PHRATRY

in anthropology, cluster of sibs, clans, or kinship groups that have grouped together, either because they share a belief in a common ancestor or because, even though the sibs or clans are not actually related by blood, they have adopted common ceremonial and kinship practices. The term phratry also must refer to three or more groups constituting a tribal society. (With only two such groupings, the society takes on features of dual organization, and the groups are termed moieties.) A description of the phratry in relation to sib and moiety is useful. A sib is a group of unilineal descent groups, either matrilineal or patrilineal, whose members claim a common ancestor. (Some anthropologists, particularly in Europe, use the word clan instead of sib.) The next order of magnitude in social groupings above the lineage and the sib is the phratry, a group of sibs banded together for common practical or ceremonial purpose or because of kinship claims. Finally comes the moiety, one of two exhaustive divisions of a society, each moiety containing a number of sibs and possibly of phratries. If three or more phratries are not further distributed into moieties, however, relationships between members of different phratries will not take on the characteristics of dual organization, which appear only when a society is divided into two moieties. See also dual organization; clan.