KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY

in anthropology, the system of names applied to categories of kin standing in relationship to one another. The possibilities for such nomenclature would seem limitless, but anthropologists have identified a small number of basic systems, or variants, which are found in all world societies. Six of these systems use the criterion of classification of kin in the same generation as ego (a given individual designated as the starting point in genealogical reckoning). Four terminological systems that focus on ego's parental generation have also been identified. Historically, the systematic study of kinship terminology began with the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan, whose pioneering work, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, was published in 1871. An important element in Morgan's formulation was the distinction between classificatory and descriptive systems of kinship. In a classificatory system some collateral kinrelatives not in ego's direct line of descentare placed in the same terminological grouping as lineal kinrelatives in ego's direct line of descent. Classificatory systems such as that of the Iroquois designate the father and the mother's brother by the same term. In many societies with unilineal descent systems ( i.e., matrilineal or patrilineal), ego uses one set of terms to refer to his brothers, sisters, and parallel cousins (those whose genealogical ties are traced through a related parent of the same sex, i.e., father's brother or mother's sister), while another set of terms is employed for cross-cousins (offspring of father's sister or mother's brother). This arrangement emphasizes the fact that cross-cousins do not belong to the lineage with ego, ego's siblings, and ego's parallel cousins. Descriptive terminology, in contrast to classificatory terminology, maintains a separation between lineal and collateral kin. Such systems are sometimes called Eskimo, after the people among whom it was first identified. The standard European and American system of kinship is a variant of the Eskimo type. Descriptive systems are typically found wherever the nuclear family operates as a relatively autonomous unit economically and socially; they are rare in ethnographic literature. The distinction between descriptive and classificatory kinship systems is not absolute. In contemporary U.S. social organization, for example, kinship terminology distinguishes lineal siblings from collateral cousins, but groups all uncles together, so that mother's brother, mother's sister's husband, father's brother, and father's sister's husband are all referred to by the term uncle. Hence, U.S. kinship terminology embraces aspects of both classificatory and descriptive systems. Kinship systems convey important social information, although within anthropology there is disagreement on the general theoretical model, as well as on specific analyses. The problem of the actual meaning and correct translation of kinship terminology has proven to be intractable. In some systems, for example, all men of ego's parental generation are called by one term, but should not be thought of as fathers in the nuclear-family sense. Thus, it cannot be assumed that persons brought together terminologically are socially indistinguishable. Likewise, kinship terminology may or may not correspond to rules of social obligation, depending on the system and situation in question. One method used by anthropologists to avoid bias is the development of a precise descriptive language. For example, when father and his brother are coterminous, the anthropologist may express the position of brother as a male agnatic relative of the ascending generation. After Morgan's initial examination of the existence of kinship terminology, anthropological interest was, for several decades, spurred by the prospect of using the terminology to establish a framework for comparative analyses. Later, under the influence of Alfred Kroeber, kinship terminology was viewed as a key to logical principles of social organization. More recently, the formal analysis of kinship into its component parts, building on Kroeber's work, has become a focus of anthropological investigation in its own right.