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
[581] "L'indépendance réciproque du point de vue biologique
et du point de vue social chez les Australiens." (_Ibid._,
p. lxv.)
The same distinction between consanguinity and kinship is also made by
Prof. Westermarck in his discussion of the classificatory system of
relationship, and Prof. Westermarck has already brought the important
objection against Morgan, viz. that the latter has "given no evidence
for the truth of his assumption that the classificatory system" is a
system of blood ties,[582] an objection which has appeared also to us
as fundamental. Unfortunately, Prof. Westermarck has not given any
exhaustive discussion of the concept of kinship.
[582] _H.H.M._, p. 89.
Finally, I wish to mention a passage by Sir Laurence Gomme, which
contains suggestive remarks nearly identical with some views set
forth in this chapter. "It is of no use translating a native term as
'father,' if father did not mean to the savage what it means to us. It
might mean something so very different. With us fatherhood connotes a
definite individual with all sorts of social, economical and political
associations, but what does it mean to the savage? It may mean physical
fatherhood and nothing more, and physical fatherhood may be a fact of
the veriest insignificance. It may mean social fatherhood ... and thus
becomes" (in some cases), "much more than we can understand by the term
father."[583]
[583] _Loc. cit._, pp. 232, 233; compare also above
p. 182, footnote. Apart from the naturally somewhat loose
terminology (the passage about kinship is intended as an
example only, and does not aim at a full treatment of the
subject)--the passages quoted express the same ideas which
served as a starting-point for this chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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