Theoretical approaches to family and kinship

Why do people live, marry and inherit in such different ways, and what holds kinship together? Structure-functionalists answer with roles and socialisation, alliance theorists with marriage exchanges between groups, and cultural theorists with meaning, emotion and everyday practice. For example, the same joint family can be read as a functional unit for economic security, as an alliance network linking lineages, or as a lived moral world of care and obligation. This chapter compares the three approaches and shows how to use them in exam answers.