I
Theoretical Analysis of this Concept
It is undoubtedly one of the most valuable discoveries arrived at by modern sociological science that each institution varies in accordance with the social environment in which it is found. A given institution or social form (like the family, the state, the nation, the church) appears under various forms in different societies, and among peoples with a very low culture only rudiments thereof may be expected. This point of view, applied to marriage and the family, has led some writers to the assumption of forms as much opposed to those usual in our societies, as promiscuity and group marriage is opposed to individual marriage and the family. Nevertheless, although the variability and multiplicity of forms of marriage and family were acknowledged, the concepts applied to them were still the old ones, directly borrowed from our own society and formed upon the facts found amongst ourselves. In particular the sociologically untrained ethnographers comprehended the phenomena of kinship only under our own social concepts, judged them according to our own moral standard, and described them with words the meaning of which ought to have been defined when applied to a new case; nevertheless these terms have been nearly always used by ethnographers in the same sense in which we use them amongst ourselves, i. e. as expressing ideas of community of blood through procreation.[513] That this is quite erroneous will be shown below. How far the idea of kinship changes from society to society, what are its essential invariable features, and what are the variable elements—these are the problems that must be set forth.
The inadequacy of our ideas of kinship as applied to lower societies has been often felt by those ethnographers who wished to enter deeper into the problems of kinship among a given people. They have found the greatest difficulty in conveying to a European reader the meaning of different terms of relationship. While warning the reader to put aside our (the modern European) ideas of kinship, they have hardly succeeded in giving any definite and clear concept instead. The reasons for this failure are simple: our ideas of kinship are defined by certain facts which are not to be found in the given primitive society. In order to define kinship so as to fit the latter, the author ought to bring forward a series of facts, playing a part analogous in the given society to that played by the essential defining elements amongst us. But it is by no means easy to know among which facts to look for such analogous, defining elements. And here again arises the necessity of a general definition of kinship, one which would afford indications in what direction to search for social facts giving a right idea of kinship in any given society. Such a general definition would be like an algebraic formula, having its constant and its variable terms; if for the latter special data be inserted (in this instance the special conditions proper to the given society), the special value for any given case is obtained (namely the special concept of kinship proper to the given society). And it should also be indicated within what range the variables should be taken; in other words, in what facts the elements which specifically determine kinship in the given society must be looked for. The practical value of such a general definition of kinship is obvious. On the one hand it indicates the constant elements in kinship common to all societies; on the other hand it indicates the general character of the variable elements, and the way in which they must be looked for and worked into the general formula.
By the word kinship, roughly speaking, is denoted a series of family relationships (those of parents to children, brothers to sisters, etc.), all of which consist of a set of extremely complex phenomena. They are made up of the most heterogeneous elements: physiological (birth, procreation, suckling, etc.), social (community of living, of interests, social norms, etc.), and psychological (different ways in which these relations are conceived, different moral ideas, and different types of feelings). Special care must be taken to select in all these elements the essential ones, as an omission would be just as fatal for the investigations as an overburdening with secondary elements. Moreover, it would be specially valuable to look at all these heterogeneous determining elements from the same point of view, and view them all under one and the same aspect. Leaving on one side the purely physiological problem of kinship,[514] it appears necessary to give a sociological view of kinship, i. e. to show the social bearing of physiological facts as well as of psychological elements. But it appears also necessary to view the whole of the phenomena of kinship from the psychological point of view; that is, to show how the sociological and physiological facts of kinship are reflected in the "collective mind" of the given society.
Besides for other reasons (adduced below) this appears necessary, because one of the most important scientific uses that has been made of the different human systems of kinship is one that presupposes a certain definite meaning, as given to the terms of kinship in very low societies. In Morgan's deductions a very important part is played by the assumption that kinship is always understood in terms of consanguinity; in particular that it was understood thus by primitive man; that in all (even the lowest) societies all ideas of kinship were essentially based upon the community of blood, established in the case of the mother by her share in bearing, in that of the father by his part in procreation. Only by assuming that these facts were known to the lowest, prehistoric savages, could Morgan draw inferences from systems of kinship terms about the forms of sexual intercourse. If, on the other hand, the relation between sexual intercourse and birth escaped the knowledge of primitive men, they could not have based their idea of kinship upon community of blood between father and offspring; hence there could be no connection between forms of sexual intercourse and forms of kinship as conceived by primitive man. Whether there could be connection between marriage, defined sociologically, and kinship is another and more complicated problem. In any case Morgan uses throughout his book the word consanguinity, and he defines it as the tie of common blood arising from the sexual act. In other words he sets forth the problem in a simplified and incorrect form. The question how kinship may be conceived in a given society, especially in a low one, naturally presents itself as a very important point of investigation.
