Consanguinity and Affinity | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Consanguinity and Affinity
Kinship has to do with two types of relationships - The relationships by blood or consanguinity and the relationships by marriage of affinity. All cultures distinguish various categories of consanguines (blood relations) and affines. These categories With their associated patterns rights and obligations make up kinship system. In some societies every ind ividual is or thinks he is, related by consanguinity or affinity to every one else in others including most western ones, a man’s kin and affines are limited for practical purposes to a few close relatives. But in every society some relationships of kinship and affinity are culturally recognized.
In a majority of western societies and other "westernizing" societies kinship plays a little or no
part in this complex network of political, economic and religious association. But in many small-scale societies, the "social, importance of kinship is paramount; Where a person lives his group and community membership, who m he should obey and by whom be obeyed, who are his-friends and who his enemies, who he should and should not marry, from whom he may hope to inherit.and to whom pass on his own status and-property - all these matters and many more may be determined by an individual's status in a kinship system.
In all the human societies, even the most technologically simple ones, the basic categories of biological relationship are available as a means of identifying and ordering the multifarious social relations. This is so even though some of these categories' may be differently defined in different culture . Everywhere people are Begotten of men and born of women and in most societies the fact of parenthood and The bonds of mutual dependency and support that it implies are acknowledged. This leads to the recognition of other links such as those between siblings, and between grandparents and grand Children. So, even in the simple societies kinship provides some ready to band to categories for distinguishing between the people according one's relation with them. Apart from sex and age, which are also of prime social importance, there is no other way of classifying people which is so "built in" to the human condition.
Biologically it is not just the human beings but also animals possess kinship. But the vital point is that unlike other animals human beings consciously and explicitly use the categories of kinship to define social relationships. When an anthropologist speaks of a parent-child relationship, or of relationship between cross-cousins, he is not primarily concerned with the biological connections between these kinds of kinds though of course he recognizes the existence of such relations. What is important in the analysis  and understanding of any kinship system is the recognition of social relations; the fact that in the culture being studied they involve distinct types of social . behavior and particular patterns of expectations, beliefs and values.

When social anthropologists deal with kinship relations, they are really dealing with relations of a very different kind, that is with social ones. Kinship relations are not a special kind of social relationships like, economic or legal relations. Rather the categories which kinship affords actually provide a context and idiom for many different kinds of social relationships. It is the anthropologist’s task to determine, in the culture he is studying what these are . A kinship system is not just a collection kind of genealogical and social relationship. It is rather a whole way o f life, and it can be understood only by a thorough investigation of the language  values and behavior of people who have it. Often t h e denotation o f kinship term s is not fixed but depends on the social con texts in which they a re used, so that the same genealogical relationship is invoked by use of the same term in different situations. To give a simple example, in many cultures the term which we translate 'brother' may (though it need not) denote many relatives besides the son of one's parents; sometimes it may refer to people who are not biologically kin at all. What it does denote can only be determined in the light of a through knowledge of culture. Kinship may provide a guide to a very great many of the social relationships in which a person is likely to be involved in the course of his life. It is very commonly used and is important for two related purposes.
1. It provides a way of transmitting status and property from one generation to the next.
2. it serves to establish and maintain effective social groups