Discuss Borwn’s approach to the study of kinship systems in contrast to the diffusionist point of view

For more than a century the subject of kinship has occupied a special and important position in social anthropology. The diffusionists used the method of conjectural history to study kinship systems.

Essay on primitive marriage McLennan suggested the origin of the custom of exogamy from marriage by capture and the proposition that the most ancient system in which the idea of blood relationship was embodied was a system of kinship through females only.

In his book on ancient society Lewis Morgan offered a conjcctural outline in the history of the whole course of social development. This method, however, hinders the development of a scientific theory of human society as it depends much upon conjectures about past and future.

By a “kinship system” Brown means a system of kinship and marriage or kinship and affinity. According to Brewn the unit of structure from which a kinship system is built is the elementary family, consisting of a man, his wife and children. Brown uses the investigation method of observing the actual operations of kinship relations in primitive societies.

The existence of the elementary family creates three special kinds of social relationship’s that between parents and child, between children and between husband and wife. These are the relationships of the first order.

Relationships of the second order are those which depend on the connections of two elementary families through common members for example father’s father, mother’s brother etc. In the third order are such relations as father’s brother’s son, mother’s brothers’ wife etc.

In any given society a certain number of these relationships are recognized for social purposes. They have attached to them certain rights and duties and certain distinctive models of behaviour.

These relations constitute a kinship system. A most important characteristic of a kinship system is its range. In wide ranging relations of non-European countries a man ire(ay recognize hundreds of relatives towards each of whom his behaviour is defined.

Thus a kinship system is in the first place, a system of dyadic relations between person and person in a community.

The behaviour of any two persons in any of these relations is regulated in some way by social usage. A kinship system also includes the existence of definite; social groups. The first of these is the domestic family. In many kinship systems unilinear groups of kindred play an important part.

The network of social relations of a kinship system constitutes part of the total network of social relations or social structure. Ancestor worship is a part of the kinship system as it constitutes a relation between living persons and their deceased kindred.

Kinship terminologies are a part of the kinship system. Between the various features of a particular kinship system there is a complex relation of interdependence.

The diffusionist’s tried to explain the Omaha and Choctaw customs of calling a father’s sisters son by the same term he uses to his father and also the same nomenclature used to one’s mothers relatives by conjecturing that they resulted from the custom of marrying one’s mother’s brother’s wife.

According to Brown however, all over the world there are important relations between-kinship nomenclature and social practices. Kinship nomenclature affords the best possible approach to the investigation and analysis of kinship systems.

One common feature of kinship systems is the recognition of certain categories or kinds into which the various relatives of a single person can be grouped. The actual social relations between a person and his relatives is fixed by the category to which the relative belongs. Kinship nomenclature is used as a means of establishing and recognizing these categories.

A single term. may be used to refer to a category of relatives and different categories will be distinguished by different terms. Thus, for example, we call the father’s brother and mother’s brother as uncle.

The Kinship system thus employ certain forms of Morgan’s classificatory terminology. In these systems the distinction between lineal and collateral relatives is clearly recognized and is of great importance in social life. Sometimes this is subordinated to the principle of solidarity of the sibling group.

Thus, for instance, the mother’s sisters are treated as relatives of the same ‘kind’ as the mother, both in terminology and in certain principles of behaviour and attitude. In a number of systems the mother’s brother is also treated as a relative of the same kind as the mother. He maybe called male mother as in the Bantu tribes of Africa. This treatment is given to even the relatives of a third or fourth generation.

Thus the classificatory terminology a method of providing a wide range kinship organization by establishing a few categories of relationship under which a large number of near and distant relatives can be included.

The distinction of generations forms another aspect of kinship system. In some societies there is a generalizing tendency in the behaviour of relatives of different generations. Linkage plays an important role in the distinction of generation and in fixing kinship obligations.

Thus, while the method of conjectural history studies single problems °f kinship in isolation and speculates upon their origin, the method of structural analysis aims at a general theory of kinship by a systematic classification of observable kinship systems by observing particular features and by analysing about their similarities and social implications.