What is family structures(type of marriage patterns and descent)?

Question

What is family structures(type of marriage patterns and descent)?

Answer 1

WOW! So many patterns and descents!

Just a couple:

1) Nuclear family...mother and child.

2) Matrilinear descent.

3) Patrilinear descent.

4) One is specifically for the mother's uncles' descent.

5) If the male spouse dies...the wife must marry his brother.

6) If the wife dies, the husband must marry her sister.

This goes on and on....

Good Morning!

Answer 2

Marriage as we know it, probably didn't arise until the advent of farming, and birth of cities, where many people lived in close quarters, within the past 10,000 years, or so...

Hunter/Gatherers & cavemen (Including Cro-Magnon & Neanderthals) lived in tribes ranging from 30 to 200 members, and were likely led by an Alpha Male & Female, or perhaps several, co-existing within a particular pecking order, and not entirely different from a group of gorillas...

Each tribe shared their wealth communally. Separate family units, came as a later experiment, which imitated the larger societies, on the microcosmic scale...

The family structure also potentially limited the amount of genetic versatility available, as siblings, if they produced offspring, would reduce the natural selection of the community...

Answer 3

There are a lot of terms to describe kinship patterns and they are divided into three main suffix categories: -lineal (showing how descent and inheritance are traced), -local (showing who the ego lives with), and -archal (showing which side of the family has the socio-political power).  You probably know the prefixes matri- and patri- and what they mean.  In -lineal, there is also another category called cognatic or dual descent (doesn't fit the naming pattern) where members belong to the family of both families and may receive inheritances from both as well.  There are a variety of different bases for the -local category.  One that seems to be on a disproportionate number of tests is avunculocal, which refers to a man and later his wife living with one's (usually maternal) uncle.  Most namings assume marriage is between one man and one woman so when that isn't the case, the namings may or may not be used depending on applicability (of course) and clarity.