The Family

An Introduction

C. C. Harris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032100302
• eBook ISBN: 9781000464023
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Originally published in 1969, this introduction to the social study of the family was designed both for students of sociology and for students of related subjects requiring familiarity with a similar approach. It is therefore written in language as simple as possible; technical terms are only introduced when indispensable and are always defined.

While the book is focused on European and American family systems, the author believed these are intelligible only when placed in a wider context, and so the first part is concerned with kinship, marriage and the family in general. He does not attempt to provide a descriptive account of all the empirical studies available but concentrates on what he considers the chief theoretical problems. In consequence this book is argumentative and critical in approach, and never strays far from the central issues of sociological theory; it is, therefore, of value to both students of sociology and to others interested in the perspective which the discipline can give to the study of the family.

Part I

1

Kinship

I’VE just come back from visiting a relative in hospital.’

‘What sort of relative?’

‘Well, I’m not quite sure; she’s connected with my parents, I know that. I think she’s some sort of cousin. She used to come and visit Mum when we were kids; Auntie Florrie we used to call her. Of course she wasn’t our auntie, that is not really. But she’s definitely related—not close of course—but related.’

‘Why did you go and see her?’

‘Well, her being in hospital and that, you know, she could probably do with cheering up.’

‘But you don’t visit everyone who is in hospital? Why did you visit her?’

‘Because she isn’t just anyone, I suppose. I mean when I was over at Mum’s on Tuesday—no wait a minute it was Wednesday, because that was the day die laundry came just as I was going out—Mum said, “You remember Auntie Florrie-she’s in the General.” “Well I never did,” I said. “What’s wrong with her?” “It’s for the veins in her legs,” she said. So seeing as how I had to pass so close, I more or less had to pop in and see her, didn’t I? I mean, she is related isn’t she?’¹

¹ Although this conversation was ‘made up’ it may well be based on the subliminal recall of an illustration given by Dr J. B. Loudon in his paper ‘Kinship and Crisis in South Wales’, Brit. Jour. Sociol. 12, 1961, p. 349.

We are all familiar with conversations of this type. They constitute expressions, not only of the feelings or sentiments of the individual concerned but also of beliefs as to what is socially demanded of people who stand in that relation to one another signified by the term ‘related’. The last phrase ‘she is related, isn’t she?’ is clearly not, in this context, a plea for confirmation that the speaker is in fact related to Auntie Florrie, but an appeal to a rule concerning the behaviour of persons categorized as related to one another, which the speaker expects her audience to share. She expects the other person to say, ‘Ah, now I see why you went to see this person. She was a relative’ (i.e. was a member of a socially recognized category of persons) ‘and we all know that people ought to visit their relatives, especially when in trouble’ (i.e. she therefore had to be treated in the way laid down by some rule specifying the behaviour of members of that category towards one another).

If we examine this conversation further it is possible to make certain inferences about the system of rules which govern the behaviour of persons belonging to the same group as the speaker.

In the first place, she is not at all clear how Florrie is related to her. Hence Florrie’s exact relationship to her is of small importance compared with the fact of her relationship. Secondly, she does make the distinction between close relatives and others (placing Florrie among the ‘others’) even though she cannot be sure whether that relationship is through the mother or the father. Hence we might guess that relationships through each parent are probably of equal importance. We might infer also that it is how far away’ a person is that matters rather than who they’re related through. That is to say that there may be more important differences between the way one is expected to behave to one’s brother as opposed to one’s father’s brother or one’s father’s brother’s son than between, say, your mother’s brother and your father’s brother. Or to put it before technically, we might say that the degree of GENEALOGICAL DISTANCE is more important than differences in FILIATION (being the child of).

In the third place, we may note that she uses the term ‘aunt’ of someone who is not her aunt according to the normal definition. It seems likely that she was expected to behave towards Florrie in the same way as to an aunt, which is why she was of course called ‘aunt’. Her feeling that she has niece-like duties towards her (visiting her in hospital) tend to confirm this view. But both her verbal statement (‘she wasn’t our “Auntie”’) and the fact that it is only because she is passing so close that makes her feel she has to visit, suggests that though using the tide ‘Aunt’ for both ‘real’ and ‘Active’ ‘aunts’, she is nevertheless very well aware of the difference.

Finally, it is quite clear from her account that she does not feel any particular feeling of affection for the person concerned, die has not been in frequent contact (she didn’t know she was ill until her mother told her—her mother said ‘you remember...’) but that nevertheless she feels some sort of obligation to ‘pop in’: ‘I had to pop in and see her.’ But no-one was watching to see whether she went in (except God who is not referred to). No sanctions on her behaviour are mentioned—no rewards or punishments ordered or threatened by other persons. This suggests that the sense of obligation she feels to visit the ‘aunt’ (though only when passing) comes (at the point of time the speaker is referring to) from ‘inside’ herself.

Nevertheless she assumes that others will understand and recognize this sense of obligation which sugests that it has a public rather than a private nature. This could be because all men everywhere feel the same sense of obligation. The obligation depends upon Florrie being categorized in a certain way and upon certain duties being accepted between members. But all men everywhere do not categorize people in the same way nor consider the same duties appropriate. Her assumption depends in part on her expectation that we too associate the same duties with membership of the same categories. This feeling of obligation is then something that she shares with other members of the group (to which she thinks we also belong), because she belongs to that group. It is a feeling that she has acquired by virtue of being born into and taught the values and ways of the group. It is not a sentiment attached to Florrie as a person.

