The Universality of Kroeber’s Framework of Kinship: An Overview

Abstract

The field of kinship, described as a world of shared human ties arose from the pioneering work of L.H. Morgan, who investigated Native American kin systems and categorized the terms into two types: classificatory and descriptive. The extent of this classification was deemed to be limited by proponents of human universals, and then Kroeber provided a universal etic framework of kinship to characterize kin systems and draw comparisons between different systems. Kroeber's universals of kinship served as the foundation for numerous studies spanning from anthropology to sociolinguistics. With the help of predominant studies in the field, this study aims to demonstrate that despite criticism from adherents of new kinship constructs who believe in the theory of behavior and performance, the genealogical and procreation constructs still stand tall and provide a common foundation for the construction of kinship systems that use a finite set of units for linguistic code configuration as empirical evidence.