Society and Culture Atlas

How People Live Together
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme

Kinship Terminology Systems

The named systems of kin classification anthropologists use to compare how societies label relatives, refined from Lewis Henry Morgan comparative survey and standardized as the six classificatory types: Eskimo, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Iroquois, Crow and Omaha. Belongs here: a named terminology system itself, the pattern by which a language sorts relatives into address categories. Does not belong here: a specific rule about who a person may marry or where a couple lives after marriage, grouped under Marriage Systems or Postmarital Residence Patterns, since a terminology system describes classification of kin, not marriage or residence choice.

Facts
Comparison
Established Era
1871 1
Primary Discipline
Anthropology 1
Recognized Type Count
6 1
Browse By
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Kinship
Wikipedia
  • Kinship, kinship terminology systems section
    The major patterns of kinship systems that are known which Lewis Henry Morgan identified through kinship terminology in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family are: Iroquois kinship (also known as "bifurcate merging") Crow kinship (an expansion of bifurcate merging) Omaha kinship (also an expansion of bifurcate merging) Inuit kinship (referred to by Morgan as "Eskimo kinship" and also referred to as "lineal kinship") Hawaiian kinship (also referred to as the "generational system") Sudanese kinship (also referred to as the "descriptive system")
  • Kinship, lead section
    In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.