Unilineality

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Anthropology of kinship
Basic concepts Family Lineage Affinity Consanguinity Marriage Incest taboo Endogamy Exogamy Moiety Monogamy Polygyny Polygamy Concubinage Polyandry Bride price Bride service Dowry Parallel / cross cousins Cousin marriage Levirate Sororate Posthumous marriage Joking relationship Clan Cohabitation Fictive / Milk / Nurture kinship Descent Cognatic / Bilateral Matrilateral Lineal Collateral House society Avunculate Linealities Ambilineality Unilineality Matrilineality Patrilineality Household forms and residence Extended Matrifocal Matrilocal Neolocal Nuclear Patrilocal
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Major theorists Diane Bell Tom Boellstorff Jack Goody Gilbert Herdt Don Kulick Roger Lancaster Louise Lamphere Eleanor Leacock Claude Lévi-Strauss Bronisław Malinowski Margaret Mead Henrietta Moore Lewis H. Morgan Stephen O. Murray Michelle Rosaldo Gayle Rubin David M. Schneider Marilyn Strathern
Related articles Alliance theory Matrilineal / matrilocal societies Feminist anthropology Sex and Repression in Savage Society Social Bonding and Nurture Kinship "The Traffic in Women"
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Unilineality is a system of determining descent groups in which one belongs to one's father's or mother's line, whereby one's descent is traced either exclusively through male ancestors (patriline), or exclusively through female ancestors (matriline). Both patrilineality and matrilineality are types of unilineal descent. The main types of the unilineal descent groups are lineages and clans.

A lineage is a unilineal descent group that can demonstrate their common descent from a known apical ancestor. It is also called the simple unilineal descent.

Unilineal descent organization and deep Christianization

Recent research^[1] on the unilineal descent organization has studied variables that are usually regarded as the main causes of the decline of unilineal descent organization – viz. statehood, class stratification and commercialization – along with one not previously considered: deep Christianization, defined here as having been Christianized over 500 years before ethnographic study. The research demonstrated that the traditionally accepted causes of the decline are less significant than deep Christianization, while the presence of unilineal descent groups correlates negatively with communal democracy and is especially strong for complex traditional societies. Its conclusion is that as the communal democracy correlates positively with the supracommunal one^[clarify], Christianization might have contributed to the development of modern democracy by helping to replace unilineal descent organization in Europe.

References

See also

• Ambilineality
• Family
• Cultural anthropology

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This page was last edited on 17 November 2023, at 09:10