Social Relationships and biological relations

The study of behaviour of this kind is what the study of kinship is about. But behaviour of exactly what kind? Well, it is the study of how people feel they ought to behave to people in different GENEALOGICAL categories, that is to say how they ought to behave to people who are related to them by ties of blood (CONSANGUINEAL ties: father’s father or mother’s father’s sister’s daughter’s son, for example) or by ties of marriage (AFFINAL ties: wife, brother’s wife, sister’s husband, wife’s sister’s son, for example).

Taking a given individual as our starting point or EGO, we may distinguish relationships according to their DEGREE. Mother, father, brother, sister, child are FIRST DEGREE consanguineal relationships, father’s father, father’s brother or sister (‘sib’ is a useful shorthand for ‘brother or sister’), mother’s father, mother’s sibs are second degree consanguineal relations and so on.

There is no standard way of classifying affines. Normally a distinction is made between spouses (husbands or wives) of Ego’s consanguineal KIN (Ian’ is often used as a shorter word for ‘relations’) on the one hand and the consanguineal kin of Ego’s spouse on the other; Both types of affine can therefore be classified in the same way as consanguineal kin, that is as the spouses of Ego’s first, second, third... degree kin or as the first, second, third... degree kin of Ego’s spouse.

We can also distinguish between kin on the basis of the GENERATIONAL DISTANCE from Ego, Ego’s father belonging to the FIRST ASCENDING generation and his children to the FIRST DESCENDING generation; his grandparents to the SECOND ASCENDING generation and his grandchildren to the SECOND DESCENDING generation and so on.

We can then combine both classification and refer, for example, to the Mo Bro as Ego’s second degree consanguineal kin in the first ascending generation.

For some purposes it is sometimes useful to classify ascending kin through the parents of Ego. (All ascending kin must be related through Mo or Fa since these are the only first degree kin Ego has in the first ascending generation.) These are usually referred to as Ego’s MATRILATERAL and PATRILATERAL kin, these simply being Latin-derived shorthand forms for ‘blood relatives on his mother’s and father’s side’ respectively.

Basically then we have two types of kin—consanguineal and affinal; that is people related by ties of blood and of marriage. These relations are basically biological. All that is meant by this statement is that they have reference to the biological activities of begetting and bearing children, being begotten by and born of the same person and so on. But to refer to a kinship tie is not to refer to a biological relation except indirectly. In the example with which we began this chapter we never discovered even what this relation was. What mattered was that, because a relation was recognized, this affected the behaviour to one another of the parties between whom the relation was recognized to exist. It affected it however because the group to which they belonged had rules which governed the behaviour between people recognized to be so related.

When two people or two categories of people share common expectations about the way they ought to behave to each other then we may say that a SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP exists between them. A kin relationship is a social relationship and not a biological relation. The term never refers except indirectly to such a relation. There are all sorts of problems which arise from this definition as we shall see later (see page 26) but this will do for the moment.

To say that a kinship relationship is a social relationship which refers to a biological relation is not to say that the one is always identical with the other. In our society the rights and duties of fatherhood are rights and duties towards a person which another person has usually by virtue of their being the biological father, i.e. the GENETIC FATHER, of that person. But an illegitimate child’s genetic father has not, even where his identity is known, the rights of a ‘father’. That is to say the child has no ‘social father’ or PATER. A father is not necessarily the genetic father of a child. A father is a man who is recognized by the society as a whole as having the responsibilities and rights of a ‘father’. These rights and duties are usually acquired by prior marriage to the genetic mother of the child.

To say that children have to have genetic parents is of course a tautology.² The statement that in all societies children have to have social fathers is not self evident. The universal social recognition of the necessity of a pater has been expressed by the British social anthropologist, Malinowski, as the principle of legitimacy. This declares that ‘in all societies a father’ (we should now say ‘pater’) ‘is regarded by law, custom and morals as an indispensable element of the procreative group. The woman has to be married before she is allowed legitimately to conceive, or else a subsequent marriage or an act of adoption gives the child full tribal or civil status.’³

This is not the place to discuss this principle in detail. Here we need only note four points which arise. In the first place, the importance of this principle depends on the distinction between ‘pater’ and ‘genetic father’. In the second place, whenever we consider a kinship relationship we shall have to bring in other people than the parties actually involved, as Malinowski has to. The references to law, custom and morals and to tribal and civil STATUS (social position) imply the existence of shared expectations by others, who constitute the group which shares the agreement on the way people ought to behave which is expressed in legal, customary and moral rules. The fact that we have to bring in other people indicates that we are dealing with a SOCIAL INSTITUTION. A relationship or piece of behaviour can be said to be institutionalized when the relevant behaviour is known and expected throughout the group concerned. (Relationships or systems of relationships can only be institutionalized within a group. The statement that a piece of behaviour is ‘institutionalized’ is meaningless unless the group within which it is institutionalized is specified.)

² A statement which is true by virtue of the meaning of the terms in which it is expressed.

³ Malinowski, B., ‘Kinship’, Man 30, 17, p. 24. For further discussion see Chapter 2.

In the third place, the reference to other people which is implied shows quite clearly that we are not dealing with the feelings of fathers: the ‘natural’ affection and concern of a man for his offspring. Fatherhood has public and not merely private characteristics.

Lastly the fact that fatherhood is institutionalized suggests that it must be of importance not merely to the father and child but to the whole group, and entails that the rules governing the determination of fatherhood and the behaviour of fathers are supported by legal, customary and moral sanctions.

However, we may feel that to describe fatherhood simply in terms of rights and duties is not enough. In our socie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Preliminaries
• Part I
• Part II: The Family and Society
• Part III: Family Process and Family Structure
• Index of Authors
• Index of Subjects