Kinship represents a system of societal organization that describes putative or real family ties. The concept is a human attribute that deeply relies on cultural extensions. While it remains common among many social sciences, kinship is increasingly popular in cultural anthropology. This essay describes descent and alliance as two significant concepts in cultural anthropology of kinship.
Both terms encompass the primary forms of human relatedness. On one hand, the term alliance refers to the social relatedness that individuals form through marriage. Marriage-based alliances point to the necessity of interdependence for families and lineages. These marriages exist as a form of cultural communication and inter-individual relations in functional societies. Alliance systems would, therefore, link descent groups through recurrent or prescriptive marriage for the creation of an affinial relationship across generations.
Kimberly Hart’s ethnographical analysis of a Turkish marriage represents a perfect example of an alliance. In this case, however, the characters go against the cultural norms and develop a romance before marriage. Kimberly describes their behavior as the testament to the effects of modernity on courtship and marriage. Nonetheless, both marriage types would unite families and create a new form of relatedness (2007: 345-346).
Descent relations explain the relatedness of individuals based on common ancestry. There exist three major types of descent under this terminology. First, a unilineal group is one whose members can trace their descent from either the father’s or mother’s side. Second, matrilineal descent groups follow their mother’s lineage. Finally, patrilineal descent systems suggest that individuals follow their father’s descent. By definition, descent groups comprise of members that share a common descendant. This individual exists as the founder and original owner of the territory and estate.
For instance, Ramberg had an ethnographic fieldwork experience that best describes descent in South India’s Karnataka. Here, the researcher encounters Shantamma, a local woman that dedicates her daughter to the goddess Yellamma. Shantamma reaches this decision to continue the family’s lineage of affective relations and material. Ramberg describes this community as patrilocal, and patrilineal kinship relations are commonplace. Here, individuals trace their lineage from their father’s descent and wives settle and become part of their husband’s families. Shantamma’s actions mean, therefore, that she has reconfigured her daughter’s forms of value, sense of being and labor into a boy. However, the practice leaves a descent gap in the family tree (Ramberg 2013: 663-670).
That said, both terms are increasingly relevant for contemporary anthropologists. Over the years, human kinship has earned a lot of favor from renowned anthropologists. For instance, Levi-Strauss perceives kinship as exceptionally important in the study of culture. The author utilizes both concepts as guidelines to help explain the complexity present in cultural anthropology. Descent and Alliance theories, thus, would help in explaining some of the taboos that exist in societies such as incestuous relationships among others (Levi-Strauss 1969).
Also, the study of descent and alliances enables contemporary anthropologists to discover kinship issues and recommend solutions. For instance, Ramberg discovered a normalization issue on the patterns of kin-making for devadasis living in northern Karnataka. The devadasis are servants of Yellamma dedicated to a lifetime of servitude. In such cases, they cannot belong to a structured kinship pattern because their formal gender exists as female. Ramberg suggests kin-making as the contemporary technology that could help in solving this issue. Ideally, the technology produces individuals who can possess and align in between genders from the devadasis perspective (2013: 671).
In conclusion, the above discussion analyzed descent and alliance as two terms that are relevant to contemporary anthropologists. The concepts of descent and alliance are both theoretical and practical in nature. In this capacity, they have had the ability to introduce the seamlessness and complexity related to kinship. The ethnographical studies, however, show that the complexity is solvable given adequate research.
Bibliography
Hart, K. 2007. Love by arrangement: the ambiguity of ‘spousal choice’ in a Turkish village. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 13 , 345-362.
Levi-Strauss, C. 1969. Ch. 5: The principle of reciprocity. In The elementary structures of kinship In C. Levi-Strauss, 52-68. Beacon Press.
Ramberg, L. 2013. Troubling kinship: Sacred marriage and gender configuration in South India. American Ethnologist, 40, 4, 661–675.
