Social Organization and Kinship - Essay Example

Social Organization and Kinship Number October 28, Faculty Social Organization and Kinship Introduction A matrilineal communityis a society where the lineage of the family can be traced through the mothers and other females in the family. The patrilineal society is a community where the males and fathers are the ones who are used to trace the family. Many of the European nations use the patrilineal way of identifying themselves in a family. For instance, the lineage of the kings is followed and not the queens in the case of the royal families. In the societies dominated by the patrilineal perspective, the women leave their home once married and will reside with their males in their families. The woman leaves the place where she can get the social support from their kin. Kinship is a very important social relationship that is quite important aspects of the lives of the most humans in the society. The social relationships are quite important in the society. Some of the social ends that are involved in the social set up of the society are socialization of the children and the constitution of the basic political, economic and religious groups. The kinship involves the people who are sharing the same lineage are in the categories of the descent group, affinity, cognate and the fictive kinship (Logan, 2013). The kinship associated with the marriage is referred to as the affinity related. Kinship is the centre of the social organization in various societies, and people understand that the kinship should be relevant to the social cognition. Kin is organized around binary distinctive features and is linguistically marked. Thesis: The type of the society where one is living influences the person’s interactions and the activities that the person can involve them. The type of the society has great influence on the different areas of the female’s egos life as the society determines the amount of the social support they get. Social Organization and Kinship In Native America, cultures allow the matrilineal approach where the family lineage is traced through the mothers and not the fathers. The women in the American culture they possess great power as they are treated as the center of the family and home. As they are charged with the above tasks, their male counterparts are charged with the duty of finding the food and hunting out. In the communities that practice the matrilineal approach of the family make up the males would live with the women after marriage at womans home. The woman in a matrilineal society will always have access to the social support from their families. In matrilineal society have the great say in the society. The power is always assumed the woman because the women are the dominant group in everything that is done in the society. The resources in the family are owned by the women (Titiev, Schneider & Gough, 2009). The men are such societies supposed to assist the mothers in the running of the family activities but the women deliberate everything that is significant. The religion is also significant in the society as the women dominate, and all religious matters are led and handled by the female gender. The women have great freedom that allow them to form political alliances as they wish. However, the matrilineal societies greatly differ from the dominant American culture. The dominant culture advocates for the equal representation of every individual in the society with everyone having a say in the society. The dominant culture uses the established religion, values, rituals and language. The traits are the norm of the society; the majority dominates the social institutions and the educational centers. The matrilineal societies have many small units of the cultural groups but in the dominant culture there is a limited number of the culture, and most cases it only one. The social organization of a society affects how the power in the society is shared. The book “Leaving Mother Lake,” has illustrated the distribution of the power among the matrilineal societies. The book illustrated the "country of daughters," which was the home of Moso, a society where the women ruled. The customs of Moso are passed from generation to generation (Namu & Mathieu, 2005). The property was passed from the mothers to daughters that resulted to a matrilineal upbringing. The daughters were always favored compared to the sons in the society. Women were supposed to inherit the wealth in the society. The women in a matrilineal society exercise great freedom as they practice a foreign type of marriage where they chose to have lovers as many children as they wish. The children in the matrilineal society they live with their mothers. Women have greater power in the society, and the men who live with the mothers are the uncles, and brothers who assist in raising the children, they look after the family property. Sometimes the men in the matrilineal society ride horses with caravans and Moso women were skillful and hardworking. The women in the matrilineal society are much loved, and they get much recognition from everybody in the community. The families are well organized in the matrilineal communities, the sons and daughters stay with their mothers family. Women get much support from the family. For instance, Namu wrote how she loved her mother and how was getting social support from her family. Women are more generous compared to their male counterparts, for instance in the Moso society was exercising enormous hospitality and generosity (Namu & Mathieu, 2005). The people in Moso were trained to polite to everyone in the society even to the visitors of the place. Conclusion The type of the society influences the amount of the social support that the women receive from the surrounding. Matrilineal societies offer women great powers, and they are at liberty to choose what they wish to do in the society. The dominant cultures such as the one found in the United States of America is very different from the life that prevails in the matrilineal cultures as everyone in the society equally shares everything. Matrilineal societies do not allow men any significant position in the society, and they perform the second fiddle jobs in the family. References Apter, A. (2012). Matrilineal motives: kinship, witchcraft, and repatriation of Congolese refugees. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18(1), 22-44. Chepko-Sade, B., & Sade, D. (2009). Patterns of the group splitting within matrilineal kinship groups. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 5(1), 67-86. Logan, J. (2013). Contemporary adoptive kinship: A contribution to new kinship studies. Child & Family Social Work, 18(1), 35-45. Matrilineal Kinship among North American Indians. (2008). Folklore, 29(1), 87-87. Namu, Y., & Mathieu, C. (2005). Leaving Mother Lake. London: Abacus. Titiev, M., Schneider, D., & Gough, K. (2009). Matrilineal Kinship. Ethnohistory, 9(2), 214. Read More