Kinship and Gender: An Introduction

In this revised and updated edition of Kinship and Gender, Linda Stone uses anthropological kinship as a framework for the cross-cultural study of gender. Connecting kinship with gender, she focuses on human reproduction and the social and cultural implications of male and female reproductive roles. Her insightful narrative introduces new ways of approaching and understanding cross-cultural variations.Stone provides coverage of the field of kinship at the introductory level, but she also explores the major issues and debates in the study of the interrelation of gender and culture. She reviews studies of primate kinship, considers ideas about the evolution of human kinship, and looks at kinship and gender in relation to different modes of descent as illustrated through ten in-depth ethnographic case studies. Stone examines marriage through case studies of marriage in ancient Rome and Himalayan polyandry and she offers a history of Euro-American kinship and gender, as well as an examination of the repercussions of the new reproductive technologies on both kinship and gender. In this new edition, material on primate kinship and new reproductive technologies has been updated; three new case studies on primate kinship, American kinship, and new reproductive technologies have been included.