Research Paper on:
Family, Marriage, and Kinship

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
cultures (Fleming 91). Yet, the ideas that people hold about family membership and kinship obligations do vary between cultural groups and even between individuals who share the same cultural background.  In order to explore social conceptualizations concerning kinship, marriage and family, it is, first of all, advantageous to realize how scientists believe the concepts of family and kinship were first  generated. During the early evolution of the human race, the only recognized bond of relationship was with ones mother. Like all mammalian families, the primitive human family consisted of  mother and offspring. The animal family is the "product of the maternal instincts and of those alone; the mother is the sole center and bond of it" (Briffault 191).  Early kinship groups had a matrilineal structure, that is along female lines of descent, because the paternal role in creation was not understood, or even guess at, in many cases.  This is still true today in many primitive societies, which tend to be matrilineal and to not associate the sexual act with procreation. In these societies, the closest tie  that children have to an adult male are with their mothers brother, their uncle, who acts as a male role model. Once it was understood that men beget children,  men began to want a great many children, as this was considered the best and easiest way to immortality. Ancestral mothers had been worshiped for countless generations. Patriarchs craved  having a similar experience because a tribal ancestor could achieve great glory in the afterlife. Persian belief stated that if a man died childless he couldnt enter the afterlife at  all and Hindus considered the incantations of a son to be capable of keeping a fathers spirit from wandering homeless through eternity (OFlaherty 263). It is little wonder that controlling