Kinship Systems Catalog
A reference catalog of the descent rules, residence rules, marriage forms, and terminological systems anthropologists have documented since Morgan’s Systems of Consanguinity (1871) and Murdock’s cross-cultural Ethnographic Atlas (1967). Each section gives the type, defining feature, exemplary societies, principal ethnographer, and standard source year. Use this when locating a culture in the cross-cultural sample or specifying a kinship pattern in fieldwork.
I. Descent
Descent = the rule for tracing ancestry and group membership.
| Type | Definition | Exemplary societies | Principal ethnographer(s) + year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrilineal (agnatic) | Descent traced through the father’s line only | Nuer (Sudan); Tallensi (Ghana); Han Chinese; Tswana; classical Roman gens; many South Asian castes | Evans-Pritchard 1940 (The Nuer); Fortes 1945 (Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi) |
| Matrilineal | Descent traced through the mother’s line only | Trobriand Islanders; Hopi; Iroquois; Akan; Minangkabau (West Sumatra); Khasi (Meghalaya); Nayar | Malinowski 1929 (The Sexual Life of Savages); Schneider & Gough 1961 (Matrilineal Kinship); Schlegel 1972 |
| Bilateral (cognatic) | Descent traced through both parents equally; kindred-based | Inuit; English-speaking middle classes; modern industrial societies generally | Murdock 1949 (Social Structure); Freeman 1961 (The Concept of the Kindred) |
| Double-unilineal | Person belongs to one patrilineal + one matrilineal group simultaneously, each with different rights | Yakö (Nigeria); Herero (Namibia); Ashanti (some functions) | Forde 1950 (Double Descent Among the Yakö) |
| Ambilineal | Membership in one of several available descent groups via parent of either sex | Maori (some hapu); Samoa; Gilbertese (Kiribati); many Pacific societies | Firth 1936 (We, the Tikopia); Goodenough 1955 |
| Parallel descent | Sons follow father’s line, daughters follow mother’s line | Some Tucanoan groups (Amazon); historical Sotho lineages | Lévi-Strauss 1969 (Elementary Structures of Kinship) |
II. Residence (post-marital)
| Type | Definition | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrilocal (virilocal) | Couple resides with or near husband’s father / husband’s group | ~70 % of pre-industrial societies sampled; Yanomami; Nuer; many Bantu | Murdock 1949 |
| Matrilocal (uxorilocal) | Couple resides with or near wife’s mother / wife’s group | Hopi; Iroquois; Nayar; Bemba; Minangkabau | Murdock 1949; Divale 1974 |
| Neolocal | Couple establishes new independent household | English / North American middle classes; most industrial societies | Murdock 1949 |
| Avunculocal | Couple resides with husband’s mother’s brother (mother’s brother’s village) | Trobriand Islanders; many matrilineal Pacific societies | Malinowski 1929; Goodenough 1955 |
| Ambilocal (bilocal) | Couple may choose either side | Many Pacific cognatic societies; some Inuit | Murdock 1949 |
| Duolocal | Spouses remain in their respective natal households; visits only | Ashanti (historically); Nayar; Mosuo (Yunnan) | Fortes 1949; Cai Hua 2001 (A Society Without Fathers or Husbands) |
| Natalocal | Each spouse remains with own natal kin (variant of duolocal) | Nayar (specifically); some Caribbean | Gough 1959 (The Nayars and the Definition of Marriage) |
III. Marriage Forms
| Form | Definition | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monogamy (strict) | One spouse at a time; remarriage permitted | Modern industrial societies; some indigenous Amazonian; Catholic-canonical | Goody 1976 (Production and Reproduction) |
