulted before a decision is made because if the father of the family does not exist the first born male assumes his role. Mothers tend to favor the child who is more financially stable than the rest. Studies in the recent past have proved that this favor is natural among females.

In ancient days our community supported marriage strongly because they knew the family was the basic unit that determined the survival of a community. In today’s world these cultures have been eliminated by modernization. Descendants of a given family name were avoided by many because it was perceived that by marrying such people will bring bad blood into a family name.

Children who are not financially stable enjoy limited authority in decision making process in their families because they are only allowed to implement decisions that have been made by those considered to be more intelligent. Money commands power in our family regardless of whether the wealthy child is the last born in the family.

Experience cannot be bought over the counter and thus one would expect the first born of the family whether male or female to be given the first priority in giving counsel to his siblings. Favoring one child over the other fosters jealousy in the family against the child who is seen as the apple of parent’s eye.

Property inheritance should be done with evenness because all the children enjoy the same rights in their family. In most families within our community, property inheritance has led to many wrangles that are extended to their offsprings. Children who are more successful than their siblings tend to take advantage of their siblings.

Parents also are also known to dislike children who are named after the parents of their partner. This is most likely to happen if the bond between the in-laws and their brother’s wife is soar. It is worth noting that the character traits exhibited by one’s children reflect those of his/her parents. Favoritism makes those who are more preferred than others feel like they are superior to their siblings, and hence decisions in that family must safe guard their interests.

Sometimes parent ignite family wrangles by allocating more property to one child. Parents should distribute their property equally among their children unless their children recommend so. This evenness will promote unity in a family. Thus children in our society are encouraged to exercise respect to each other.

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What Kinship Is-And Is Not

Marshall Sahlins

120 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2013

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology

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“Sahlins catalogs brilliantly the varied ways in which people construct family ties completely apart from their genetic relationships. . . . This is cultural anthropology at its best.”

Culture & Cosmos, NPR

“Exhilarating. Sahlins’s essay has (re)captured a significant truth—freshly, memorably. He does so without pre-empting the diversity of conceptual interests that anthropologists find their category ‘kinship’ generates, or indeed the manifold truths to be spoken of people’s interrelations. Conversely, this bold articulation of co-presence, of people’s intersubjective participation in one another’s lives, does not need to be confined to discussions of kinship as usually understood. It is important, however, that Sahlins’s argument implies not just a communicative mutuality (reciprocity, anticipation of others’ intentions, etc.), but also mutuality of bodily and personal (in the sense of ‘transpersonal’) being. The book leaves a provocation with this reader: maybe we should think twice when this kind of mutuality flourishes in otherwise non-kinship contexts before taking it simply as an extension of kinship thinking from some pre-metaphorical base.”

Marilyn Strathern | Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“ What Kinship Is—And Is Not is a gem of a book; a joy to read and a reminder of why I was enchanted by anthropology when I first encountered it. Ethnographic example tumbles after ethnographic example; many familiar, others less so, all attesting to the richness of the ethnographic record on that contested, albeit perennial, topic of kinship.”

Jeanette Edwards | Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

“Marshall Sahlins is one of the great names of modern anthropology, but thus far he has not counted as one of the key figures in the study of kinship. . . . but [ The Use and Abuse of Biology ] and the present text both show that Sahlins is knowledgeable about kinship and entirely capable of contributing something new to debates concerning it. . . . He has clearly ransacked the most recent literature in the search for relevant ethnography, though he also finds support for his argument in some of the older literature, going back to Tylor in 1865, and even to Plato. The basic theme, therefore, is not new, though his treatment of it is. Sahlins has given this phenomenon a name—“mutuality of being”—and that in itself will compel us to take notice of it.”

Robert Parkin | Anthropological Quarterly

“ What Kinship Is—And Is Not exhibits its authors’ signature brilliance, erudition, and originality (not faulting wit), and it is impossible to address its many virtues. . . . Sahlins’s Janus-faced universalizing-particularizing orientation provides an encompassing context whose value for the exploration of both earlier and contemporary kinship concerns would be difficult to exaggerate.”

Robert Brightman | Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

“ What Kinship Is is clearly destined to become something of a classic in kinship studies in anthropology. This is partly because of the huge breadth of Marshall Sahlins’s scholarship, which takes in everything from Aristotle to the most up to date references in the study of kinship, including a wonderful range of standard and lesser-known works along the way. But this of course is not just a work of synthesis; it is also an original, brilliant, and, above all, creative contribution to current debates in the discipline.”

Janet Carsten, University of Edinburgh

“ What Kinship Is—And Is Not is a complex book, subtle and important. Since its publication in 2013, it has continued to challenge the experts. . . . It can be read as a response—late but brilliant—to the radical questioning initiated by Schneider more than forty years ago and the progressive marginalization of the field that followed the corrosive analytical critique that was last made in 1984. . . . The main merit of the book is that Sahlins has produced a remarkable critical synthesis of new kinship studies, which have remained somewhat underground for the last twenty years, despite their importance and their vitality. It is thanks to the diversity and quality of this rich ethnographic corpus that Sahlins was able to carry out his undertaking. Thus, this undisputed master of anthropology. . . . has managed to put these studies at the center of contemporary anthropological debate.”

