kin classification as social structure: the Ambrym case

Abstract

Anthropologists have tended to regard systems of kin classification as dependent structures, shaped primarily by the group structures of societies. It is suggested here that in some instances they shape both interpersonal and intergroup relations. The kinship systems of Ambrym Island (in the former New Hebrides), once described as the terminologies of six‐class systems of marriage regulation, are reexamined; it is shown how they structure marriage possibilities, both between individuals and between lineages . [Ambrym, kin classification, marriage‐class systems]