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Cross-Cultural and U.S. Kinship

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Abstract

Kinship units in certain societies, especially agricultural, play economic, political, religious, and other institutional roles. Additional characteristics of kin units in some societies include property-holding and inheritance, housing, need-obligation, and affective or emotional ties. There is, however, no simple linear disappearance of these characteristics as one moves from the kin-based society to the “originally solidary” or differentiated modern industrial state. Yet, compared to agricultural societies, kin units of the United States are less central to society’s operation, fulfilling an affective function to differing degrees and a need-obligation function to some extent and performing idiosyncratically in the areas of housing and inheritance. In the middle section of this chapter the significance of kin terms, the relative as a person, and the meanings of kin “distance” are considered. The last section of the chapter is given to a characterization of relationships among the following kin: parents and adult offspring, siblings and grandparents, secondary kin, and in-laws, with some attention to kin-keeping and to gender and ethnic differences in the United States.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53176, USA

    Bert N. Adams

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  1. Bert N. Adams
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Marvin B. Sussman

  2. Department of Sociology, Indiana University — Purdue University at Indianapolis, 46236, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

    Suzanne K. Steinmetz

  3. Department of Sociology, Arizona State University, 85287-2502, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Gary W. Peterson

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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Adams, B.N. (1999). Cross-Cultural and U.S. Kinship. In: Sussman, M.B., Steinmetz, S.K., Peterson, G.W. (eds) Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5367-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5367-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-5369-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-5367-7

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