European Journal of Social Sciences

“The work of Marshall Sahlins has continuously inspired whole academic generations of anthropologists. As with many of his previous interventions, this bold and incisive essay will be hailed as a beacon of lucidity in the somewhat foggy conceptual landscape of current anthropology. The all too neglected structuralist insight of the radical identity between sociality and semiosis is rescued and developed by Sahlins in a wonderfully refreshing way, with the help and the benefit of an easy, capacious scholarship that embraces everything from philosophy to linguistics to contemporary ethnography (from the Nichomachean Ethics to Benveniste on pronouns, from Amazonian couvade to Maori gift-exchange). This book musters deep and convincing arguments in favor of a thoroughly relational human ontology, bodying forth a renewed notion of internal or intrinsic relationality, which runs counter to the current infatuation with substances and impenetrable essences. It shows that what is natural in human culture is what is cultural in human nature: kinship, precisely.”

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

“ What Kinship Is—And Is Not is a tour de force, even by Sahlinsian standards. Kinship is one of the oldest topics in anthropology, but by the 1970s it began to lose its centrality, partly under the weight of critiques which denied the cross-cultural validity of ‘kinship’ as an analytical category. Sahlins develops an incisive counter-critique of that position while at the same time radically reframing kinship as ‘mutuality of being,’ which he takes to be a pan-human phenomenon. A superb piece of anthropological writing, this book does a wonderful job of ethnographically substantiating that concept, along the way making several other major contributions to anthropological theory.”

Alan Rumsey, Australian National University

“In What Kinship Is—And Is Not , Marshall Sahlins argues that kinship is culture, not biology, and he does so in the pure, uncompromising, vivid way of which he is the master. We now have the case for the cultural interpretation in the strongest imaginable form, which is at the same time a case for not splitting the difference in the quandary at the heart of kinship studies. It is a service of inestimable value, and all who study kinship will benefit.”

Thomas Trautmann, University of Michigan

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The Sociology of Kinship: A Case for Looking Back to the Future

• First Online: 02 November 2021

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• Alexandra Maryanski 4  

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

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Kinship fired the imagination of scholars in sociology and anthropology for generations, although kinship per se is no longer regarded as a particularly useful concept for the study of family life in modern societies. Kinship theory rests on a global literature stockpiled over the last 150 years with clashing theories over whether kinship is a biological, sociological, or psychological phenomenon, how and why exogamy and the incest taboo originated, the role kinship plays in social integration, and even whether kinship and the nuclear family are a facet of human nature or an invented social construct. This essay reviews the compelling ideas of the leading kinship theorists in sociology and anthropology during the Axial Age of kinship. And, surprisingly, as this chapter will document, some early speculations on kinship and its related elements have now been corroborated in the light of primate data and the fossil, molecular, sociological, and archeological records, with findings that have the potential to revitalize sociological theory and practice. The near discarding of kinship theory in sociology is thus a rather foolish line of reasoning.

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The kinship literature is so enormous that only a representative sample of the leading kinship theorists and their contributions are possible in this essay.

Polygyny is the marriage of several women to one man at the same time; polyandry is the marriage of several men to one woman; bilateral descent lines are through both the mother’s and father’s relatives; unilineal descent lines are limited to either the mother’s or father’s relatives; patrilocal is a postmarital residence where the married couple live in or near the groom’s home; matrilocal is a postmarital residence where the couple live in or near the brides’ home; neolocal is a postmarital independent household; and avunculocal is a residence shift where a male leaves his patrilocal residence as an adult to reside with his mother’s brother before and after marriage. Two excellent (and easy to read) books on kinship for the interested are Fox ( 2003 ) and Schusky ( 1983 ).

The nuclear family is the starting point for creating larger kinship networks. The polygynous family is a compounded extension of the nuclear unit because each wife has her own offspring, usually her own residence, and they share a single husband. Exceptions are very rare. For example, the traditional Nayar, a group of castes living on the coast of India, once practiced a form of polyandry. The Nayar castes, however, comprised only a small slice of Indian society, and their very specialized occupations are said to account for their mating arrangement. About 1890, Nayar kinship patterns shifted to monogamy and a gradually emerging nuclear family (Gough 1961 ; Murdock 1949 , pp. 1–40)

J.D. Freeman ( 1961 ) noted that corporate kindred groups are rare but possible with bilateral descent, but they are never organized on the basis of a common ancestor (like a clan) and they are very small in size.

Six basic types of kinship terminology have been identified worldwide, although every society adds some variations. By tradition, they are called, Iroquois, Eskimo, Omaha, Hawaiian, Sudanese, and Crow. Sudanese is the most complex system because it assigns a distinctive kin term to each near relative, and it has eight different cousin terms. Interestingly, Old English and Latin kin terms conform to a Sudanese pattern. Crow (named after a native American tribe) is a mirror image of Omaha and is associated with a matrilineal kinship system.

