The Seeds of Kinship Theory in the Abrahamic Religions

Abstract

In the Abrahamic religions, Delaney suggests that all kinship is spiritual due to beliefs about procreation found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. The creative power of God is symbolically transferred to men in procreation. The male provides the seed, which encapsulates the soul and identity of a child, while the female is imagined as either fertile or barren, like the earth, that which was created by God. This monogenetic belief generates definitions of “father” and “mother,” patriarchal descent, and gender relations across all three of the Abrahamic religions.