Matrilineal kinship involves the tracing of a particular society’s descent from one’s mother’s lineage. It is a line of descent from a woman ancestor to a descendant of either male or female (Ferraro and Andreatta 56). Individuals in the preceding generations are all mothers. It also involves inheriting of property as well as titles from the mother’s lineage.
Matrilocal residence also in other terms matrilocality is a phenomenon in which a family (husband, wife and their children) live close to the bride's parents. The children in such a family remain live in their maternal grandmother’s home and are brought up by their uncles and aunties or the mother’s siblings.
Such situations occur in societies that practice visiting marriages. Visiting marriages is a situation where the husband and the wife live separately with their respective families. They only visit when they have time. Children in such societies are in that case brought up by the mother's extended family. The father plays a minimal role in raising his children but plays a significant role in raising the children born in his mother's family.
Avunculocal residence patterns
In these patterns, a groom establishes his family in his maternal uncle's house. Families begin as nuclear, then grown daughters move with their husbands and the grown sons move to their maternal uncles' homes to start their families. This pattern is typical in most matrilineal societies.
A good example of a matrilineal society is the Akan from West Africa and particularly in Ivory Coast and Ghana. Many of the Akan people communities live in their matrilineal extended families. Matrilineal customs are the basis of their succession and inheritance. Property is only inherited based on the matrilineal lineage. The Akan have eight large groups that all descend from one common female ancestor. A person belongs to his or her mother’s Abusua or clan throughout one’s life.
Work Cited
Ferraro, G, and Susan Andreatta. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective. New York:
Cengage Learning, 2014.
