1871: The Year That Never Ended

Abstract

n 1871, with the publication of
Lewis Henry Morgan’s Systems of Consanguinity and
Affinity of the Human Family, the anthropology of
kinship broke free from the gravitational pull of
History, Law and Philology to become established
as a field in its own right. Along with a field of study
Morgan proposed a method and techniques of data
collection of phenomena grouped under the rubric
of kinship (“system of consanguinity”). He defined
“kinship” as a formal expression and social recog-
nition of natural relations between individuals of a
given collectivity (1871, p.10). This definition has
been at the center of one of the most longstanding
anthropological debates. The relationship between
kinship and genealogy has generated controversy
for some 140 years and, to judge by the most recent
developments, promises to continue to incite deba-
te far into the future.