Part 5

This leads me to question for a moment whether it may not be the same with that custom of our own society which Professor Kroeber has taken as his example of the psychological causation of the terminology of relationship. Is it as certain as Professor Kroeber supposes that the classing of the brother-in-law with the brother, or of the sister-in-law with the sister, among ourselves does not reflect sociology? We know that there are social factors at work among us which give to these relationships, and especially to that of wife’s sister, a very great importance. If instead of stating dogmatically that this feature of our own terminology is due to the psychological similarity of the relationships, Professor Kroeber’s mind had been open even to the possibility of the working of social causes, I think he might have been led to inquire more closely into the distribution and exact character of the practice in question. He might have been led to see that we have here a problem for exact inquiry. Such a custom among ourselves must certainly own a cause different from that to which I have ascribed the Melanesian practice, but is it certain that there is no social practice among ourselves which would lead to the classing of the wife’s sister with the sister and the sister’s husband of a woman with the brother? I will only point to the practice of marrying the deceased wife’s sister, and content myself with the remark that I should be surprised if there were any general tendency to class these relatives together by a people among whom this form of marriage is the orthodox and habitual custom.

Till now I have been dealing with relatively small variations of the classificatory system. The varieties I have so far considered are such as would arise out of a common system if in one place there came into vogue the cross-cousin marriage, in another place marriage with the wife of the mother’s brother, in another that with the granddaughter of the brother or with the wife of the grandfather, and in yet other places combinations of these forms of marriage. I have now to consider whether it is possible to refer the main varieties of the classificatory system to social conditions; as an example with which to begin, I choose one which is so definite that it attracted the attention of Morgan, viz., the variety of the classificatory system which Morgan called “Malayan”. It is now generally recognised that this term was badly chosen. The variety so called was known to Morgan through the terminology of the Hawaiian Islands, and as the system of these islands was not only the first to be recorded, but is also that of which even now we have the most complete record, I propose to use it as the pattern and to speak of the Hawaiian system where Morgan spoke of the Malayan. If now we compare the Hawaiian system with the forms of the classificatory system found in other parts of Oceania, in Australia, India, Africa or America, we find that it is characterised by its extreme simplicity and by the fewness of its terms. Distinctions such as those between the father’s brother and the mother’s brother, between the father’s sister and the mother’s sister, and between the children of brothers or of sisters and the children of brother and sister, distinctions which are so generally present in the more usual forms of the classificatory system, are here completely absent. The problem before us is to discover whether the absence of these distinctions can be referred to any social factors. If not, we may be driven to suppose that there is something in the structure of the Polynesian mind which leads the Hawaiian and the Maori to see similarities where most other peoples of rude culture see differences.

The first point to be noted is that in Oceania the distinction between the Hawaiian and the more usual forms of the classificatory system does not correspond with the distinction between the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples. Systems are to be found in Melanesia, as in the western Solomons, which closely resemble that of Hawaii, while there are Polynesian systems, such as those of Tonga and Tikopia, which are so like those of Melanesia that, if they had occurred there, they would have attracted no special attention. The difference between the two kinds of system is not to be correlated with any difference of race.

Next, if we take Melanesian and Polynesian systems as a whole, we find that they do not fall into two sharply marked-off groups, but that there are any number of intermediate gradations between the two. It would be possible to arrange the classificatory systems of Oceania in a series in which it would not be possible to draw the line at any point between the different varieties of system which the two ends of the series seem to represent. The question arises whether it is possible to find any other series of transitions in Oceania which runs parallel with the series connecting the two varieties of system of relationship. There is no doubt but that this question can be answered in the affirmative.

