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Marriage Systems and Algebraic Group Theory: A Critique of White's An Anatomy of Kinship 1
Author(s) -
REID RUSSELL M.
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1967.69.2.02a00040
Subject(s) - kinship , abstraction , algebraic number , alliance , population , set (abstract data type) , genealogy , white (mutation) , sociology , mathematics , epistemology , demography , computer science , history , anthropology , law , political science , biology , philosophy , mathematical analysis , biochemistry , gene , programming language
Algebraic models that deal with kinship and marriage systems by reducing a population to sets of persons are found to be inappropriate both for the Purum and for some levels of abstraction in certain Australian cases. In the latter cases the distinctions within sections are based on relative age rather than genealogical generation, so that the partitioning of the population according to kin categories may be unique for each individual rather than universal to the system. The Purum must be dealt with as an asymmetrical alliance system in which the marriage rules are proscriptive rather than prescriptive in nature. An alternative algebraic model based on set theory is proposed for such systems.