Kinship is least important in the developed countries of the west because large kinship groups of the corporate descent type are absent. Still kinship is important in three ways.

1. Kinship is the basis for the formation of family, consisting of husband and wife and unmarried children. This is different from the joint family which is found in many developing countries such as India.

2. Kinship is still very important in the west for the purpose of determining inheritance and succession. Property and rank is passed from generation to generation in the male line. In almost all western countries, the child takes the name of the father; the wife takes the name of husband after marriage.

3. The third way in which the kinship is important in the west is for purpose of social status if someone has noble men in one’s ancestor than he is proved to trace his roots, but if he has criminals as his ancestry, then he would make a great effort to hide this fact. In Britain particularly, school status is determined by the traditional family in which one is born. Dukes, Earls and princes are very important in that society.