Kinship terms are the terminology used in many genealogical charts to describe relatives of the subject in question. These words make up the culture's kinship vocabulary, also known as the "kin terminological system".

Genealogical Abbreviations

• B = Brother
• C = Child(ren)
• D = Daughter
• F = Father
• GC = Grandchild(ren)
• GP = Grandparent(s)
• P = Parent
• S = Son
• Z = Sister
• W = Wife
• H = Husband
• SP = Spouse
• LA = In-law
• SI = Sibling
• M = Mother
• (m.s.) = male speaking
• (f.s.) = female speaking

Kin terminology

• affinity - Relationships through marriage.
• ambilineal - Ambilineal descent groups, also termed ramages, are similar to unilineal forms since they involve the formation of discrete and exclusive units. However, they also allow for individuals to chose group membership at at least one point in their lives. Reasons for assuming membership in one group or another usually depend on the availability of corporately owned lands, but will of course also be influenced by political factors and personal friendships among kin.
• ambilocal - Ambilocal means that the newly married couples live with the husband or wife's parents. This couple may also choose to live with one set of parents for a while then move to the other set. About 9% of the world's societies have ambilocal residence.
• avunculocal - Avunculocal residence is generated from a number of separate rules. 1. Women usually take up residence with their husbands after marriage, and the couple's children reside with them until adulthood. 2. Upon reaching maturity, sons are expected to move out of their parental home into their mothers' brothers' households. 3. Daughters continue to follow a virilocal pattern, by moving to their husbands' households after marriage.
• bilateral - The decent traced and kinship groups assigned through both male and female lines.
• bilocal - Societies with bilocal residence requires the new couple to live with either the groom's family or the bride's family. Bilocal residence is found on Dobu Islands near New Guinea and Borneo in Indonesia.
• bride price - Work or services done by a groom for his wife's family instead of paying a bride price. Bride service is usually for a set period of time, often years. It is a common practice in societies that have little material wealth and strong rules requiring sharing that prevent the accumulation of wealth. Bride price as also been called "progeny price."
• bride service - Husband works for his future in-laws for several months or years in exchange for being allowed to marry their daughter.
• cognatic - A class of descent rules; both male and female lines are used to determine relationships between people.''
• consanguine - blood relative; related biologically.
• cross cousin - Children of an individual's mother's brother or father's sister.
• descent - Tracing kinship relationships through several generations.
• double descent - the tracing of kinship both matrilineally and patrilineally; not the same as unilineal descent or bilateral descent. Double unilineal, or duolineal, descent is very rare. Arguably, a form of double descent exists among groups of Australian Aboriginals, but the most definitive examples are found in Africa.
• dowry - Valuables given to the husband from the wife's family at the time of the marriage ceremony.
• endogamous - When marriages occur within the boundaries of the domestic group, between members of the same group.
• exogamous - When marriages occur outside of the doemstic group, between members of different groups.
• family - Base unit of kinship relationships; a group of related peoples.
• fictive kinship - Kinship relationships not based on affinal or consanguineal ties.
• genitor - biological father
• genitrix - biological mother
• incest - Sex relations and marriages between people recognized as relatives.
• kindred - The relatives recognized in a bilateral kinship system.
• kinship - The ideas that related people have about one another and how that influences their relationships.
• Kinship Terminological System - The words used in a specific culture to designate kin relationships.
• marriage - A relationship usually involving co-resident herterosexual mating and reproduction.
• matrifocal - The term matrifocal, or its synonym, matricentric, simply means mother or female centered and can be understood to designate a domestic form in which only a mother and her dependent children are present or significant. Adult males in the capacity of husbands and fathers or of brothers and mothers brothers are either absent or, in some formulations, present but marginal to family life. The term should not be confused with matrilocality, where husbands are present in their wives households or with natalocality, where brothers assume male domestic responsibilities.
• matrilineal - A descent traced through the mother's line.
• matrilocal - Matrilocal residence is instituted by a rule that a woman remains in her mother's household after reaching maturity and brings her husband to live with her family after marriage. Sons, conversely, move out of their natal household after marriage to join their wife's household. It can take on a number of forms, some, but not all of which occur within matrilineal societies. Non-standard cases include societies with bride service, in which a man moves in with his wife's family but sets up his own household after his obligations are met. In the initial stages of household development a married daughter brings her husband into her mother's household, while a married son leaves to reside with his wife. As a new generation is added to the original household, married daughters continue to reside with their mothers and bring in their husbands. Sons leave upon marriage. A matrilocal extended family of three generations develops, including common female members of the founder's matrilineage and husbands from a number of different lineages.
• monogamy - Marriage with one spouse exclusively for life.
• neolocal - Neolocal is when a newly married couple lives independently in a new location. Neolocal residence rules form the basis of most Western domestic structures. Upon marriage, each partner is expected to move out of his or her parents' household and establish a new residence, thus forming the core of an independent nuclear family. Neolocal residence involves the creation of a new household each time a child marries or even when he or she reaches adulthood and becomes economically active. Neolocal residence and nuclear family domestic structures are found in societies where geographical mobility is important. In Western societies, they are consistent with the frequent moves necessitated by choices and changes within a supply and demand regulated labour market. They are also prevalent in hunting and gathering economies, where nomadic movements are intrinsic to the subsistence strategy.
• Nuclear Family - Husband, wife, and the children.
• patrilineal - A descent traced through the father's line.
• patrilocal - Newly married couple lives with the husband's father.
• polyandry - The wife has several husbands.
• polygamy - Plural marriages.
• polygyny - The husband has several wives.
• serial monogamy - Marriage to one spouse at a time.
• sister exchange - The husbands trade sisters to be each other's wives in order to keep any group from losing a woman.
• unilateral - A class of descent rulers; the descent is traced through a single line.
• uxorilocal - Newly married couple lives with the wife's kin.
• virilocal - A newly married couple lives with the husband's kin.

