Kinship Usages

KINSHIP USAGES

Kinship usages or the rules of kinship are significant in understanding kinship system. They serve two main purposes:

1. They create groups or special groupings or kin. For example- family extended family, clan etc.

2. Kinship rules govern the role of relationships among the kins.

Kinship usage assigns guidelines for interactions among persons in these social groupings. It defines proper, acceptable role relationships, say, between father and daughter, between brother and sister, between young son-in-law and mother-in-law, etc. Kinship usage thus acts as a regulator of social life.

Definition of Kinship Usages:

1. Kinship usages refer to definite and comparatively stable patterns of behaviour of different members of a kin group. These behaviour patterns may be verbal and or non-verbal.

2. There are, within each group, certain types of co-active behaviour patterns, which inhibit regularity, a more or less permanent and definite structure. Such types of behaviour, verbal and non-verbal, constitute kinship usage.

(Choose any one definition)