Speaking broadly, there are two main varieties of social organisation in Oceania, with an infinite number of intermediate conditions. In one variety marriage is regulated by some kind of clan-exogamy, including under the term “clan” the moieties of a dual organisation; in the other variety marriage is regulated by kinship or genealogical relationship. We know of no part of Melanesia where marriage is regulated solely by clan-exogamy, but it is possible to arrange Melanesian and Polynesian societies in a series according to the different degrees in which the principles of genealogical relationship is the determining factor in the regulation of marriage. At one end of the series we should have places like the Banks Islands, the northern New Hebrides and the Santa Cruz Islands, where the clan-organisation is so obviously important that it was the only mechanism for the regulation of marriage which was recognised even by so skilful an observer as Dr. Codrington. At the other end of the series we have places such as the Hawaiian Islands and Eddystone Island in the western Solomons, where only the barest traces of a clan-organisation are to be found and where marriage is regulated solely by genealogical relationship. Between the two are numerous intermediate cases, and the series so formed runs so closely parallel to that representing the transitions between different forms of the classificatory system that it seems out of the question but that there should be a relation between the two. Of all the places where I have myself worked, the two in which I failed to find any trace of the regulation of marriage by means of a clan-organisation were the Hawaiian Islands and Eddystone Island, and the systems of both places were lacking in just those distinctions the absence of which characterised the Malayan system of Morgan. Only in one point did the Eddystone system differ from the Hawaiian. Though the mother’s brother was classed in nomenclature with the father, there was a term for the sister’s son, but it was so little used that in a superficial survey it would have escaped notice. Its use was so exceptional that many of the islanders were doubtful about its proper meaning. In other parts of the Solomons where the clan-organisation persists, but where the regulation of marriage by genealogical relationship is equally, if not more, important, the systems of relationship show intermediate characters. Thus, in the island of Florida the mother’s brother was distinguished from the father and there was a term by means of which to distinguish cross-cousins from other kinds of cousin, but the father’s sister was classed with the mother, and it was habitual to ignore the proper term for cross-cousins and to class them in nomenclature with brothers and sisters and with cousins of other kinds, as in the Hawaiian system. One influential man even applied the term for father to the mother’s brother; it was evident that a change is even now in progress which would have to go very little farther to make the Florida system indistinguishable in structure from that of Hawaii.

Among the western Papuo-Melanesians of New Guinea, again, the systems of relationship come very near to the Hawaiian type, and with this character there is associated a very high degree of importance of the regulation of marriage by genealogical relationship and a vagueness of clan-organisation. We have here so close a parallelism between two series of social phenomena as to supply as good an example as could be wished of the application of the method of concomitant variations in the domain of sociology.

The nature of these changes and their relation to the general cultures of the peoples who use the different forms of terminology show that the transitions are to be associated with a progressive change which has taken place in Oceania. In this part of the world the classificatory system has been the seat of a process of simplification starting from the almost incredible complexity of Pentecost and reaching the simplicity of such systems as those of Eddystone or Mekeo. This process has gone hand in hand with one in which the regulation of marriage by some kind of clan-exogamy has gradually been replaced by a mechanism based on relationship as traced by means of pedigrees.

If this conclusion be accepted, it will follow that the more widely distributed varieties of the classificatory system of relationship are associated with a social structure which has the exogamous social group as its essential unit. This position has only to be stated for it to become apparent how all the main features of the classificatory system are such as would follow directly from such a social structure. Wherever the classificatory system is found in association with a system of exogamous social groups, the terms of relationship do not apply merely to relatives with whom it is possible to trace genealogical relationship, but to all the members of a clan of a given generation, even if no such relationship with them can be traced. Thus, a man will not only apply the term “father” to all the brothers of his father, to all the sons’ sons of his father’s father, and to all the sons’ sons’ sons of his father’s father’s father, to all the husbands of his mother’s sisters and of his mother’s mother’s granddaughters, etc., but he will also apply the term to all the members of his father’s clan of the same generation as his father and to all the husbands of the women of the mother’s clan of the same generation as the mother, even when it is quite impossible to show any genealogical relationship with them. All these and the other main features of the classificatory system become at once natural and intelligible if this system had its origin in a social structure in which exogamous social groups, such as the clan or moiety, were even more completely and essentially the social units than we know them to be to-day among the peoples whose social systems have been carefully studied. If you are dissatisfied with the word “classificatory” as a term for the system of relationship which is found in America, Africa, India, Australia and Oceania, you would be perfectly safe in calling it the “clan” system, and in inferring the ancient presence of a social structure based on the exogamous clan even if this structure were no longer present.

