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Show HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 31 ticular relationship would thus be impracticable. In overcoming this difficulty two methods of designating relationships have come into use in the evolution of languages. The older method is that of classification, by which relationships are thrown into groups in various ways in different languages. The later method is the descriptive, in which some of the most fundamental relationships are named, and by the use of these names other relationships are described. This latter method is never the popular one in any language, and is only used when an attempt is made to designate the degree of relationship with exactness. For example, in English there is a group of persons in a large body of kindred who are called cousins. If one of these cousins should wish to be more exact in defining the relationships which existed between himself and the others, he would say " my father's brother's son," " my father's brother's daughter," " my father's sister's son," " my father's sister's daughter"; and so on with the cousins in his mother's line. The system of designating these persons as cousins would be classificatory; the system of describing these persons by designating their genetic relations through the use of the fundamental terms " father," " mother," " son," and " daughter," constitutes the descriptive system. In all languages the classificatory system is the primary one, i. e. f that in common use. But the methods of classification differ widely, and these differences are found to rest, to some extent, upon the social institutions of the people in such a manner that if the system of relationships or method of classifying kindred used by any tribe be known, we have a revelation of some of their most important social institutions. The characteristics upon which kinships are classified are as follows; 1. Lineal generation, giving rise to father and son, grandfather and and grandson, great grandfather and great grandson, & c, father and daughter, & c, mother and son, & c, mother and daughter, & c. 2. Collateral generation, giving rise to brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, & c. 3. Sex, by which we distinguish between father and mother, brother and sister, aunt and uncle, & c In some languages sex enters into the system of classification in a double way- that is, the sex of both parties of a |
