Matrilineal Kinship (Library Reprint) Hardcover – April 1, 1974

To supplement Ernest Schusky's very helpful review of (exactly!) three years ago, here's more info about this important book: the information from the book jacket of the 1974 reprint edition that is still intact on the copy in my university library. And read further down to also see the full table of contents & editor/author bios.

[TRANSCRIBED FROM BOOK JACKET]

The structure of all societies is uses, in some degree, on kinship. Matrilineal kinship is that form of kinship where membership in the descent unit is determined by consanguineal relationship through females. The father does not belong to the same descent unit as his wife and children, yet he is a member of the family group. His loyalties and interests are thus split between his own descent group, a decision-making body, and his family. Matrilineal descent therefore creates a recurrent set of structural problems which are different from those created by other forms of descent.

MATRILINEAL KINSHIP deals with the structural and evolutionary problems of matrimony by means of a threefold approach. It analyzes the structure of particular matrilineal societies, examines their cultural ecology, and inquires into the implications of matrilineal descent for the evolution of kinship systems.

After an introductory chapters, “The Distinctive Features of Matrilineal Descent Groups,” the book is divided into three main parts. Part One provides well-rounded expositions of nine matrilineal systems: Plateau Tonga; Navaho; Trukese; Trobriand Islanders; Ashanti; Tiyyar, Mappilla, and Nayar of North Kerala; and Nayar of Central Kerala. Part Two discusses the variation among these and six additional matrilineal systems for which literature is available. Particular attention is paid to the determinants of variation in descent-group structure, residence, patterns of interpersonal kinship relationships, and marriage preferences. Part Three makes cross-cultural comparisons by selecting more limited variables, but chooses a larger number of cases than those previously discussed and treats the data statistically.

[Note added: The six other societies added to discussion in Part Two, besides those also described in Part One, are: the Hopi of Arizona; the Minangkabau of Central Sumatra; and four Central African societies: the Mayombe (lower Congo area), the Bemba (Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia), the Ndembu or Mwinilunga Lunda (also Zimbabwe/former Rhodesia), and the Yao (Nyasaland, now Malawi).]

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

Introduction: The Distinctive Features of Matrilineal Descent Groups (David M. Schneider)

PART ONE: NINE MATRILINEAL KINSHIP SYSTEMS
Introduction to Part One
1. Plateau Tonga (Elizabeth Colson)
2. Navaho (David F. Aberle)
3. Truk (David M. Schneider)
4. Trobriand (George H. Fathauer)
5. Ashanti (Harry W, Basehart)
6. Nayar: Central Kerala (Kathleen Gough)
7. Nayar: North Kerala (Kathleen Gough)
8. Tiyyar: North Kerala (Kathleen Gough)
9. Mappilla: North Kerala (Kathleen Gough)

PART TWO: VARIATION IN MATRILINEAL SYSTEMS
Introduction to Parts Two and Three
10. Descent Groups of Settled and Mobile Cultivators (Kathleen Gough)
11. Descent-Group Variation among Settled Cultivators (Kathleen Gough)
12. Descent-Group Variation among Mobile Cultivators (Kathleen Gough)
13. Variation in Residence (Kathleen Gough)
14. Variation in Interpersonal Kinship Relationships (Kathleen Gough)
15. Variation in Preferential Marriage Forms (Kathleen Gough)
16. The Modem Disintegration of Matrilineal Descent Groups (Kathleen Gough)

PART THREE: CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS
17. Matrilineal Descent in Cross-Cultural Perspective (David F. Aberle)

Bibliography
Index

[EDITOR & AUTHOR BIOS TRANSCRIBED FROM BOOK JACKET]

DAVID M. SCHNEIDER has written for anthropological journals and has collaborated in writing Marriage, Authority and Final Causes, a study of cross cousin marriage. He is Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago. KATHLEEN GOUGH has written on the Nayar and associated peoples of South India. She is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Brandeis University. DAVID F. ABERLE has written on the Navaho, the Hopi, and other groups; he is Chairman of the Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University. ELIZABETH COLSON is the author of articles and monographs on the Makah Indians, Plateau Tonga and the Valley Tonga; she is Professor of Anthropology, Brandeis University. GEORGE FATHAUER has written on the Mohave Indians and is Professor of Anthropology, Miami University (Ohio). HARRY H. BASEHART has written on the Mescalero Apache as well as the Oneida, and is Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico.

Schneider and Gough convened a symposium on matrilineal kinship in the mid-fifties, inviting anthropologists who had worked in and described matrilineal societies. The participants represented cultures from around the world and give us an excellent sample of matriliny.

To understand the importance of the book, some background will help. In anthropology's beginning, scholars attempted to discover the evolutionary changes in kinship systems (matrilineal, patrilineal, and bilateral were postulated with little evidence, but of course leading to present-day European). By the thirties, anthropolgists had turned away from evolution in social systems, and concentrated on showing how kinship functioned and its relationship within a society's social structure. Patrilineal and matrilineal societies were often contrasted. In the early fifties, the work on kinship showed how much alike patrilineal and matrilineal were, and the two were joined as unilineal systems, contrasting with bilateral systems such as those in Europe and America.

Gough and Schneider realized that by lumping the two systems together as 'unilineal', some important differences were overlooked. Those differences are the subject of the book, and we learn important features of patriliny while getting a much better idea of what goes on in matrilineal societies.

Some of the contributors are more technical than others, but non-specialists will have no trouble reading many of the contributions. The description of Nair or Nayar in India is particularly interesting because this culture is often taken as the eptiomy of matrilineal society, and we see in them the virtual elimination of 'father' and 'husband' as active roles in kinship.
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