Bilateral Descent Group

Bilateral descent is a system of family lineage in which the relatives on the mother s side and father s side are equally important for emotional ties or for transfer of property or wealth.

Bilateral descent group. Bilateral or cognatic descent systems reckon kinship through the mother and the father more or less equally. Bilateral descent groups stocks bilateral systems are usually based on defining circles of relationship or kindreds on the basis of an egocentric kinship network. An alternative arrangement a bilateral descent group or stock is formed on the basis of common ancestry from an identified founder. This is a group of relatives who are linked together by a single individual who can trace descent and or marriage relationships to every other member of the kindred.

Since bilateral descent is common to most of us we ll start with it. Societies with the eskimo kinship system like the inuit yupik and most western societies are typically bilateral. The egocentric kindred group is also typical of bilateral societies. They are bilateral unilateral or ambilineal descent.

A less common variant form a stock or bilateral descent group is based on tracing descent lines back to founding ancestors. When speaking anthropologically a person s affiliation to a kin group is usually decided using one of three descent systems. Most common in the western world bilateral descent is the tracing of kinship through both parents ancestral lines. Beyond the nuclear family there usually only exists a kindred.

It is a family arrangement where descent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents. Parents throughout an everwidening network of kinship called a kindred. In a matrilineal system for example a person would feel cousin obligations only to the children of his mother s siblings while in a bilateral system the person is in some sense allied to the children of both parents siblings. As such a stock is similar to a unilineal descent group insofar as it results in a fixed unit with descrete boundaries and the basis of established descent.

Bilateral kinship network kindred. Bilateral descent groups tend to be more fragile and short term than unilineal ones.