Socio-Cultural Institutions: Marriage, Kinship & Descent

Vocabulary flashcards covering African kinship systems, descent patterns, marriage practices, post-marital residence rules, and iconic ethnic groups.

Lineage

An association of kins who trace their descent from a specific ancestor through an established pathway of lineal ancestors of one gender (either the male or female line), where members know exactly how they are related.

Clan

A descent group that traces its origin or genealogy to a remote, sometimes legendary or mythical founder, where exact genealogical connections are not known.

Consanguineal Kinship

Kinship relationships established through birth or biological descent.

Affinal Kinship

Kinship relationships established through marriage.

Fictive Kinship

Kinship relationships established through social ties rather than blood or marriage.

Unilineal Descent

A principle of descent that traces relationship exclusively through one sex, either father or mother, limiting options to only one line and found in roughly 65% of the world's societies.

Patrilineal Descent

A unilineal descent system where individuals belong to their father's group and are connected to the focal ancestor by a line of male ancestors, with inheritance and succession moving from father to son.

Matrilineal Descent

A unilineal descent system where descent is traced through the female line or mother's side, found in roughly 15% of all cultures.

Cognatic Descent

A descent system in which both male and female parentage are used to establish relationships, including bilateral descent which traces descent evenly through both parents.

Ambilineal Descent

A flexible descent system where lineage is traced through a combination of male and female relatives depending on social benefits, such as tracing lineage to a famous distant ancestor.

Maasai

An iconic ethnic group in Kenya and Tanzania who speak Maa, recognized for their vibrant beaded jewelry, red blankets called shukkas, and the high leap or adamu performed during the Eunoto coming-of-age ceremony.

Xhosa

An iconic ethnic group in South Africa whose language IsiXhosa uses click sounds, and whose societal standing is often dictated more by ceremony than bloodline.

Himba

A pastoral group in Namibia, also known as OvaHimba, known for their otjize-coated hair and skin, living in homesteads of pressed earth, and rarely bathing due to water scarcity.

San

A hunter-gatherer group in Botswana existing for at least 20,000 years, historically referred to by the derogatory term bushmen, and considered among humanity's closest connections to genetic origins.

Mursi

A pastoralist group in Ethiopia for whom cattle are central, practicing animism and known for a warrior tradition that includes stick fighting called Donga.

Zulu

An iconic ethnic group in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, whose language IsiZulu is widely spoken, known for cultural ceremonies such as the Reed Dance (Umhlanga) celebrating young women and virginity.

Exogamy

The practice of seeking a spouse outside one's own group, forcing people to create and maintain a wide social network that protects the group during times of need.

Endogamy

The practice of mating or marriage within a group to which one belongs.

Incest

Sexual relations with a close relative, which is considered a cultural and universal taboo whose specific definition varies cross-culturally.

Monogamy

A marriage union between two individuals, typically one man and one woman, exclusively married to each other; Tunisia is the only African country that has made the practice into law.

Polygyny

A form of polygamy where a man is married to more than one wife at a time, commonly practiced in rural Africa.

Polyandry

A form of polygamy where a woman has more than one husband at a time; absent in Africa and rare globally, existing almost exclusively in South Asia.

Levirate

A marriage practice in which a man marries his dead brother's or relative's wife to maintain family continuity and protect the widow and her children.

Sororate

A marriage practice in which a man marries his wife's sister, typically following the death or incapacity of the wife to bear children.

Surrogate Marriage

A woman-to-woman marriage practice where a woman unable to produce children pays bridewealth for and marries another woman, gaining control over the resulting children as if they were her own.

Ghost Marriage

A practice where a woman is married to a man who died without producing heirs through a living male relative, with any resulting children belonging to the deceased father.

Bridewealth

The transfer of property such as animals or money from the groom to the bride's parents as a requirement of a marriage agreement, serving as gratitude and compensation for loss of labor.

Dowry

A gift given to the bride from her parents upon marriage.

Matrilocal Residence

A post-marital residence pattern (also called uxorilocal) where the husband leaves his family home and moves to live with the woman in her family home or with her mother.

Patrilocal Residence

A post-marital residence pattern (also called virilocal) where the woman moves to live with the man in his family house or with his father's family.

Natalocal Residence

A post-marital residence pattern where married partners remain in their respective birth homes and visit each other as determined by custom.

Neolocal Residence

A post-marital residence pattern where the couple creates and resides in a new, independent residence away from both family groups.

Avunculocal Residence

A post-marital residence pattern where the married couple resides with the husband's maternal uncle.

Ambilocal Residence

A post-marital residence pattern where the couple may choose to live with either the wife's or husband's domestic group.

Nuclear Family

A family structure consisting strictly of two parents and their unmarried children.

Extended Family

A family structure consisting of a husband, wives, children, unmarried relatives, and extended kin, which in some societies extends to include ancestors.

Igbo Extended Family Universe Diagram

A kinship terminology diagram for the Ezinihite dialect adapted from E. W. Ardner (1954), illustrating Ego's lineage and marriage ties.