Morgan’s division of kinship terminologies into descriptive and classificatory is a misnomer given that both classificatory and descriptive terminologies merge some relatives. Morgan knew this, but his intent was to distinguish between kinship terminologies that isolate out the nuclear family with special kin terms from those that lump them in nomenclature with other relatives. Critics have attacked Morgan over what they thought was a blunder on his part, but they were apparently ignorant of his reasoning when he made this distinction. The terms are still used in the kinship literature despite this obvious problem.

Spencer’s Descriptive Sociology or Groups of Sociological Facts (1873–1934) is a huge compilation of cross-cultural materials drawn from archeological, ethnological, historical, and other sources, classified and arranged by Spencer. Originally commissioned in the 1860s in preparation for writing Principles of Sociology , he later published them for future students, along with a trust fund to complete the series. In all, there are 15 fat volumes that include a series of tables and columns using the same categories for each type of society. For example, some columns have a heading that relates to some social, cultural, or institutional structure of society (e.g., religious, ceremonial, linguistic, artistic, and domestic relations). Other columns have headings for the sociological, organic, and inorganic environment (e.g., past history, contact with neighbors, climate, geography, and animal life).

Durkheim taught a lecture course at the Lycée de Sens in 1883–1884 where he refers to the family as “the primary and most natural grouping of individuals” and “the seed from which society as a whole is born” (see Gross and Jones 2004 , pp. 255–257).

As senior editor, Durkheim reviewed whatever caught his fancy, especially books and articles on social organization and religion. His articles on incest, totemism, and primitive classification were all published in L’Année sociologique as Mémoires originaux

Durkheim’s publications on kinship and the family (outside of his Journal reviews and in Suicide ) include the published introductory family lecture (discussed above), a fragment of the seventeenth lecture that he delivered in 1892 on the “Conjugal Family” (published posthumously in 1921) and in 1906 “Divorce by Mutual Consent.”

Durkheim essentially adopted Robertson Smith’s view on kinship in blood. As Smith put it: “The idea that kinship is not purely an affair of birth …has quite fallen out of our circle of ideas; but so, for that matter, has the primitive conception of kindred itself…To know that a man’s life was sacred to me …it was not necessary for me to count cousinship with him by reckoning up to our common ancestor; it was enough that we belonged to the same clan and bore the same clan-name” ( 1889 , p. 255).

Rivers did not entirely reject the notion of survivals, but he confined these so-called leftovers from the past to a few systematic features (Davis ([ 1936 ] 1980, p. 47).

Murdock was very critical of the way the Boasian school had “exorcised the bogey of evolutionism.” He considered Boas “extravagantly overrated by his disciples… [and]… the most unsystematic of theorists, his numerous kernels of genuine insight being scattered amongst much pedantic chaff” ( 1949 , p. xiv).

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown taught social anthropology in Chicago, Oxford, Alexandria, Sydney, London, Manchester, Johannesburg, and pretty much around the globe (Evans-Pritchard and Eggan 1952 ).

Following Davis, social distance has three manifestations: an individual’s private feelings toward certain individuals, open, overt behavior, or contact, and social norms that distinguish different classes of individuals ([1980] 1936 , p. 164).

Parsons notes that this characterization is for urban middle-class American society. For the upper-class elite, kinship solidarity usually persists as it is associated with status of ancestry, transfer of estates, etc. And this main kinship pattern also differs among the lower classes, although this has not been studied, he said, using a structural perspective.

A kinship system can be examined from two distinctive vantage points: An Ego-centered focus (the anchor for a kindred) or an ancestral focus (the anchor for a clan). A clan can exist in perpetuity, whereas a kindred comes in and out of existence with the birth and death of an Ego.

The great apes (our closest relatives) are all forest living. Orangutans are arboreal and nearly solitary, and the only stable group is a mother with dependent offspring. Gorillas are mostly terrestrial and live in regenerating and high-altitude forests and ravines. They are organized into loosely woven heterosexual groups or “bands” which average about 15 gorillas. While a gorilla band is made up of a shifting collection of individuals, it is organized around a leader male and includes a number of adult females with dependents and up to four adult males. Chimpanzees are tree-living and also hang out on the forest floor. The only stable group is a mother and her dependent young. Chimpanzees share nearly 99% of our DNA and as King and Wilson ( 1978 , p. 90) highlighted “the chimpanzee-human difference is far smaller than that between species within a genus of mice, frogs, or flies.” So, given that species usually build on the social structure that they inherit, it is a good bet that early hominins started out with an organizational arrangement much like the promiscuous and community living chimpanzees (see Maryanski 2018 and Turner and Maryanski 2008 )

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Maryanski, A. (2021). The Sociology of Kinship: A Case for Looking Back to the Future. In: Abrutyn, S., Lizardo, O. (eds) Handbook of Classical Sociological Theory. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78205-4_12

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