It’s too late to learn something new.

Category: Sociology of Kinship

  • AFRICAN KINSHIP SYSTEM AND MARRIAGE: SUMMARY

    Kinship eventuated from the primitive and most traditional societies. It has its roots in simple societies which were not so complex. Communities and social bonds are necessary attributes for kinship systems. In order to understand a society, community, or its culture, one should have adequate knowledge about its past or history, but social anthropologists could…

  • The Structure of Families and Households in the UK

    Family can be defined as “a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, constituting a single household and interacting with each other in their respective social positions, usually those of spouses, parents, children, and siblings” (Barnard, 2021). Family also plays a role in influencing and affecting the development, behaviour, and…

  • Understanding Key Concepts in Kinship Studies: At a Glance

    If one is to trace the history of the development of social science disciplines such as sociology and anthropology, one can see how family and kinship were perhaps the first social phenomena that were studied systematically. For over a period of nearly 200 years, kinship studies have undergone a dramatic transition, following much-needed incorporation of…

  • Leela Dube: Biography, Works, Contributions and Achievements

    Fondly known as Leeladee, Leela Dube was an anthropologist, sociologist, feminist, teacher and above all a mother and a homemaker. Along with Irawati Karve, Vina Majumdar, and Lotika Sarkar, she worked in anthropology when the field did not even recognize women as a subject in male-dominated academia. She explains gender biases through her own examples,…

  • Radcliffe Brown: Biography, Contributions and Books

    Early life: Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown was born in Birmingham in 1881. He belonged to the English lower middle class. With economic support from his brother, Radcliffe-Brown embarked on medical studies. But his teachers encouraged him to move to Cambridge and study anthropology. While at Cambridge, Radcliffe-Brown became a pupil of pioneering ethnologist W. H. R….

  • Unilateral Descent: Sociology of Kinship Notes

    Unilateral descent is a system of kinship in which descent is one can trace one’s ancestors through only one gender, either the male or the female. Based on this we can divide between the patrilineal or matrilineal line of descent. When descent is traced through the father it is called patrilineal descent. Here, the father’s…

  • Sociology of Religion: Short Notes on Witchcraft

    The history of the existence of witchcraft is far extending. It was there in different cultures, present, past, and in ancient as well as modern and advanced cultures. Due to its variation across different cultures and societies, it is hard to define it precisely. It is often thought of as the practice of using spiritual…