Maurice Godelier

What is incest? Is it universally prohibited? Does this prohibition concern only biological kinships, or does it extend to various social kinships, such as those that are formed today in so-called blended families but which also exist in many other societies? This prohibition plays a fundamental role in the functioning of the multiple kinship systems studied throughout the world. But...

With marriage in decline, divorce on the rise and the demise of the nuclear family, it is clear that the structures of kinship in the modern West are in a state of flux. In The Metamorphoses of Kinship, the world-renowned anthropologist Maurice Godelier contextualises these developments, surveying the accumulated experience of humanity with regard to such phenomena as the organisation...