Not only is the general character of the classificatory system exactly such as would be the consequence of its origin in a social structure founded on the exogamous social group, but many details of these systems point in the same direction. Thus, the rigorous distinctions between father’s brother and mother’s brother, and between father’s sister and mother’s sister, which are characteristic of the usual forms of the classificatory system, are the obvious consequence of the principle of exogamy. If this principle be in action, these relatives must always belong to different social groups, so that it would be natural to distinguish them in nomenclature.

Further, there are certain features of the classificatory system which suggest its origin in a special form of exogamous social grouping, viz., that usually known as the dual system in which there are only two social groups or moieties. It is an almost universal feature of the classificatory system that the children of brothers are classed with the children of sisters. A man applies the same term to his mother’s sister’s children which he uses for his father’s brother’s children, and the use of this term, being the same as that used for a brother or sister, carries with it the most rigorous prohibition of marriage. Such a condition would not follow necessarily from a social state in which there were more than two social groups. If the society were patrilineal, the children of two brothers would necessarily belong to the same social group, so that the principle of exogamy would prevent marriage between them, but if the women of the group had married into different clans, there is no reason arising out of the principle of exogamy which should prevent marriage between their children or lead to the use of a term common to them and the children of brothers. Similarly, if the society were matrilineal, the children of two sisters would necessarily belong to the same social group, but this would not be the case with the children of brothers who might marry into different social groups.

If, however, there be only two social groups, the case is very different. It would make no difference whether descent were patrilineal or matrilineal. In each case the children of two brothers or of two sisters must belong to the same moiety, while the children of brother and sister must belong to different moieties. The children of two brothers would be just as ineligible as consorts as the children of two sisters. Similarly, it would be a natural consequence of the dual organisation that the mother’s brother’s children should be classed with the father’s sister’s children, but this would not be necessary if there were more than two social groups.

I should have liked, if there were time, to deal with other features of the classificatory system, but must be content with these examples. I hope to have succeeded in showing that the social causation of the terminology of relationship goes far beyond the mere dependence of features of the system on special forms of marriage, and that the character of the classificatory system as a whole has been determined by its origin in a specific form of social organisation. I propose now to leave the classificatory system for a moment and inquire whether another system of denoting and classifying relationships may not similarly be shown to be determined by social conditions. The system I shall consider is our own. Let us examine this system in its relation to the form of social organisation prevalent among ourselves.

Just as among most peoples of rude culture the clan or other exogamous group is the essential unit of social organisation, so among ourselves this social unit is the family, using this term for the group consisting of a man, his wife, and their children. If we examine our terms of relationship, we find that those applied to individual persons and those used in a narrow and well-defined sense are just those in which the family is intimately concerned. The terms father, mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, are limited to members of the family of the speaker, and the terms father-, mother-, brother-, and sister-in-law to the members of the family of the wife or husband in the same narrowly restricted sense. Similarly, the terms grandfather and grandmother are limited to the parents of the father and mother, while the terms grandson and granddaughter are only used of the families of the children in the narrow sense. The terms uncle and aunt, nephew and niece, are used in a less restricted sense, but even these terms are only used of persons who stand in a close relation to the family of the speaker. We have only one term used with anything approaching the wide connotation of classificatory terms of relationship, and this term is used for a group of relatives who have as their chief feature in common that they are altogether outside the proper circle of the family and have no social obligations or privileges. They are as eligible for marriage as any other members of the community, and only in the very special cases I considered in the first lecture are they brought into any kind of legal relation. The dependence of our own use of terms of relationship on the social institution of the family seems to me so obvious that I find it difficult to understand how anyone who has considered these terms can put forward the view that the terminology of relationship is not socially conditioned. It seems to me that we have only to have the proposition stated that the classificatory system and our own are the outcome of the social institutions of the clan and family respectively for the social causation of such terminology to become conspicuous. I find it difficult to understand why it has not long before this been universally recognised. I do not think we can have a better example of the confusion and prejudice which have been allowed to envelop the subject through the unfortunate introduction of the problem of the primitive promiscuity or monogamy of mankind. It is not necessary to have an expert knowledge of the classificatory system. It is only necessary to consider the terms we have used almost from our cradles in relation to their social setting to see how the terminology of relationship has been determined by that setting.

