Brief Communications

KIN RELATIONSHIPS
DOMINANT IDEAS
AND DOMINANT

Francis HSU’Sarticle (1965: 638-661) on the effect of dominant kinship

relationships on kin and nonkin behavior contains a large number of interesting
suggestions for the studjr of covariation in kinship systems. Perhaps it will
prove of most value in enabling us to put labels on social systems with different
emphases within a single broad cultural area. For instance, in the New Guinea
Highlands, it is not hard to recognize the Mae-Enga as a father-son dominated
society (Meggitt 1965), while the Kuma (Reay 1959) would appear to fit the
brother-brother dominated system in a number of respects. Rather less plausi-
ble, however, are the ways in which Hsu leads into his hypothesis.
(1) As a unit for study he chooses the nuclear family, containing the eight
dyads that he lists. The assumption here presumably is that these provide the
full set of primary kin relationships. But where the coresidential household
unit is a pair of brothers-in-law or a mother’s brother and his sister’s children,
would it not be necessary to treat the relationships resulting from these ar-
rangements as primary for socialization purposes within that society? T o
analyze such a system in HSU’Sterms one would then need to draw up a list of
intrinsic attributes for these relationships too. HSU’Schoice of his eight rela-
tionships is reasonable, but it is to a certain extent arbitrary if he means to
imply that they are the only basic ones and so provide an absolute baseline for
his discussion.
(2) The same arbitrariness can be seen in his notion of “intrinsic attri-
bute.” This he says (p. 640) “refers to the logical or typical mode of behavior
and attitude intrinsic to each relationship”; and he quotes an apparently
similar pronouncement by Schneider (1961). I n this definition is the “or” in-
tended to indicate that logical and typical are here exclusive in distribution, or
is “typical” meant as another way of saying “logical”? We are not sure what
distinction is intended but shall take it that it is the first alternative. I n that
sense we can see that some of the attributes he sets out can be regarded as
logical, while others are typical and neither logical nor illogical. Discontinuity/
continuity and inclusiveness/exclusiveness are logical axes of comparison,
based on formal definition, of the four relationships he takes. The others,
authority, sexuality, and so on, are descriptive and typical.
How does the author derive these typical attributes? He simply arrives at
them and states them. There are difficulties for this even within the terms of
the author’s own scheme, since in any given particular social system the in-
trinsic attributes of all the kin relationships will presumably be modified by
external factors and perhaps by the dominance of one relationship within the
set, so that we could not hope to observe attributes in a pure state anywhere.
Yet the author writes as though he means some of his typical attributes to be
empirically derived (e.g., from examples of the arrangements for polygynists’
997
998 A mericatz A ntlzropologisl 168, 19661
wives in Africa). Some of the attributes are obvious enough-like sexuality in
the case of the husband-wife relationship, although this is not how we would
define the relationship structurally-but others, such as diffuseness in the
mother-son relationship, seem to require more justification. Some of the attri-
butes seem to be based on psychological theory, while others are sociological,
like authority. But if authority is said to be universally a dominant property
of the father-son relationship, does not this require prior demonstration from
ethnography? And as soon as we went to ethnography, we would realize that
our problem depended on the old difficulties of the distinction between genitor
and paler. Which is Hsu talking about in his article?
’ Attempts to extend the proposed scheme to other relationships in the set of
eight also show up difficulties. We might wonder if some New Guinea societies
are brother-sister dominated. I n terms of HSU’Slogical axes the attributes of
the brother-sister relationship are discontinuity and inclusiveness. For the
typical attributes we may suggest desexuality-“the condition of repression of
sexuality”-and libidinality. We derive the latter from HSU’Smaxim that all
cross-sex relationships are characterized by libidinality, but is it as plausible
here as it is for the mother-son relationship? (Hsu himself notes his reserva-
tions on this point.) The first is derived from the near-universal sibling incest
taboo (“repression” here begs a number of questions, but that is another argu-
ment), that is, it is taken straight from comparative ethnography, by which it
