Classificatory kinship

Part of a series on the

Anthropology of kinship

Basic concepts

Descent

Linealities
Cognatic / Bilateral Matrilateral House society Avunculate
Ambilineality Unilineality Matrilineality Patrilineality

Household forms and residence

Gender

Third gender

Terminology

By group
Kinship terminology Classificatory terminologies
Iroquois Crow Omaha Eskimo Hawaiian Sudanese Dravidian

Case studies

Gender
Australian Aboriginal Burmese Chinese Philippine Polyandry in Tibet / in India
Mosuo matrilineality Chambri (female-dominant) Hijra (third-gender)
Sexuality
Coming of Age in Samoa

Major theorists

Social anthropology
Cultural anthropology

Main article: Kinship and descent

Classificatory kinship systems, as defined by Lewis Henry Morgan, put people into society-wide kinship classes on the basis of abstract relationship rules. These may have to do with genealogical relations locally (e.g., son to father, daughter to mother, daughter to father) but the classes bear no overall relation to genetic closeness. If a total stranger marries into the society, for example, they may simply be placed in the appropriate class opposite to their spouse. It uses kinship terms that merge or equate relatives who are genealogically distinct from one another. Here, the same term is used for different kin.

The Dravidian kinship-term system, discovered in 1964, is an example of a classificatory kin-term logic.

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