Families —many sizes and shapes of biocultural kinship
In the 19th century, anthropologists discovered that all human societies have formal rules of kinship, that is, the system of relationships between people due to biological descent and social marriage that define their responsibilities toward each other. The most common kinship system of Western Europe and of people around the world of European descent is called the «Eskimo kinship system» because it is also shared by the Eskimo/Inuit people —identified by Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family. In the ideal Eskimo system, the «family» is centered on the marriage of mother and father and the descent of their biological offspring, the so-called «nuclear family». In reality, variations of on the ideal exist among the Eskimo/Inuit and among people of European origin. «Eskimo families» may be composed of married or non-married partners of all sexes and genders caring for offspring with a gradation of biological affinity to the «parents». Adoptees, with no direct biological descent from the parents, are treated with the same care and love as biological offspring. The photograph on the left is of Maya parents and their offspring. From the European perspective it might be interpreted as an ideal family. However, Maya families are based on the principle of «patrilocal residence», an anthropological term that means when women marry, they go to live in the household of their husband’s family. The photograph on the right shows the patrilocal family. The group of Maya women are sisters-in-law, related to each other because they married brothers from the same household. The mother-in-law of this extended, patrilocal family is standing in the background, with the pink-colored hairband. This woman, the grandmother, is the leader of the household in terms of the work that all the other women perform. The daughters-in-law work cooperatively in food production, food preparation, other household duties and the care of offspring. Juvenile girls provide much baby-sitting for younger children. [Barry Bogin]