Milk kinship is a form of kinship formed during nursing by a non-biological mother, historically functioning as a mechanism for building allegiance and alliance between community members and families, one that did not exclude particular groups so that class and other hierarchical distinctions did not bar participation. The practice predates the early modern period but became an especially widely used mechanism for forging alliances within hierarchical societies during that era, working through the wet-nursing of a child either from within the same community or from a neighboring one. The wet nurse who breastfed a child not her own played a strategic role in creating a bond between her own family and the family of the nursed child, a relationship that extended outward to link both families' broader communities as well.
Facts
Descent RuleSourced to the subject's own accountNot a descent rule: milk kinship creates a fictive kinship bond through shared nursing by a non-biological mother rather than through genealogical descent, functioning as an alternative to kinship bonds based on blood and carrying marriage prohibitions that parallel those of blood kinship. 1 Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountNo single typical region: documented across Islamic societies of the Arab world, North Africa and Islamic Asia, in Eastern Christianity through fifteenth-century Canon Law marriage prohibitions, in Hindu Kush society, and among the Sioux of North America. 1 Connections
Associated With
Milk kinship, recognized in Islamic law as arising when a woman breastfeeds a child not her own, is a specific documented form of fictive kinship that creates marriage prohibitions equivalent to blood relation.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Milk Kinship
WikipediaStrategic reasons for milk kinship section
it brings about a social relationship that is an alternative to kinship bonds based on blood
Higher social class section
This was a major practice in the Hindu Kush society.
Lead paragraph, opening definition
Milk kinship, formed during nursing by a non-biological mother, was a form of fostering allegiance with fellow community members.
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