The Family among the Australian Aborigines, a Sociological StudyMalinowski, Bronislaw
History
The Family among the Australian Aborigines, a Sociological Study
Malinowski, Bronislaw
Aboriginal Australians -- Social life and customs; Ethnology -- Australia; Families -- History
Parental kinship is in our society conceived invariably and
exclusively in terms of _consanguinity_,[519] or, speaking more
explicitly, parental kinship is conceived as established by the tie of
common blood, resulting from birth (maternal kinship) or procreation
(paternal kinship). Of course the mere physiological fact does not
establish kinship in its full extent, with all its personal, emotional,
social and legal aspects. It is only when the physiological facts of
procreation or birth are sanctioned by society, in other words when
they are consummated in legal marriage, that the children are full
kinsmen of both their parents. Society takes all facts which are of
vital importance for itself under its own supervision; and consequently
the important facts of propagation are subject to the control of
society, which regulates them by a series of religious, legal,
customary and conventional norms, all of which are also necessary
conditions and essential features of full parental kinship. But this
sanction once granted, the tie of common blood is conceived as the main
source of all mutual duties and moral and legal obligations; and from
this also outflow the feelings of love, attachment, reverence, and so
forth, which are in our society the essential features of parental
kinship. Once a man knows that a child, which he considered his own, is
in reality not begotten by him, undoubtedly all his feelings for this
child are affected, and, under certain conditions, its legal position
may be modified. The two conditions for full parental kinship in our
society are (1) that the child be the real physiological offspring of
both presumed parents; (2) that it be legally begotten or its birth
legalized.
[519] Legal adoption being set apart as a case which only
partly establishes the kinship relations.
In our society the line of distinction between physiological
consanguinity and social consanguinity is quite clear; the one is a
mere physiological fact,[520] the other the social acknowledgment of
this fact and all its consequences, subject to certain norms, laid down
by society.
[520] It seems hardly necessary to emphasize that for
physiological consanguinity _as such_, pure and simple,
there is no room in sociological science.
There are two separate sets of circumstances in which we may speak
of consanguinity: (1) the existence of social institutions, which
allow us to trace the physiological blood ties (_e. g._ monogamy or
harem institutions), in which case we can speak of the existence of
physiological consanguinity as obtaining between the members of the
individual family. (2) The existence of a social acknowledgment of the
facts of procreation as creating ties of individual personal kinship,
in which case we may speak of social consanguinity. If neither of these
conditions are fulfilled, then it would be quite meaningless to speak
of consanguinity.[521]
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