| Monogamy (serial) | Sequential marriages via divorce + remarriage | Contemporary US + Western Europe | Cherlin 2009 (The Marriage-Go-Round) |
| Polygyny (general) | One husband, multiple wives simultaneously | ~85 % of Murdock’s sample permitted it; most common form of polygamy worldwide | Murdock 1949; Goody 1973 (The Character of Kinship) |
| Sororal polygyny | Multiple wives are sisters | Many Plains Native American societies; Tiwi (Australia) | Hart & Pilling 1960 (The Tiwi of North Australia) |
| Polyandry (general) | One wife, multiple husbands simultaneously | Rare; Goldstein 1976 documents ~4 societies | Goldstein 1976, 1987 (Tibetan polyandry) |
| Fraternal polyandry | Multiple husbands are brothers | Tibetan plateau Bhotia + Nyinba; Toda (Nilgiri Hills); some Polyandrous Sherpa | Goldstein 1987 (When Brothers Share a Wife); Levine 1988 (The Dynamics of Polyandry) |
| Polygynandry / group marriage | Multiple husbands + multiple wives | Marquesan ho’oao (historical, disputed); some Pahari communities | Berreman 1962 (questioned by later scholarship) |
| Levirate | Widow marries deceased husband’s brother | Ancient Israel (Deut 25:5-10); Nuer “ghost marriage”; many African pastoralists; classical Hindu (some interpretations) | Evans-Pritchard 1951; Goody 1976 |
| Sororate | Widower marries deceased wife’s sister | Many Plains Indian societies; some southern African; ancient Israelite | Murdock 1949 |
| Ghost marriage | Woman marries the name of a deceased man; children attributed to him | Nuer | Evans-Pritchard 1951 (Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer) |
| Woman-woman marriage | Woman of means marries another woman; takes social role of husband | Nuer; Igbo; Lovedu (S. Africa); various E. African | Krige 1974; Oboler 1980 |
| Bridewealth | Husband’s group transfers wealth to wife’s group | Most African pastoralists; many SE Asian | Goody 1973; Bossen 1988 |
| Dowry | Wife’s group transfers wealth to husband’s group or new couple | Classical Greek; Roman; medieval European nobility; modern South Asia | Goody 1973 (Bridewealth and Dowry) |
| Brideservice | Husband works for wife’s family before / after marriage | Yanomami; many foraging societies; Jacob in Genesis | Collier & Rosaldo 1981 |
| Exchange marriage | Direct sister-exchange between two groups | Tiwi; Murngin (Yolngu); some Amazonian | Hart & Pilling 1960; Warner 1937 |
IV. Cousin-Marriage Preferences
Cross-cousin = child of mother’s brother (MB) or father’s sister (FZ). Parallel cousin = child of MZ or FB.
| Preference | Definition | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cross-cousin marriage (general) | Marry mother’s brother’s daughter or father’s sister’s daughter | Common in unilineal societies | Lévi-Strauss 1949 / 1969 |
| MBD (matrilateral cross-cousin) | Marry mother’s brother’s daughter | Kachin (Burma); Trobriand; Aranda (Australia); Sinhalese | Leach 1954 (Political Systems of Highland Burma); Lévi-Strauss 1969 |
| FZD (patrilateral cross-cousin) | Marry father’s sister’s daughter | Some Tibetan; some Cariban; statistically rarer; tends to be unstable per Lévi-Strauss | Lévi-Strauss 1969; Needham 1962 (Structure and Sentiment) |
| Bilateral cross-cousin | Either MBD or FZD acceptable | Iroquois; Dravidian-speakers; many Amazonian | Trautmann 1981 (Dravidian Kinship) |
| Parallel cousin (FBD) | Marry father’s brother’s daughter | Many Arab + North African + Pakistani Muslim societies (~30 % FBD); Bedouin | Patai 1955; Holy 1989 (Kinship, Honour and Solidarity) |
V. Kinship Terminology Systems
Morgan 1871 + Murdock 1949 distinguished six classic systems by how Ego’s generation classifies cousins relative to siblings.
