Revision summary
A descent group is recruited by a rule of ancestry. Unilineal clans and lineages are corporate; kindreds are often not. They organise exogamy, property, office, and feud. Nuer lineages and Trobriand sub-clans are type cases. Descent is not the same thing as the domestic family.
Model answer
Introduction
A descent group is a body of kin recruited by a rule of ancestry. It owns names, rights, and often land. It is not the same as a household.
Body
Types
- Unilineal groups are patrilineal or matrilineal. Nuer lineages and Trobriand dala are classic cases.
- Cognatic and bilateral kindreds, common in the West and among some hill peoples, recruit through both sides but often lack a single corporate estate.
- Clans, lineages, moieties, and phratries are scales of the same idea. A clan may be totemic and exogamous.
Functions
- They regulate marriage through exogamy, as Lévi-Strauss and Dumont read alliance between groups.
- They hold property, office, and feud. Evans-Pritchard made the lineage the political unit of the Nuer.
- Ancestors and ritual legitimate the group. Morgan earlier mistook clan for a stage of the family; the group is a jural corporation, not a household type.
Limit
- People also live in houses and networks. Descent is one idiom of belonging, not the whole of kinship.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD DG[Descent group] --> U[Unilineal] DG --> C[Cognatic] U --> F[Marriage property feud] F --> EX[Nuer Trobriand]
Conclusion
Descent groups recruit by ancestry, hold rights, and marry out. Nuer, Trobriand, and Indian gotra-clan talk remain the teaching set.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Modes of Subsistence.
Next question in the 2021 paper (Q5). View answer →
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Is a caste a descent group?
A gotra or lineage inside a caste may be. The caste as a whole is a ranked, often endogamous category, not one ancestor group.
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Can one belong to two descent groups?
In unilineal systems, usually one. Double descent and cognatic systems allow more than one claim.
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