1984 Schneider

A Critique of the study of kinship

Kinship has been defined in terms of the relations that arise from the processes of human sexual reproduction. - Why?

Many put so much weight on the role of kinship and its maintenance and fuctioning > kinship is an institution for maintaining culture. 

Blood is thicker than water > biological bonds stronger than any others. They are states of being not of doing. Performance is assumed to follow if the bond exists. The strength of the bonds does however depend upon the "closeness." Kinship or genealogical bonds are unlike any other for they have an especially strong binding force and are directly grounded in biological nature of human nature.

Kinship is a definable object.

Consanguinity ---> related by blood

McLennan distinguished the ideas about kinship from the facts of blood relationship. It is these ideas about facts that become part of culture. 

Westermark 1891: There was no society before family. In…