| System | Defining feature | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eskimo (Inuit) | Lineal: distinguishes nuclear family from all collateral kin; cousins lumped under one term; siblings distinguished | English; modern industrial societies; Inuit; !Kung | Morgan 1871; Murdock 1949 |
| Hawaiian (generational) | All members of one generation lumped: mother = mother’s sister = father’s sister | Hawaiian; many Polynesian; some Athapaskan | Morgan 1871; Burridge 1959 |
| Iroquois (bifurcate merging) | Mother + mother’s sister = same term; father + father’s brother = same; cross-cousins distinguished from parallel cousins (= siblings) | Iroquois; many Dravidian; many Bantu | Morgan 1871; Trautmann 1981 |
| Crow (Matrilineal skewing) | Father’s sister’s children skewed across generations: FZD = FZ; FZS = F | Crow; Hopi; Trobriand; Ashanti | Lounsbury 1964; Murdock 1949 |
| Omaha (Patrilineal skewing) | Mother’s brother’s children skewed: MBD = M; MBS = MB | Omaha; Nuer (some terms); Kachin (some) | Lounsbury 1964; Leach 1954 |
| Sudanese (Descriptive) | Each kin type has its own term; no merging | Classical Latin; some Arabic; ancient Anglo-Saxon; modern Turkish | Murdock 1949 |
VI. Descent Groups and Higher-Order Organization
| Group | Definition | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lineage | Group tracing descent from known ancestor through documented links (~5–10 generations) | Nuer (segmentary lineage system); Tallensi; many African pastoral | Evans-Pritchard 1940; Fortes 1945 |
| Clan | Larger group claiming descent from a common (often legendary or eponymous) ancestor; links not fully traced | Scottish clans; Hopi clans; Iroquois clans; Tlingit moieties subdivided into clans | Service 1962 |
| Moiety | One of two complementary descent groups dividing the entire society | Tlingit (Raven + Eagle/Wolf); Aranda; Iroquois; many Australian | Lévi-Strauss 1956 (Do Dual Organizations Exist?) |
| Phratry | Group of related clans | Iroquois Six Nations; Hopi (9 phratries) | Morgan 1851 (League of the Iroquois) |
| Kindred | Bilateral set of kin around an individual; non-discrete | Inuit; Anglo-Saxon; modern Euro-American | Freeman 1961 |
| Segmentary lineage system | Lineages nest within larger lineages, mobilized at corresponding levels of conflict | Nuer (canonical); Tiv (Nigeria); Bedouin | Evans-Pritchard 1940; Sahlins 1961 (The Segmentary Lineage) |
| Asabiyya | Cohesive group solidarity (typically tribal/lineage) underlying political power | Bedouin lineages; medieval Maghrebi dynasties | Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah 1377 |
VII. Joking, Avoidance, and Special Relationships
| Relation | Definition | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joking relationship | Required licentious / mocking interaction between specified kin | Mother’s brother / sister’s son among Tswana; cross-cousins across Africa; grandparents / grandchildren | Radcliffe-Brown 1940 (“On Joking Relationships”); Mauss 1928 |
| Avoidance relationship | Required avoidance / formal distance between specified kin | Mother-in-law / son-in-law in many Aboriginal Australian societies; Apache; Navajo; Bantu mother-in-law avoidance | Radcliffe-Brown 1924; Murdock 1949 |
| Mother’s brother | Special structural role: in matrilineal societies often the social father; in patrilineal often the indulgent relative | Trobriand MB (matrilineal); Tswana MB (patrilineal-indulgent) | Malinowski 1929; Radcliffe-Brown 1924 |
| Cross / parallel cousin distinction | Cross-cousins often potential spouses + jokers; parallel cousins as siblings | Iroquois; Dravidian-speakers | Trautmann 1981 |
VIII. Fictive Kinship and Ritual Kinship
| Form | Definition | Exemplary societies | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compadrazgo (godparenthood) | Spiritual co-parenthood via baptismal sponsorship | Latin American Catholic; Iberian Catholic; Filipino | Mintz & Wolf 1950 (An Analysis of Ritual Co-Parenthood) |
| Milk kinship (raḍāʿ) | Bond formed by shared wet-nursing; impediment to marriage in Islamic law | Arab + Persian + Anatolian Muslim societies | Khatib-Chahidi 1992; Parkes 2005 |
