African Systems of Kinship and Marriage

429 Pages·1987·12.743 MB·English

by  A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde

Routledge Revivals
African Systems of Kinship and
Marriage
First published in 1950 (this edition in 1987), this book is one of the
most wide-ranging and respected surveys on kinship and marriage in
African social life. In his introduction, Radcliff-Brown provides a
masterly analysis of the main features of African kinship systems and
the theoretical problems arising from the study of them. The con-
tributions range from examinations of kinship systems among the
Swazi, the Tswana, the Zulu, the Nuer, and the Ashanti, to double
descent among the Yakö and dual descent in the Nuba groups of the
Sudan. The contributors themselves are still viewed as giants in their
field: Evans-Pritchard, Meyer Fortes, Max Gluckman, Hilda Kuper,
Naderl, A. I. Richards, Schapera and Monica Wilson.
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African Systems of Kinship
and Marriage
Edited by
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde
Firstpublishedin1950,thiseditionin1987
byKPILimitedinassociationwiththeInternationalAfricanInstitute
Thiseditionfirstpublishedin2015byRoutledge
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©1950,1987InternationalAfricanInstitute
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AFRICAN SYSTEMS
OF
KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE
This page intentionally left blank
AFRICAN SYSTEMS
OF
KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE
EDITED BY
A.R. RADCLIFFE-BROWN
AND
DARYLL FORDE
LONDON and NEW YORK
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE
INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN INSTITUTE
First published in 1950.
This edition published in 1987 by KP1 Limited
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Distributed by
Routledge & Kegan Paul
Associated Book Publishers (UK) Ltd.
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Methuen Inc., Routledge & Kegan Paul
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001, USA
Printed in Great Britain by
Robert Hartnoll Ltd., Bodmin, Cornwall
© This edition International African Institute 1987
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher, except for the
quotation of brief passages in criticism.
ISBN 0-7103-0234-7
PREFACE
Kinship looms large among peoples who obtain their livelihood
in small groups with simple tools. Among such peoples dif­
ferences of aptitude and special training and duties do not, as
in more complex societies, overwhelm the bonds between
those who are born together and intermarry. The local groups within
which personal relations are developed in work, rite, and recreation are
at the same time bodies of relatives who have ancestors in common and
among whom a complex web of ties links every person with others
throughout the community. The way in which comprehensive obliga­
tions of kinship direct the activities and relations which, in our society,
are segregated out as more specifically political, economic, and religious
is a commonplace of social anthropology. But the detailed operation of
particular factors, their relative weight in different circumstances, the
principles under which these can be subsumed, and the real character
and role of the many patterns of kinship organization that result are
less clearly grasped. These are, however, fundamental questions in a
scientific sociology. They are also of immediate practical urgency when
peoples who have lived in a largely kinbound society are reacting to
pressures and incentives from another social world. For those attempt­
ing to achieve a smooth transition, and to elicit the energies and loyalties
of such peoples, the reason for many intangible obstacles and discords
lies in unintended and often avoidable disharmony between the indi­
genous and the invading social values.
The concomitant of culture contact is social strain. The International
African Institute has sought to promote research in the social anthro­
pology of Africa in the belief that more adequate resources, intellectual
and financial, should be devoted to such studies if scientific knowledge
is to advance on a scale commensurate with the social problems to which
it should be applied. In an earlier volume on African Political Systems
some of the results of researches into the political systems of African
peoples by Fellows and others associated with the Institute were brought
together. The wide and continuing demand for this study, which has
afforded insight into the situations with which every student, educator,
and administrator has to deal, has encouraged an attempt to provide a
similar conspectus on an equally fundamental aspect of the indigenous
social life of African peoples. The present volume consists of an Intro­
duction, in wrhich the general principles underlying African systems of
kinship and marriage are reviewed in the light of our present knowledge,
and a series of detailed studies by authors who have made intensive
field investigations of the particular social systems they analyse. Each
presen ts the essential characteristics of one or more varieties of African
patterns of kinship.