stands or falls, not by any inherent logic of its own. Further, in terms of HSU’S
hypothesis, how could we know that the taboo was not the result of some other
kin relationship’s being dominant and affecting the brother-sister relationship
so that its “intrinsic” attributes remained always hidden? If our observation
of the intrinsic attribute of a relationship depends either on its being dominant
within its system or on no relationship’s being dominant, it is clear that such
observation will be difficult, for how are we to decide in advance which situa-
tion exists? It seems that we can only operate the scheme if we already know,
as Hsu does, what the intrinsic attributes are!
(3) The hypothesis does not attempt to state why, in any given case, one of
the primary relationships should be dominant over the others. Had the author
considered this, he might have taken into account external variables connected
with economics, adaptation to environment, and so on as influences on primary
kin relationships. But this would have militated against the direction of the
variables he is proposing. Would he look on these external factors only as in-
tervening variables that modify the effect of otherwise-derived dominant kin
relationships on nonkin behavior, or would he agree that they could affect kin
behavior itself?
(4) After using “predictive” language in his title and in most of the paper,
the author adds a covering caveat at the end: that he has been talking about
“compatibilities” only. But it seems fair to take it that he means his char-
acterizations to be to some extent predictive. If this is so, we can point out
that the predicted effects are of two types: (a) institutional forms, which we
may call structural effects; and (b) attributes of and attitudes to relationships
 Brief Communications 999
involving authority, etc., which we may call cultural effects. The prediction is
less convincing for the first than for the second type. For instance, Hsu sug-
gests that in a father-son dominated society, polygyny to continue the male
line is a “structural necessity,’’ and that “this form of kinship is likely to be as-
sociated with a strong cult of ancestors and a maximum tendency for the de-
velopment of the clan” (p. 649). Does he here see ancestor worship and the
(presumably patri-)clan as interdependently growing out of this dominant
father-son relationship with its attribute of authority? If this is so, the hy-
pothesis would certainly require testing, but how would we set about testing it
(as it is presumably a diachronic one)? It would seem that the hypothesis
would have greatest predictive value for effects of type (b), for attitudes de-
rived from relationships within the nuclear family could affect the reaction of
an individual in his various institutional roles outside the family-for example,
in his attitudes to authority, as Hsu points out.
We ask two main questions, then: (1) How are the “intrinsic” attributep
discovered by the analyst? (2) How does one relationship become dominant
over the others? By these criticisms we mean to suggest not that the attempt
to set up generalized statements of the content of kin relationships is entirely
fruitless, but only that the source of one’s statements should be made clear.
Is Professor Hsu a Platonist or an Aristotelian?
ANDREw STRATHERN
MARILYN STRATHERN
University of Cambridle
REFERENCES CITED
Hsn,FRANCIS
L. K.
1965 The effect of dominant kinship relationships on kin and non-kin behavior: a hy-
pothesis. American Anthropologist 67 :638-661.
MEGGITT,M. J.
1965 The lineage system of the Mae-Enga. Edinburgh and London, Oliver and Boyd.
REAY,M.
1959 The Kuma: freedom and conformity in the New Guinea Highlands. Melbourne,
Melbourne University Press, for the Australian National University.
D. M.
SCHNEJDEB,
1961 Introduction: the distinctive features of matrilineal descent groups, In Matrilineal
kinship. D. M. Schneider and K. Gough, eds. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University
of California Press.

A LINKBETWEEN KINSHIPSTRUCTURE STUDIES AND

REJOINDER:
PSYCHOLOGICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
Andrew and Marilyn Strathern’s comments on my article (1965: 638-661)
are very helpful in that they enable me to explain some basic points that I was
not able to do there. The purpose of that article was not only to further our
study of covariation in kinship systems, as the Stratherns aptly observe, but
also to point to a new conceptual framework for establishing more scientifically
meaningful links between kinship systems on the one hand and culture and
personality on the other. It is my view that the term “structure” has been used