Communities of Blood

The Natural History of Kinship in Nineteenth-Century America

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2109472
AutoresGillian Feeley‐harnik (University of Michigan, autor de correspondencia), Gillian Feeley-Harnik
Año1999
Volumen41
Número2
Páginas215-262
Fecha de publicación1999-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417599002078
OpenAlexW2146142637
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16

Lewis H. Morgan's Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871) is credited with inventing the anthropological study of "kinship" from a comparative perspective (Trautmann 1987). Since Émile Durkheim's critique of 1898, Morgan is also said to have reduced kinship to biology in keeping with Anglo-American cultural assumptions about "blood relations" given in nature. Yet, on closer inspection, Morgan's "consanguinity" proves to be fraught with contradictions. Debates about the degenerative effects of mixing bloods in marriage-consanguinity with affinity-encompassed not only miscegenation but also "consanguineous marriages," such as Morgan's own marriage to his first cousin (his mother's brother's daughter) in 1851

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