explain the descent approach to the understanding of kinship 500 words
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Essay on the System of Kinship in India!
The system of kinship, that is, the way in which relations between individuals and groups are organised, occupies a central place in all human societies. Radcliffe-Brown (1964) insisted on the study of a kinship system as a field of rights and obligations and saw it as part of the social structure. Evans-Pritchard’s study of the Nuer of the southern Sudan (1951) focused on kinship groups, particularly groups based on descent in the male line from known ancestor.
Morgan called them gens (clans). However, Morgan’s view, along with that of McLennan and Sir Henry Maine, that the kinship systems should be equated with evolutionary law, is not favoured today. Kinship systems are not subject to cumulative evolution as the evolution of technology is Kinship systems cannot be ranked as better or worse, higher or lower. They simply represent alternative ways of doing things, namely, in terms of acknowledged rules and regulations regarding succession, inheritance and marriage.
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Evans-Pritchard showed how gens functioned as political groups in Nuer society. He emphasised on the recruitment, perpetuation and functioning of such groups in Africa. Emphasis on interpersonal relations between individuals and groups is found in the study of kinship by Meyer Fortes. Thus, we can look at the total society and ask how it forms its kinship groups, and how they function.
We can look at the network of the relationships that bind individuals to each other in the ‘web’ of kinship. Kinship systems are also seen as methods of organising marriage relations between groups. Through marriage, Levi-Strauss (1969) observes, members are recruited to kinship groups.
A female is recruited as a wife, as a daughter-in-law and so on through her marriage to another group; and a male through his marriage is recruited as husband, son-in-law of his wife’s parents. Thus, kinship group alliances are transacted through marriage.