the Hawaiian and the more usual forms of the classificatory system
does not correspond with the distinction between the Polynesian and
Melanesian peoples. Systems are to be found in Melanesia, as in the
western Solomons, which closely resemble that of Hawaii, while there
are Polynesian systems, such as those of Tonga and Tikopia, which are
so like those of Melanesia that, if they had occurred there, they would
have attracted no special attention. The difference between the two
kinds of system is not to be correlated with any difference of race.
Next, if we take Melanesian and Polynesian systems as a whole, we find
that they do not fall into two sharply marked-off groups, but that
there are any number of intermediate gradations between the two. It
would be possible to arrange the classificatory systems of Oceania in a
series in which it would not be possible to draw the line at any point
between the different varieties of system which the two ends of the
series seem to represent. The question arises whether it is possible
to find any other series of transitions in Oceania which runs parallel
with the series connecting the two varieties of system of relationship.
There is no doubt but that this question can be answered in the
affirmative.
Speaking broadly, there are two main varieties of social organisation
in Oceania, with an infinite number of intermediate conditions. In one
variety marriage is regulated by some kind of clan-exogamy, including
under the term “clan” the moieties of a dual organisation; in the other
variety marriage is regulated by kinship or genealogical relationship.
We know of no part of Melanesia where marriage is regulated solely by
clan-exogamy, but it is possible to arrange Melanesian and Polynesian
societies in a series according to the different degrees in which the
principles of genealogical relationship is the determining factor in
the regulation of marriage. At one end of the series we should have
places like the Banks Islands, the northern New Hebrides and the Santa
Cruz Islands, where the clan-organisation is so obviously important
that it was the only mechanism for the regulation of marriage which was
recognised even by so skilful an observer as Dr. Codrington. At the
other end of the series we have places such as the Hawaiian Islands
and Eddystone Island in the western Solomons, where only the barest
traces of a clan-organisation are to be found and where marriage is
regulated solely by genealogical relationship. Between the two are
numerous intermediate cases, and the series so formed runs so closely
parallel to that representing the transitions between different forms
of the classificatory system that it seems out of the question but
that there should be a relation between the two. Of all the places
where I have myself worked, the two in which I failed to find any trace
of the regulation of marriage by means of a clan-organisation were
the Hawaiian Islands and Eddystone Island, and the systems of both
places were lacking in just those distinctions the absence of which
characterised the Malayan system of Morgan. Only in one point did the
Eddystone system differ from the Hawaiian. Though the mother’s brother
was classed in nomenclature with the father, there was a term for the
sister’s son, but it was so little used that in a superficial survey it
would have escaped notice. Its use was so exceptional that many of the
islanders were doubtful about its proper meaning. In other parts of the
Solomons where the clan-organisation persists, but where the regulation
of marriage by genealogical relationship is equally, if not more,
important, the systems of relationship show intermediate characters.
Thus, in the island of Florida the mother’s brother was distinguished
from the father and there was a term by means of which to distinguish
cross-cousins from other kinds of cousin, but the father’s sister was
classed with the mother, and it was habitual to ignore the proper term
for cross-cousins and to class them in nomenclature with brothers and
sisters and with cousins of other kinds, as in the Hawaiian system.
One influential man even applied the term for father to the mother’s
brother; it was evident that a change is even now in progress which
would have to go very little farther to make the Florida system
indistinguishable in structure from that of Hawaii.
Among the western Papuo-Melanesians of New Guinea, again, the systems
of relationship come very near to the Hawaiian type, and with this
character there is associated a very high degree of importance of the
regulation of marriage by genealogical relationship and a vagueness of
clan-organisation. We have here so close a parallelism between two
series of social phenomena as to supply as good an example as could be
wished of the application of the method of concomitant variations in
the domain of sociology.
The nature of these changes and their relation to the general cultures
of the peoples who use the different forms of terminology show that the
transitions are to be associated with a progressive change which has
taken place in Oceania. In this part of the world the classificatory
system has been the seat of a process of simplification starting
from the almost incredible complexity of Pentecost and reaching the
simplicity of such systems as those of Eddystone or Mekeo. This process
has gone hand in hand with one in which the regulation of marriage by
some kind of clan-exogamy has gradually been replaced by a mechanism
based on relationship as traced by means of pedigrees.
