Matrilineality

Matrilineal ( Latin for " in the line of the mother ": Mothers line) or mother hereinafter referred to distribute the inheritance of social properties and property exclusively through the female line from mothers to daughters. The transmission of kinship relations, social positions, offices, prestige, privileges, and property from one generation to the next is done after the unilinear descent of the woman. The man and his mother or his father's line has no meaning. Sons are not included in the maternal inheritance, as they can not continue independently of their mother's line: After a marriage children are counted to the family of the wife, they carry their family name and run their line further, not the line of the husband or his mother.

A purely matrilineal lineage contains all in an unbroken sequence of a female " ancestress " herstammenden women, plays the question of the legitimacy of offspring not matter. This line is also called uterine descent ( Latin for " offspring from the womb " ) referred to earlier, " matriarchal " as.

Matrilineality is a term used in social anthropology, to examine the ideas of ancestry ( Deszendenzregeln ) and its impact on social relations, especially in ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. Your direct opposite is the patrilineage, in which the origin, transmission and inheritance is only controlled by the lineage of their fathers. In addition, there are mixed lines as the usual even in modern societies bilateral- cognate ( bilateral) descent.

About 13 percent of the 1,300 world -ethnic societies arrange themselves according to matrilineal descent through the line of the woman, her mother, her mother ( grandmother ) and so on back. These mothers line is understood as a biological bloodline. In one-third of all matrilineal groups and societies is after a marriage of the marital residence at the place of the wife or her mother ( matri - local). 38 percent follow the avunku - local residence rule the brother of the mother of the husband ( his maternal uncle, see Avunkulat ) and 18 percent live patri - local to the husband or his family.

Deszendenzsystem

The matrilineal descent, both male and female offspring is formed only through the female line ancestors, the mother of the line. This can have the consequence that the descendants of non- same-sex siblings belong to two different lines, so that only the children of the daughter, but not the children of the son - these are attributed to the lineage of their mother - to the same line. This can at marriage, particularly in the Kreuzkusinenheirat, play a role. The force generated by the common unilinear descent group is called Lineage.

Dissemination

Matri - linearity as the sole origin usually follow 13 percent of all recorded worldwide indigenous peoples and ethnic groups ( 1998: 584 of 1267 ). There are also 5 percent (63 ethnic groups ) in which matrilineal applies only to a part of social groups ( clans ), while others align with the patri - linear, paternal ancestry ( see also the two-part Moiety ).

A practical example illustrates differences for purely matrilineal societies:

The little people of the Ngaing in Papua New Guinea following a double bilinear descent rule: In a village the patrilineal descent groups ( Patri - lineages ) have a depth of 3 to 5 generations and form Patri - clans that make up the basic unit of settlement. About them the rules of exogamy are (important for spouses), land rights (important for horticulture and hunting) and ritual rights ( important for men cult ceremonies ) shared and inherited. Similarly, are organized in parallel to the men legitimate matrilineal descent groups ( Matri - lineages ), which combine the totem right to itself and thus exert animistic guardian spirit functions. The groups live in the settlement area scattered, because they follow the marital home following regulating the Patri - location: The residence of a married couple is set up at the husband who lives with his father. Meetings to joint activities do not take place.

The Minangkabau on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with over 3 million members, the largest existing matrilineal and matrilocal culture worldwide. Matrilineal society structures also prevail in the Khasi in the East Indies (over 1 million ), the Tuareg in North Africa ( 3 million ), the Wayúu in South America ( approximately 0.5 million ), the North American Iroquois nations ( about 70,000 ), the Mosuo in China ( 40,000 ) and other ethnic groups outside Europe (see list matrilineal societies ).

In the conservative and orthodox Judaism the mother is crucial for the religious affiliation: Jew or Jewess is, who is the child of a Jewish mother. In the State of Israel officially applies only as a Jew or Jewess, whose foremothers up to four generations back Jewish women were so in purely maternal line ascending to own great-grandmother.

Marital residence rules

In one-third of all matrilineal groups and societies is after a marriage of the marital residence at the place of the wife, her mother, family, descent group ( lineage ) or at the place of their clan, the husband may call in. This conjugal living sequence is as Matri -locality ( Latin for " in the place of the mother " ) means, or more generally as Uxori -locality ( " the place where the wife "). The term uxori - locally is from the Latin uxor 'wife' derived ( wife: mulier ), while the male equivalent of viri - locally from the Latin vir " man " is derived (husband: maritus ), a reflection of female subordination in Roman marriage.

The women-centered residence ( residence rule) reinforces the close relationship between the wife, her sisters, her mother and her sisters ( aunts ), while the family of the husband is not considered to be related ( also referred to as Matrifokalität: focus on the woman / mother). Usually form mothers, sisters and daughters of a core group, to extensive Matri clan, all relationships are meant to only one line within which mothers. All the sons marry out (see exogamy ), daughters get husbands from other lineages beginning. Husbands remain her own family attributed this was matrilineal or patri - linear structured according to the fathers line.

18 percent of the matrilineal societies live patri - local to the husband or his family.

38 percent follow the avunku - local residence rule the brother of the mother of the husband ( on his mother side uncle).

Structured matrilineal family systems often exhibit the so-called Avunkulat. In these systems, the brother of the wife ( uncle ) takes over the social role of father for his sister's children, the biological relationship of a father with his children by playing a subordinate role. When brother's wife is in matrilineal societies often also the authority in the family.