Kinship The System and Its Impact
Cirre Richardson
ANT101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Prof. Joseph Scahill
April 7, 2012
The Kinship System and Its Impact
The Iroquois kinship system differentiates between parental siblings of opposite
sex as well as gender and generation. In other words it is a kinship system used to define family.
The Iroquois kinship system is also known as the bifurcate merging which was identified by
Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1817 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human
Family. It is also one of the six major kinship systems. One way that the Iroquois kinship
system impacts that societies way of life is by regulating who the members of that community
can marry. Members of this specific kinship are encouraged to marry cross cousins (the children
of the fathers sister or the mothers brother) but are discouraged to marry parallel cousins (the
children of the mothers sister or the fathers brother). Another impact that the Iroquois kinship
system has on the members of that society is what clan the members of the community are born
into. There are six Iroquois tribes in northeastern North America; all six of the tribes use
matrilineal systems, in which children born are into the mothers clan. The Iroquois kinship
system also impacts a persons status through maternal lines. A womans eldest brother is more
important as a mentor to her children than their father if he was a member of a different clan.
In comparing my kinship system to the Iroquois kinship system I would say that some
aspects to the way that the kinship systems impact my life and theirs are similar. My kinship
system, like the Iroquois kinship system does regulate who I can marry and who I cannot.
However, my kinship system would not allow me to even marry a cousin. Another interesting
thing that the Iroquois kinship system impacts is the father not being as important as the mothers
brother if the father is from a different clan. For the most part in western cultures no matter what
religion, race, or color the father is he is usually held in higher esteem than the uncle.
Reference
Nowak, B. & Laird, P. (2010) Culture Anthropology. San Diego, Bridgeport, Inc. Retrieved on
April 7, 2012
https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUANT101.10.2/sections/ch00
Cross-cousin. (2012). In Encyclopdia Britannica. Retrieved April 7, 2012
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/144084/cross-cousin