If this conclusion be accepted, it will follow that the more widely
distributed varieties of the classificatory system of relationship
are associated with a social structure which has the exogamous social
group as its essential unit. This position has only to be stated for
it to become apparent how all the main features of the classificatory
system are such as would follow directly from such a social structure.
Wherever the classificatory system is found in association with a
system of exogamous social groups, the terms of relationship do
not apply merely to relatives with whom it is possible to trace
genealogical relationship, but to all the members of a clan of a given
generation, even if no such relationship with them can be traced. Thus,
a man will not only apply the term “father” to all the brothers of his
father, to all the sons’ sons of his father’s father, and to all the
sons’ sons’ sons of his father’s father’s father, to all the husbands
of his mother’s sisters and of his mother’s mother’s granddaughters,
etc., but he will also apply the term to all the members of his
father’s clan of the same generation as his father and to all the
husbands of the women of the mother’s clan of the same generation as
the mother, even when it is quite impossible to show any genealogical
relationship with them. All these and the other main features of the
classificatory system become at once natural and intelligible if this
system had its origin in a social structure in which exogamous social
groups, such as the clan or moiety, were even more completely and
essentially the social units than we know them to be to-day among the
peoples whose social systems have been carefully studied. If you are
dissatisfied with the word “classificatory” as a term for the system of
relationship which is found in America, Africa, India, Australia and
Oceania, you would be perfectly safe in calling it the “clan” system,
and in inferring the ancient presence of a social structure based on
the exogamous clan even if this structure were no longer present.
Not only is the general character of the classificatory system exactly
such as would be the consequence of its origin in a social structure
founded on the exogamous social group, but many details of these
systems point in the same direction. Thus, the rigorous distinctions
between father’s brother and mother’s brother, and between father’s
sister and mother’s sister, which are characteristic of the usual
forms of the classificatory system, are the obvious consequence of the
principle of exogamy. If this principle be in action, these relatives
must always belong to different social groups, so that it would be
natural to distinguish them in nomenclature.
Further, there are certain features of the classificatory system which
suggest its origin in a special form of exogamous social grouping,
viz., that usually known as the dual system in which there are only two
social groups or moieties. It is an almost universal feature of the
classificatory system that the children of brothers are classed with
the children of sisters. A man applies the same term to his mother’s
sister’s children which he uses for his father’s brother’s children,
and the use of this term, being the same as that used for a brother
or sister, carries with it the most rigorous prohibition of marriage.
Such a condition would not follow necessarily from a social state in
which there were more than two social groups. If the society were
patrilineal, the children of two brothers would necessarily belong to
the same social group, so that the principle of exogamy would prevent
marriage between them, but if the women of the group had married into
different clans, there is no reason arising out of the principle of
exogamy which should prevent marriage between their children or lead
to the use of a term common to them and the children of brothers.
Similarly, if the society were matrilineal, the children of two sisters
would necessarily belong to the same social group, but this would
not be the case with the children of brothers who might marry into
different social groups.
If, however, there be only two social groups, the case is very
different. It would make no difference whether descent were patrilineal
or matrilineal. In each case the children of two brothers or of two
sisters must belong to the same moiety, while the children of brother
and sister must belong to different moieties. The children of two
brothers would be just as ineligible as consorts as the children of
two sisters. Similarly, it would be a natural consequence of the dual
organisation that the mother’s brother’s children should be classed
with the father’s sister’s children, but this would not be necessary if
there were more than two social groups.
I should have liked, if there were time, to deal with other features
of the classificatory system, but must be content with these examples.
I hope to have succeeded in showing that the social causation of the
terminology of relationship goes far beyond the mere dependence of
features of the system on special forms of marriage, and that the
character of the classificatory system as a whole has been determined
by its origin in a specific form of social organisation. I propose now
to leave the classificatory system for a moment and inquire whether
another system of denoting and classifying relationships may not
similarly be shown to be determined by social conditions. The system I
shall consider is our own. Let us examine this system in its relation
to the form of social organisation prevalent among ourselves.
