5.3 Kinship (anthropology's home ground)

The apparatus: descent (unilineal/bilateral — Nepal overwhelmingly patrilineal, with the Newar and Thakali descent-group institutions noted), lineage and clan, and the classic terminologytypologies (Sudanese/descriptive — elaborate distinctions, Bahun-Chhetri's many terms; Iroquois, Omaha/Crow — classificatory merges; Hawaiian — one word for all cousins) — why it matters:terminology encodes marriage rules and group structure (a language of society). Nepal's kinshipparticulars (the depth this unit wants): the afno manchhe circuit (Bista — kin-based patronage as the society's operating system — Sociology Unit 6.3); maiti relations (the married woman's natal home as lifelong institution); the mama–bhanja axis (mother's-brother's privileged bond — ritually fed, first honoured); avoidance vs joking relations (the daughter-in-law's avoidance of the father-in-law against the licensed banter with the wife's younger brother — kinship as choreographed behaviour); the guthi as kinship-religion-land corporation (Unit 2.3's functionalist classic); fictive kinship — mit (ritual friendship), temple-parenthood, the blood- brotherhood customs — kinship created where blood is absent: society's adoptive genius.