This brief study of our own terms of relationship leads me to speak about the name by which our system is generally known. Morgan called it the “descriptive system,” and this term has been generally adopted. I believe, however, that it is wholly inappropriate. Those terms which apply to one person and to one person only may be called descriptive if you please, though even here the use does not seem very happy. When we pass beyond these, however, our terms are no whit more descriptive than those of the classificatory system. We speak of a grandfather, not of a father’s father or a mother’s father, only distinguishing grandfathers in this manner when it is necessary to supplement our customary terminology by more exact description. Similarly, we speak of a brother-in-law, and only in exceptional circumstances do we use forms of language which indicate whether reference is being made to the brother of the husband or wife or to the husband of a sister. Such occasional usages do not make our system descriptive, and if they be held to do so, the classificatory system is just as descriptive as our own. All those peoples who use the classificatory system are capable of such exact description of relationship as I have mentioned. Indeed, classificatory systems are often more descriptive than our own. In some forms of this system true descriptive terms are found in habitual use. Thus, in the coastal systems of Fiji the mother’s brother is often called _ngandina_ (_ngane_, sister of a man, and _tina_, mother), this term being used in place of the _vungo_ already mentioned. Similar uses of descriptive terms occur in other parts of Melanesia. Thus, in Santa Cruz the father’s sister is called _inwerderde_ (_inwe_, sister, and _derde_, father). This relative is one for whom Melanesian systems of relationship not infrequently possess no special designation, and the use of a descriptive term suggests a recent process which has come into action in order to denote a relative who had previously lacked any special designation.

If “descriptive” is thus an inappropriate name for our own system, it will be necessary to find another, and I should like boldly to recognise the direct dependence of its characters on the institution of the family and to speak of it as the “family system.”

While I thus reject the term “descriptive” as a proper name for the terminology of relationship with which we are especially familiar, it does not follow that there may not be systems of denoting relationship which properly deserve this title. In Samoa a mode of denoting relatives is often used in which the great majority of the terms are descriptive. Thus, the only term which I could obtain for the father’s brother’s son was _atalii o le uso o le tama_, which is literally “son of the brother of the father,” and there is some reason to suppose that this descriptive usage has come into vogue owing to the total inadequacy of the ancient Samoan system to express relationships in which the peoples are now interested.

The wide use of such descriptive terms is also found in many systems of Europe, as in the Celtic languages, in those of Scandinavia, in Lithuanian and Esthonian.[32] A similar mode of denoting relationships is found in Semitic languages and among the Shilluks and Dinkas of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and since it is from these peoples that I have gained my own experience of descriptive terminology, I propose to take them as my examples.

[32] See Tables in Morgan’s _Systems ..._, pp. 79-127.

In the Arabic system of relationship used in Egypt many of the terms are descriptive; thus, the father’s brother being called _’amm_, the father’s brother’s wife is _mirat ’ammi_, the father’s brother’s son _ibn ’ammi_, and the father’s brother’s daughter _bint ’ammi_, and there is a similar usage for the consorts and children of the father’s sister and of the brother and sister of the mother.

Similarly, many Shilluk terms suggest a descriptive character, the father’s brother being _wa_, the wife of the father’s brother is _chiwa_, the father’s brother’s son is _uwa_, and his daughter is _nyuwa_. The father’s sister being _waja_, her son and daughter are _uwaja_ and _nyuwaja_ respectively. Similar descriptive terms are used by the Dinkas. The father’s brother being _walen_, the father’s brother’s son is _manwalen_ and his daughter _yanwalen_; the mother’s brother being _ninar_, the mother’s brother’s son is _manninar_ and his daughter _yanninar_.

According to the main thesis of these lectures, these descriptive usages should own some definite social cause. The descriptive terminology seems to be particularly definite in the case of cousins, and it might be suggested that they are dependent, at any rate in part and in so far as Egypt is concerned, on the prevalence of marriage with a cousin. Marriages with the daughter of a father’s brother or of a mother’s brother are especially orthodox and popular in Egypt, and different degrees of preference for marriage with different classes of cousin would produce just such a social need as would have led to the definite distinction of the different kinds of cousin from one another by means of descriptive terms.