Revision summary
Descent theory centres unilineal groups, property, and segmentation. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard are the African type authors. Alliance theory centres the incest rule and spouse exchange. Lévi-Strauss and Dumont are the type authors. North Indian gotra and south Indian cross-cousin rules show both logics.
Model answer
Introduction
Descent theory and alliance theory are two ways to read kinship. One starts from the group that recruits children. The other starts from the marriage that binds groups.
Body
Descent theory
- Maine, Morgan, then Fortes and Evans-Pritchard made unilineal descent the political skeleton.
- Cardinal points: filiation, jural authority, corporate property, and segmentary opposition.
- The lineage owns land and blood-debt. The mother’s brother may be affective, as Fortes split the domestic from the politico-jural.
- African models—Nuer, Tallensi, Tiv—were the type. The person is a member first, a spouse second.
Alliance theory
- Lévi-Strauss in The Elementary Structures of Kinship made incest taboo and exchange of women the start of society.
- Cardinal points: positive marriage rules, cross-cousin prescriptions, restricted versus generalised exchange, and alliance as a structure of repeating affinal ties.
- Dumont applied this to south Indian Dravidian kinship: affines are a category, not a failure of descent.
- Leach on Kachin showed that mayu–dama alliance can rank groups.
Cardinal contrast
- Descent asks: who is the heir? Alliance asks: who is the repeating affine?
- Needham and later critics said both can over-systematise practice.
- Indian ethnography needs both: north Indian gotra exogamy (descent-like) and south Indian cross-cousin preference (alliance-like).
Flow diagram
flowchart TD KIN[Kinship] --> DE[Descent lineage jural] KIN --> AL[Alliance exchange marriage] DE --> AF[Nuer Fortes] AL --> LS[Levi-Strauss Dumont]
Conclusion
Descent theory’s cardinal points are lineage, filiation, and jural corporation. Alliance theory’s are incest, prescribed marriage, and repeating exchange. Kinship in the field often runs both engines.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Discuss different social control mechanisms in simple societies.
Next question in the 2016 paper (Q3). View answer →
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Must a society choose one theory?
No. Analysts choose a starting point. People practise descent and marriage together.
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Is alliance only about women as gifts?
The classical formula is gendered. Later work adds women’s agency and same-sex or cash marriage.
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