| Blood brotherhood | Ritual pact establishing kinship-like obligations between unrelated men | Azande; Scythian (Herodotus IV); medieval Slavic; Mongol anda | Evans-Pritchard 1933 |
| Hānai (Hawaiian adoption) | Informal but enduring adoption | Hawaiian; many Polynesian | Brady 1976 (Transactions in Kinship) |
| Godparenthood (non-Catholic) | Sponsor at rites of passage establishing fictive parent relation | Greek + Russian Orthodox; some Protestant; many Caribbean | (broad ethnographic) |
| Naming relationship | Adoption of a name from a deceased person, transferring some kin role | Inuit atiq system; Yup’ik | Bodenhorn 2000 |
IX. Cross-Cultural Case Studies (one society per row)
| Society | Region | Descent | Residence | Marriage | Terminology | Principal ethnographer + year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nuer | Sudan (South Sudan) | Patrilineal (segmentary lineage) | Patrilocal | Polygynous + levirate + ghost marriage | Sudanese | Evans-Pritchard 1940 |
| Tallensi | Ghana | Patrilineal | Patrilocal | Polygynous | Sudanese | Fortes 1945 |
| Trobriand Islanders | Papua New Guinea | Matrilineal | Avunculocal | Polygynous (chiefs) / monogamous | Crow | Malinowski 1922, 1929 |
| Hopi | Arizona, USA | Matrilineal | Matrilocal | Monogamous | Crow | Eggan 1950 (Social Organization of the Western Pueblos) |
| Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) | Northeast US | Matrilineal | Matrilocal | Monogamous | Iroquois | Morgan 1851; Fenton 1998 |
| Nayar | Kerala, India | Matrilineal | Duolocal / natalocal | Sambandham (visiting husbands) | (Dravidian variant) | Gough 1959; Schneider & Gough 1961 |
| Mosuo (Na) | Yunnan, China | Matrilineal | Duolocal (“walking marriage” tisese) | Visiting relationships, no formal marriage | (own system) | Cai Hua 2001 (A Society Without Fathers or Husbands) |
| Yanomami | Venezuela / Brazil | Patrilineal (cognatic in some groups) | Patrilocal | Polygynous; bilateral cross-cousin preferred | Iroquois | Chagnon 1968 (Yanomamö); Albert 1985 |
| Tiwi | Bathurst + Melville Islands, Australia | Patrilineal moieties + matri-clans | Patrilocal | Polygynous; sororal | (own system) | Hart & Pilling 1960 |
| !Kung / Ju | ’hoansi | Kalahari, Botswana / Namibia | Bilateral | Multilocal (flexible) | Monogamous | Eskimo-like |
| Minangkabau | West Sumatra | Matrilineal | Matrilocal | Monogamous (Islamic) | (own system) | Kahn 1980; Sanday 2002 (Women at the Center) |
| Nayar Sambandham | Kerala | Matrilineal | Duolocal | Visiting | (Dravidian variant) | Gough 1959 |
| Akan | Ghana | Matrilineal | Patrilocal (man returns to natal lineage in some functions) | Polygynous | Crow | Rattray 1923 (Ashanti) |
| Bedouin (Rwala) | Arabian Peninsula | Patrilineal | Patrilocal | Polygynous; FBD preferred | Sudanese | Lancaster 1981 (The Rwala Bedouin Today) |
| Pukhtun / Pashtun | Afghanistan / Pakistan | Patrilineal | Patrilocal | Polygynous; FBD common | Sudanese-like | Barth 1959 (Political Leadership Among Swat Pathans) |
| Han Chinese | China | Patrilineal | Patrilocal | Monogamous (legal); historically polygynous concubinage | (own descriptive) | Freedman 1958 (Lineage Organization); Watson 1985 |
| Bemba | Zambia | Matrilineal | Matrilocal (initially) | Monogamous + sororal polygyny | Crow-like | Richards 1939, 1956 (Chisungu) |
| Mundurucu | Brazil | Patrilineal | Matrilocal (unusual combination) | Monogamous | (own) | Murphy & Murphy 1974 (Women of the Forest) |
| Tibetan (Nyinba) | Nepal-Tibet border | Patrilineal | Patrilocal | Fraternal polyandry | (Tibetan) | Levine 1988 |
| Lovedu | Limpopo, South Africa | Patrilineal | Patrilocal | Polygynous + woman-woman marriage (queen’s institution) | (own) | Krige & Krige 1943 |
Adjacent
- Hominin species catalog for biological substrate of human social organization.
- Lithic technology timeline for archaeological context of kinship’s emergence.
- Cultural Anthropology survey for theoretical framing.
- Biological Anthropology survey for kin selection and inclusive-fitness theory.
- Linguistic typology catalog for kin-term morphology.
- Anthropology Tier 3 index · Anthropology Tier 1 root