kinship summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see kinship.

kinship, System of social organization between people who are or are held to be biologically related or who are given the status of relatives by marriage, adoption, or other ritual. Kinship is the broad term for all the relationships that people are born into or create later in life that are considered binding in the eyes of society. Every person belongs to a family of orientation (e.g., mother, father, brothers, and sisters), and many adults also belong to a family of procreation (which includes a spouse or spouses and children). Familial bonds of descent and marriage may be traced through a genealogy, a written or oral statement of the names of individuals and their kin relations to one another. Inheritance and succession (the transmission of power and position in society) usually follow kinship lines. See also exogamy and endogamy; incest.

adoption Summary

Adoption, the act of establishing a person as parent to one who is not in fact or in law his child. Adoption is so widely recognized that it can be characterized as an almost worldwide institution with historical roots traceable to antiquity. In most ancient civilizations and in certain later

family Summary

Family, 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. The family group should be distinguished from a household,

(Left) Absence of inbreeding: horizontal lines connect mates, vertical lines connect parents with their child; (right) an inbreeding loop: horizontal bar at top of loop connects brother and sister, all other lines and bars as above

consanguinity Summary

Consanguinity, kinship characterized by the sharing of common ancestors. The word is derived from the Latin consanguineus, “of common blood,” which implied that Roman individuals were of the same father and thus shared in the right to his inheritance. Kin are of two basic kinds: consanguineous