Pedigree collapse

A family is a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups, typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships including domestic partnership, adoption, surname and in some cases ownership (as was the case in the Roman Empire). Although many people (including social scientists) have understood familial relationships in terms of "blood," many anthropologists have argued that the notion of "blood" must be understood metaphorically, and in that in many societies family is understoo ...

Including:

• Family - Family cross-culturally
• Family - Family in the West
• Family - Economic function of the family
• Family - Kinship terminology
• Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia - Family

Consanguinity is the quality of being descended from the same ancestor as another person. The degree of relative consanguinity can be illustrated with a consanguinity table, in which each level of lineal consanguinity (i.e., generation) appears as a row, and individuals with a collaterally-consanguinious relationship share the same row. The connotations of degree of consanguinity varies by context (e.g., canon law, Roman law, et al.). Most cultures define a degree of consaguinity below which sexual interrelationships are regarded as incestuous. In the Catholic Church, unwittingly marrying a closely-consan ...

Read more here: » Consanguinity: Encyclopedia - Consanguinity

Mammals, most other animals, and higher plants as well, have ways to minimize inbreeding. They can be mechanical or societal. An example of mechanical means is the sweet cherry. It has an elaborate biochemical mechanism that precludes self-fertilization and combination of gametes of high genetical similarity. Fruit flies, on the other hand, have a sensing mechanism to do the same thing, and more genetic diversity than expected b ...

See also:

Inbreeding, Inbreeding - Means to avoid inbreeding, Inbreeding - Inbred humans, Inbreeding - Royalty, Inbreeding - The Rothschilds

Read more here: » Inbreeding: Encyclopedia II - Inbreeding - Means to avoid inbreeding

Most Western societies employ English kinship terminology. This kinship terminology is common in societies based on conjugal (or nuclear) families, where nuclear families must be relatively mobile. Members of the nuclear family use descriptive kinship terms: Mother: the female parent Father: the male parent Son: the males born of the mother; sired by the father Daughter: the females born of the mother; sired by the father Brother: a male born of the same mother; sired by the same father Sister: a female bo ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - English kinship terminology

According to sociology and anthropology, the primary function of the family is to reproduce society, either biologically, socially, or both. Thus, one's experience of one's family shifts over time. From the perspective of children, the family is a family of orientation: the family serves to locate children socially, and plays a major role in their enculturation and socialization. From the point of view of the parent(s), the family is a family of procreation the goal of which is to produce and enculturate and socialize children. ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - Family cross-culturally

The preceding types of families are found in a wide variety of settings, and their specific functions and meanings depend largely on their relationship to other social institutions. Sociologists are especially interested in the function and status of these forms in stratified, especially capitalist, societies. Non-scholars, especially in the United States and Europe, use the term "nuclear family" to refer to conjugal families. Sociologists distinguish between conjugal families that are relatively independent of the kindreds of the parents and of other families in general, and nuclear families which mainta ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - Family in the West

Inbreeding - Royalty. The royal families of Europe have close blood ties which are strengthened by intermarriage; the most discussed instances of interbreeding relate to European monarchies. Examples abound in every royal family; in particular, the ruling dynasties of Spain and Portugal were very inbred. Even in the British royal family, which is very moderate in comparison, there has scarcely been a monarch in 300 years who has not married a (near or distant) relative. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband ...

See also:

Inbreeding, Inbreeding - Means to avoid inbreeding, Inbreeding - Inbred humans, Inbreeding - Royalty, Inbreeding - The Rothschilds

Read more here: » Inbreeding: Encyclopedia II - Inbreeding - Inbred humans

Mammals, most other animals, and higher plants as well, have ways to avoid inbreeding of any sort. They can be mechanical or societal. An example of mechanical means is the sweet cherry. It has an elaborate biochemical mechanism that precludes self-fertilisation and combination of gametes of high genetical similarity. Fruit flies, on the other hand, have a sensing mechanism to do the same thing, and more genetic diversity than expected b ...

See also:

Inbreeding, Inbreeding - Means to avoid inbreeding, Inbreeding - Inbred humans, Inbreeding - Royalty, Inbreeding - The Rothschilds

Read more here: » Inbreeding: Encyclopedia II - Inbreeding - Means to avoid inbreeding

A kinship terminology is a specific system of familial relationships. The now rather dated anthropologist Louis Henry Morgan argued that kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example, most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes (this is the difference between a brother and a sister) and between generations (this is the difference between a child and a parent). Moreover, he argued, kinship terminologies distinguish between relatives by blood and marriage (although recently some anthropologists have argued that many societie ...

See also:

Family, Family - Family cross-culturally, Family - Family in the West, Family - Economic function of the family, Family - Kinship terminology, Family - English kinship terminology

Read more here: » Family: Encyclopedia II - Family - Kinship terminology