KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE:
An Anthropological Perspective
Paperback: 266 pages
Publisher: (Originally Penguin Books 1967)
Current: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
With a new preface
In print for forty-four years, this is, in its many translations and editions, the most widely read and used anthropology text in the world. (Translations include French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Hindi and Malay.) The Spanish edition is mandated for all social science students in Spanish universities. It has been called "the bible of kinship studies" and the French publisher, Gallimard, included it in the prestigious series Les Essais (no. CLXVII.) It was mostly written before the author was thirty, based on his lectures at The London School of Economics.
Contents:
- Kinship, Family and Descent
- The Incest Problem
- Local Groups and Descent Groups
- Unilineal Descent Groups
- Segmentation and Double Descent
- Cognatic Descent and Ego-centered Groups
- Exogamy and Direct Exchange
- Asymmetrical and Complex Systems
- Kinship Terminology
From the original reviews:
"This is an admirable work and far superior to anything of the kind that has previously been attempted." Times Literary Supplement (Rodney Needham.)
"Only those, teachers as well as students, who know how stodgy works about kinship can be, will fully appreciate what we owe him for this lively book. Absolute beginners will enjoy it for its own sake." Lucy Mair, New Society.