10 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



CHAPTER II. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON SYSTEMS OF REL ATIO NS H I PS. 



Marriage the basis of the Family Relationships — Systems of Consanguinity and AfB nity — Each Person the Centre of 

 a Group of Kindred — The System of Nature Numerical — Not necessarily adopted— Every System embodies Defi- 

 nite Ideas— It is a Domestic Institution — Two Radical Forms — The Descriptive, and the Classificatory— Aryan, 

 Semitic, and Uraliau Families have the former — Turanian, American Indian, and Malayan the latter — Diveigence 

 of Collateral Lines from Lineal, Characteristic of the First — Mergence of Collateral Lines in the Lineal, of the 

 Second — Uses of these Systems depend upon the Permanence of their Radical Forms — Evidence of their Modi- 

 fication — Direction of the Change — Causes which tend to the Stability of their Radical Features. 



Ix considering the elements of a system of consanguinity the existence of mar- 

 riage between single pairs must be assumed. Marriage forms the basis of rela- 

 tionships. In the progress of the inquiry it may become necessary to consider a 

 system with this basis fluctuating, and, perhaps, altogether wanting. The alter- 

 native assumption of each may be essential to include all the elements of the 

 subject in its practical relations. The natural and necessary connection of 

 consanguinci with each other would be the same in both cases; but with this 

 difference, tliat in the former the lines of descent from parent to child would be 

 known, while in the latter they would, to a greater or less extent, be incapable 

 of ascertainment. These considerations might affect the form of the system of 

 consanguinity. 



The family relationships are as ancient as the familij. They exist in virtue 

 of the law of derivation, which is expressed by the perpetuation of the species 

 through the marriage relation. A system of consanguinity, which is founded upon 

 a community of blood, is but the formal expression and recognition of tlicse 

 relationships. Around every person there is a circle or group of kindred of 

 which such person is the centre, the Ego, from whom the degree of the relationship 

 is reckoned, and to whom the relationship itself returns. Above him are his 

 father and his mother and their ascendants, below him are his children and their 

 descendants; Avhile upon either side are his brothers and sisters and their 

 descendants, and the brothers and sisters of his father and of his mother and their 

 descendants, as well as a much greater number of collateral relatives descended 

 from common ancestors stiU more remote. To him they are nearer in degree than 

 other individuals of the nation at large. A formal arrangement of the more 

 immediate blood kindred into lines of descent, with the adoption of some method 

 to distinguish one relative from another, and to express the value of the relation- 

 ship, woidd be one of the earliest acts of human intelligence. 



Should the inquiry be made how far nattu-e suggests a vmiform method or plan 