Kinship terminologies are most frequently subdivided into four major types:

• lineal;
• bifurcate collateral;
• bifurcate merging;
• generational.

With lineal kinship terminology the lineal relatives are distinguished from the collateral ones (for example, father and father's brother are denoted with different terms). On the other hand, maternal relatives are not distinguished from paternal relatives (for example, mother's sister and father's sister are denoted with the same term, e.g. "aunt" in English). This system looks perfectly natural for most Europeans, and indeed it is prevalent in most of modern European languages, but also, for example among the !Kung of the Kalahari, or the Inuit (Eskimo) - that is why it is frequently denoted as the "Inuit", or "Eskimo" kinship terminology. However, the lineal kinship terminology is not attested in most languages of the world, where other kinship terminology are used.

With bifurcate collateral kinship terminologies the lineal relatives are also distinguished from the collateral ones. But, on the other hand, maternal relatives ARE distinguished from paternal relatives (for example, mother's sister and father's sister are denoted with different terms, e.g. "kha:lah" and "`ammah" in Arabic) - this phenomenon is called "bifurcation". The languages with such kinship terminologies are even more rare than the ones using lineal kinship terms, but they could hardly be called "rare", as these lenguages (like Chinese, or Arabic) include some that are spoken by really large numbers of people. Bifurcate collateral kinship terminologies comprise the largest numbers of kinship terms (that could exceed 400 in some versions of Chinese).

With bifurcate merging kinship terminologies the lineal relatives are NOT distinguished from the collateral ones (for example, mather and mother's sister are denoted with one term). On the other hand, maternal relatives ARE distinguished from paternal relatives. This kinship terminologies are often subdivided into Iroquois, Omaha, and Crow subtypes.

Finally, with generational ("Hawaiian") kinship terminologies the lineal relatives are NOT distinguished from the collateral ones (for example, mather and mother's sister are denoted with one term). On the other hand, maternal relatives are NOT distinguished from paternal relatives either.

References

• Murdock, G. P. (1949). Social Structure. New York: Macmillan.
• Pasternak, B. (1976). Introduction to Kinship and Social Organization. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Pasternak, B., Ember, M., & Ember, C. (1997). Sex, Gender, and Kinship: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Anthropology

Sources