Part I. Kinship and Descent: 1. Descent and marriage reconsidered Fredrik Barth; 2. Kinship, descent and locality: some New Guinea examples Andrew Strathern; 3. Descent in New Guinea: an Africanist view Jean La Fontaine; 4. Complementary filiation and bilateral kinship Edmund Leach; Part II. The Nature of Kinship: 5. Genetrix: genitor: nature: culture? J. A. Barnes; 6. The long term and the short term: the economic and political significance of the morality of kinship Maurice Bloch; 7. The kith and the kin Julian Pitt-Rivers; Part III. The Nature of the Family: 8. Kinship, attachment behaviour and the primary bond Derek Freeman; 9. The matrifocal family Raymond T. Smith; 10. Furies, witches and mothers Grace Harris; Part IV. Marriage and Affinal Roles: 11. Some aspects of levirate R. G. Abrahams; 12. Polygyny, economy and the role of women Jack Goody; 13. From varna to caste through mixed unions S. J. Tambiah; Notes; Bibliography of the writings of Meyer Fortes J. A . Barnes; References; Index.