Just as among most peoples of rude culture the clan or other
exogamous group is the essential unit of social organisation, so
among ourselves this social unit is the family, using this term for
the group consisting of a man, his wife, and their children. If we
examine our terms of relationship, we find that those applied to
individual persons and those used in a narrow and well-defined sense
are just those in which the family is intimately concerned. The terms
father, mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, are limited to
members of the family of the speaker, and the terms father-, mother-,
brother-, and sister-in-law to the members of the family of the wife
or husband in the same narrowly restricted sense. Similarly, the
terms grandfather and grandmother are limited to the parents of the
father and mother, while the terms grandson and granddaughter are
only used of the families of the children in the narrow sense. The
terms uncle and aunt, nephew and niece, are used in a less restricted
sense, but even these terms are only used of persons who stand in a
close relation to the family of the speaker. We have only one term
used with anything approaching the wide connotation of classificatory
terms of relationship, and this term is used for a group of relatives
who have as their chief feature in common that they are altogether
outside the proper circle of the family and have no social obligations
or privileges. They are as eligible for marriage as any other members
of the community, and only in the very special cases I considered in
the first lecture are they brought into any kind of legal relation.
The dependence of our own use of terms of relationship on the social
institution of the family seems to me so obvious that I find it
difficult to understand how anyone who has considered these terms
can put forward the view that the terminology of relationship is not
socially conditioned. It seems to me that we have only to have the
proposition stated that the classificatory system and our own are the
outcome of the social institutions of the clan and family respectively
for the social causation of such terminology to become conspicuous. I
find it difficult to understand why it has not long before this been
universally recognised. I do not think we can have a better example
of the confusion and prejudice which have been allowed to envelop the
subject through the unfortunate introduction of the problem of the
primitive promiscuity or monogamy of mankind. It is not necessary to
have an expert knowledge of the classificatory system. It is only
necessary to consider the terms we have used almost from our cradles
in relation to their social setting to see how the terminology of
relationship has been determined by that setting.
This brief study of our own terms of relationship leads me to speak
about the name by which our system is generally known. Morgan called
it the “descriptive system,” and this term has been generally adopted.
I believe, however, that it is wholly inappropriate. Those terms which
apply to one person and to one person only may be called descriptive
if you please, though even here the use does not seem very happy. When
we pass beyond these, however, our terms are no whit more descriptive
than those of the classificatory system. We speak of a grandfather,
not of a father’s father or a mother’s father, only distinguishing
grandfathers in this manner when it is necessary to supplement our
customary terminology by more exact description. Similarly, we speak
of a brother-in-law, and only in exceptional circumstances do we use
forms of language which indicate whether reference is being made to
the brother of the husband or wife or to the husband of a sister. Such
occasional usages do not make our system descriptive, and if they be
held to do so, the classificatory system is just as descriptive as our
own. All those peoples who use the classificatory system are capable
of such exact description of relationship as I have mentioned. Indeed,
classificatory systems are often more descriptive than our own. In
some forms of this system true descriptive terms are found in habitual
use. Thus, in the coastal systems of Fiji the mother’s brother is often
called _ngandina_ (_ngane_, sister of a man, and _tina_, mother), this
term being used in place of the _vungo_ already mentioned. Similar
uses of descriptive terms occur in other parts of Melanesia. Thus, in
Santa Cruz the father’s sister is called _inwerderde_ (_inwe_, sister,
and _derde_, father). This relative is one for whom Melanesian systems
of relationship not infrequently possess no special designation, and
the use of a descriptive term suggests a recent process which has come
into action in order to denote a relative who had previously lacked any
special designation.
If “descriptive” is thus an inappropriate name for our own system,
it will be necessary to find another, and I should like boldly to
recognise the direct dependence of its characters on the institution of
the family and to speak of it as the “family system.”
While I thus reject the term “descriptive” as a proper name for the
terminology of relationship with which we are especially familiar, it
does not follow that there may not be systems of denoting relationship
which properly deserve this title. In Samoa a mode of denoting
relatives is often used in which the great majority of the terms are
descriptive. Thus, the only term which I could obtain for the father’s
brother’s son was _atalii o le uso o le tama_, which is literally “son
of the brother of the father,” and there is some reason to suppose
that this descriptive usage has come into vogue owing to the total
inadequacy of the ancient Samoan system to express relationships in
which the peoples are now interested.
