Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family

"Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity remains a towering monument... Morgan can never be ignored by the student of kinship."

-Robert Lowie, early 20th century American anthropologist

In Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), Lewis Morgan described his fieldwork among Native American and the kinship systems of over 100 cultures that he studied. Its key findings are that kinship is an important factor in understanding cultures, and they can be studied through systematic, scientific means. By undertaking the first major study of the effects of kinship, Morgan pioneered in introducing a new field of research, and this book is considered a foundational text for the discipline of anthropology.

LEWIS H. MORGAN (1818-1881) was one of the greatest American anthropologists and social scientists of the nineteenth century. His research focused on the American Indian lifestyle, and he became an authority on the ethnography of the Iroquois as well as on kinship and social organization in general.