As in the following pages there will be question more or less exclusively of the individual relation between parents and children, the present discussion may be fittingly restricted to the individual parental kinship in Australia. In the second part of this chapter facts giving some insight into the aboriginal collective ideas of kinship are set forth; and in the following chapter other different facts will be brought forward in order to complete the definition of individual parental kinship. But in accordance with what has been just said, it is needful to have some guiding principle in collecting this material, and this will now be looked for. This discussion, being only concerned with the Australian facts, does not pretend to be complete, but perhaps if the results are worked out so as to suit our modern European concept of kinship as well as the Australian one, it might, should it be correct, be applicable also to other societies.[515] Let us now proceed to give the general definition of kinship and in the first place to indicate which are its constant, uniform factors found in all societies.
Amongst the heterogeneous factors which together make up parental kinship, the physiological facts appear to be the most constant, for the natural process of procreation is in all human societies the same. But the social consequences of this process vary very widely according to other variable elements, as will appear clearly below in our discussion of consanguinity. Part of them only, together with some social elements, may be taken as the uniform, constant basis of kinship, such as must serve for the first point of departure in an attempt to discuss more in detail the kinship in any society. It appears probable that this basis is given by the existence of a group formed by a woman, her husband, and the children whom she has borne, suckled and reared. The existence of such a group will be considered as the necessary and sufficient condition for individual parental kinship. Where such a group exists we are justified in affirming that individual parental kinship exists, although it is not yet completely defined thereby; further facts must be adduced in order to complete the definition. Those further facts are precisely the variable terms in the general formula of kinship; it remains still to indicate their general character. But a few words must be first said about the constant factors of kinship just mentioned.
They consist in the existence of the individual family group as determined by individual marriage and by individual motherhood. Individual motherhood means that the same woman who gave birth to a child stands to it in a special close relation in its later life also: she suckles it and rears it, and she is bound to him or her by the manifold ties resulting from the community of life and community of interests. This woman is bound on the other hand to a man by individual marriage; and thereby her children are bound to him also; and the mother, her husband, and her children form the social unit called the individual family. The existence of such a unit is to be established by showing its different social functions, and the different ways in which its solidarity and individuality are marked in a given society. It is clear that the position of the father is in this way first established socially only, as the husband of the children's mother. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that thus his relation to the children is clearly marked; and that this is only a preliminary, so to say formal, determination of fatherhood, which in all societies appears to be much more materially defined by other factors, discussed hereafter.
The existence of the individual family as a social unit, based upon the physiological facts of maternity, the social factor of marriage and other social factors, are thus chosen as the basis upon which we may proceed to analyze more in detail the individual parental relation. Whether this basis exists in all human societies and forms what was called above the constant, invariable elements of parental kinship, may remain an open question. This could only be answered correctly a posteriori, on the basis of a series of special researches in many societies. The existence of individual motherhood, as this word is defined here, seems to obtain in the majority of human societies (or even in all of them). Nevertheless, as pointed out above,[516] even this point cannot be treated as self-evident. This applies in still higher degree to individual marriage, which has often been denied as regards many societies.[517] In this place we have mainly to keep before our eyes the Australian society and our own society, the latter of which affords, so to say, the heuristic principle, the clue to the understanding of the former. As far as those two societies are concerned, our choice appears to be the right one, and the social-physiological basis mentioned above contains the essential common elements of kinship in both societies.
The existence of individual marriage and its legal, sexual and psychological aspects have been discussed and established in the preceding chapters, as far as Australia is concerned. A discussion on individual motherhood will be given below. The existence of the individual family group in Australia, based upon individual marriage and upon individual motherhood, is the subject of the remaining chapters of this study. So that the existence of this physiological and social basis of kinship may be taken as granted.