The wide use of such descriptive terms is also found in many systems
of Europe, as in the Celtic languages, in those of Scandinavia, in
Lithuanian and Esthonian.[32] A similar mode of denoting relationships
is found in Semitic languages and among the Shilluks and Dinkas of the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and since it is from these peoples that I have
gained my own experience of descriptive terminology, I propose to take
them as my examples.
[32] See Tables in Morgan’s _Systems ..._, pp. 79-127.
In the Arabic system of relationship used in Egypt many of the terms
are descriptive; thus, the father’s brother being called _’amm_, the
father’s brother’s wife is _mirat ’ammi_, the father’s brother’s son
_ibn ’ammi_, and the father’s brother’s daughter _bint ’ammi_, and
there is a similar usage for the consorts and children of the father’s
sister and of the brother and sister of the mother.
Similarly, many Shilluk terms suggest a descriptive character, the
father’s brother being _wa_, the wife of the father’s brother is
_chiwa_, the father’s brother’s son is _uwa_, and his daughter is
_nyuwa_. The father’s sister being _waja_, her son and daughter are
_uwaja_ and _nyuwaja_ respectively. Similar descriptive terms are
used by the Dinkas. The father’s brother being _walen_, the father’s
brother’s son is _manwalen_ and his daughter _yanwalen_; the mother’s
brother being _ninar_, the mother’s brother’s son is _manninar_ and his
daughter _yanninar_.
According to the main thesis of these lectures, these descriptive
usages should own some definite social cause. The descriptive
terminology seems to be particularly definite in the case of cousins,
and it might be suggested that they are dependent, at any rate in part
and in so far as Egypt is concerned, on the prevalence of marriage
with a cousin. Marriages with the daughter of a father’s brother or of
a mother’s brother are especially orthodox and popular in Egypt, and
different degrees of preference for marriage with different classes of
cousin would produce just such a social need as would have led to the
definite distinction of the different kinds of cousin from one another
by means of descriptive terms.
It is more probable, however, that the use of descriptive terms in the
languages of the Semites and of the Shilluks and Dinkas has been the
outcome of a definite form of social organisation, viz., that in which
the social unit is neither the family in the narrow sense, nor the
clan, but that body of persons of common descent living in one house or
in some other kind of close association which we call the patriarchal
or extended family, the _Grossfamilie_ of the Germans. It is a feature
of the Semitic and Nilotic systems, not only to distinguish the four
chief categories of cousin, but also the four chief kinds of uncle or
aunt, viz., the father’s brother, the father’s sister, the mother’s
brother and the mother’s sister, all of whom are habitually classed
together in our system, while some of them are classed with the father
or mother in the classificatory system. The Semitic and Nilotic
terminology is such as would follow from a form of social organisation
in which the more intimate relationships of the family in the narrow
sense are definitely recognised, but yet certain uncles, aunts, and
cousins are of so much importance as to make it necessary for social
purposes that they shall be denoted exactly. The brothers of the father
and the unmarried sisters of the father would be of the same social
group as the father, while the brothers and unmarried sisters of the
mother would be of a different social group, which would account for
their distinctive nomenclature, while within the social group it would
be necessary to distinguish the father from his brothers. It would be
too cumbrous to call this variety of system after the extended family,
and I suggest that it should be called the “kindred” system.
Analogy with other parts of the world suggests that all those of the
same generation in the social group formed by the extended family may
once have been classed together under one term, and that, as later
there arose social motives requiring the distinction of different
relatives so classed together, descriptive terms came into use to
make the necessary distinctions. You must please regard this only
as a suggestion. We need far more detailed evidence concerning the
social status of different relatives among the peoples who use these
descriptive terms. Such knowledge as we possess seems to point to the
dependence of the Semitic and Sudanese terminology upon the social
institution of the extended family, just as our own system depends
on the social institution of the family in the narrow sense and the
classificatory system upon the clan.
If this descriptive mode of nomenclature be thus the outcome of a
social organisation of which the essential element is the extended
family, I need hardly point out how natural it is that we should
find this kind of nomenclature so widely in Europe. The presence of
this descriptive terminology in Celtic and Scandinavian languages,
in Lithuanian and Esthonian, would be examples of the persistence of
a form of nomenclature which had its origin in the kindred of the
extended family. On this view we must believe that, in other languages
of Europe, this mode of nomenclature has gradually been replaced by one
dependent on the social institution of the family in the narrow sense.