Douglas R. White and Michael Houseman For special issue of l’Homme 2013 Regardless of now marriage is locally defined, most people in most places marry (and/or have children with) people who are neither too close (immediate family members) nor overly distant (total strangers). As a result, many members of a given community are linked to each other by multiple direct or indirect ties of consangu...

A natural numerical measure of consanguinity is developed that applies to individuals with arbitrary multiple kinship connections. For simple relationships the consanguineal distance specializes to the civil degree, less two if the relationship goes through full siblings. This measure is deduced from axioms motivated by an heuristic picture of blood mixtures. The formula suggests a quantum mech...

The reticular approach to kinship Douglas R. White and Michael Houseman For l’Homme, Special issue on kinship Regardless of how marriage is locally defined, most people in most places marry (and/or have children with) people who are neither too close (immediate family members) nor overly distant (total strangers). As a result, many members of a given community are linked to each other by multip...

All languages have expressions that can be glossed ‘father,’ ‘wife,’ ‘brother-in-law,’ etc., covering consanguineal, spousal, and affinal categories. However, from the beginning of serious cross-cultural study, it has been apparent that societies differ in the kinship categories used. To facilitate comparison, an ‘etic grid’ is necessary; namely, an open-ended universe of kin-types, such as ‘fa...