Evolutionary Psychology

www.epjournal.net 2008. 6(4): 557-562

Book Review

Kinship Back on Track: Primatology Unravels the Origin and Evolution of

Human Kinship

A review of Bernard Chapais, Primeval Kinship: How Pair Bonding Gave Birth to Human
Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008, 368 pp., US$39.95, ISBN 978-
0674027824 (hardcover)

Linda Stone, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA. Email:
Lstone@wsu.edu

Primatologist Bernard Chapais has written a bold, new book that promises nothing
less than the unveiling of the original, earliest form of human society and an account of
how it developed over evolutionary time. The book indeed fulfills this promise, presenting
a persuasive, well-argued, logical evolutionary scenario based on empirical data and a
sound comparative method. The key to Chapaiss work is the use of the lens of
primatology, the viewing of human kinship and social organization as one variant within
the larger primate order. This lens is decidedly phylogenetic; Chapais asserts that the main
contribution of primatology to sociocultural anthropology is the light it can shed on the
origins of human behavior. With adroit analysis of the rich primate data that has
accumulated over recent decades, he is able to decipher the deep structure of human
social organization, showing how it is unique and (what will be even more interesting to
readers outside primatology) how it is not unique when compared to the social organization
and kinship of other primate groups. This book liberates anthropology from its problematic
past with the topic of social evolution, something formerly denigrated as a futile, or at best
purely speculative, quest. The book also carries implications for the sociocultural study of
kinship and the debates over the role of biology in that study.
Chapaiss model has its own evolutionary past. It descends with modification from
a line of anthropologists, most notably Claude Lvi-Strauss and Robin Fox .to whom
[the book] would have been dedicated but for the human minds inclination to favor ones
close kin (p. xiii). The book takes inspiration from Lvi-Strauss insight that the origin and
essence of human society was reciprocal exogamy, the systematic exchange of mates
(marriage partners) between or among human groups. This idea followed upon Edward
Tylers assertion in the nineteenth century that early humans faced the choice to marry out
or be killed out. For Lvi-Strauss, it was the incest taboo that mandated the search for
mates outside ones own kin group, thus setting up potentials for alliances between groups
based on affinal ties. Such alliances could be perpetuated over time through reciprocal
exogamy, itself ensured through rules of cross-cousin marriage. For Lvi-Strauss, the incest
 Kinship back on track

taboo, marriage and reciprocal exogamy were all of one piece and together constituted the
emergence of human society, distinguishing humans from all other animals, and marking
the transition from nature to culture. Chapais retains from Lvi-Strauss the idea that
reciprocal exogamy is uniquely human and the essential core of human society. The idea
that a human incest taboo, as such, was necessary to spur exogamy was long ago dismissed
when, among other reasons, it became understood that all nonhuman primates practice
incest avoidance and that typically one or both sexes disperses upon maturity to mate
within other groups.
Given his ahistorical, structuralist position, missing from Lvi-Strauss ideas on
reciprocal exogamy was any reference to time, or any recourse to an evolutionary
framework. The beginning of such a framework was provided by Chapaiss more
immediate predecessor, Robin Fox. Chapaiss book will considerably revive and enhance
the work of Fox, which has been largely ignored over the past three decades. Fox (1975,
1980) was a ground breaker in the study of the evolution of human kinship and in the use of
primate data in this effort. His comparative method foreshadows that of Chapais: he broke
down human kinship into its essential component parts, or building blocks, and explored
the extent to which these exist, even if only in rudimentary form, among nonhuman
primates. This brought Fox to his ingenious suggestion that human kinship evolved as a
combination of its two building blocks, alliance (relatively stable breeding bonds) and
descent (producing distinct kin groups). For Fox, some primate groups exhibit alliance and
others exhibit descent but no primate group contains both of these together. For example,
hamadryas baboons have alliance (they consist of a single adult male polygynously mating
with several females) but no descent. By contrast some species of Old World monkeys
show descent (distinct matrilines that are cohesive, ranked and that transmit rank to
offspring) but no alliance since mating within these groups is basically promiscuous. The
uniquely human step, then, was the combination of descent with alliance such that the
mode of descent would determine the direction of alliances; in other words we come right
back to exogamy. Once descent and alliance are in place, humans are able to invent
exogamy and bring about the systematic exchange of mates among groups of kin.
Using primate data unavailable to Fox at the time of his writing, Lars Rodseth,
Richard W. Wrangham, Alisa M. Harrigan and Barbara B. Smuts (1991) claimed that
hamadryas baboons actually show a case of both alliance and descent, in Foxs terms,
existing together. Not only are these primates organized into one-male polygynous units, as
Fox described, but above this level they are loosely organized into clans and bands on the
basis of common descent through males. Fox (1991) conceded that this would be a case of
alliance and descent in one primate system; however, in his original (1975) article he had
already said that were such a system found among primates, it would further his larger
point that human kinship is not a purely cultural construction, devoid of biological and
evolutionary roots. Rodseth and his colleagues further showed that in groups with both
alliance and descent, females regularly transfer out of their natal clans at maturity. Hence,
in terms of behavior, exogamy is not unique to humans. As for affinity, these authors point
out that some primates may exhibit a kind of rudimentary one-sided affinal tie. If, say, a
female disperses into another group and forms a stable mating relationship with a male in
that group, she might recognize her mates kin, her in-laws. But the reverse does not
occur: her male mate does not recognize the females natal kin, from who she is cut off
once she disperses. So, strictly speaking, what is unique to humans is the bilateral affinal
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tie between groups that mate exogamously. For this, the evolving human line needed to
acquire the ability to maintain lifelong social relationships with their dispersing male and
female offspring. Only with this ability can exogamy truly link separate groups of
consanguineal kin.
With this background, Chapais begins his own construction of the evolution of
human kinship and society. He follows Fox in decomposing kinship into distinct building
blocks; but whereas Fox suggested only two components, Chapais breaks down human
kinship into twelve. Together they constitute what he calls the exogamy configuration,
which is the deep structure of human society. In the spirit of Lvi-Strauss and Fox, Chapais
sees exogamy as more than mere outbreeding: exogamy refers to the binding aspects
of marriage and, more specifically, to the between-group binding, regardless of the nature
of the entities that are bound, whether families, lineages, clans, tribes, nations or others (p.
12).
Chapaiss 12 components include several that are found among various primate
species: multimale-multifemale group composition, kin-group outbreeding, uterine kinship
(recognition of kinship to and through the mother), incest avoidance, and stable breeding
bonds. Other components mark the deep structure of human society but do occur among
some primates in an embryonic or very simple form, such as agnatic kinship (recognition of
kinship to and through the father), post- marital residence patterns (philopatry patterns in
primates), and descent (unilineal descent groups). Only a few of the twelve components are
unique to humans and not found in any shape or form among primates: the tribe, the
brother-sister kinship complex, and matrimonial exchange. Chapais further claims that in
terms of behavioral regularities, the exogamy configuration, albeit in primeval form, may
have emerged in our ancestral lineage before the development of human language. In other
words, and in contrast to the ideas of many earlier writers, language was not needed to push
forward the exogamy configuration, although it did lead to a more elaborate,
institutionalized version of it.
Chapaiss book traces the sequential order in which the components of the exogamy
configuration most likely emerged in our evolution. The book provides a step-by-step
analysis of how, since the Homo-Pan split, hominids moved from a chimpanzee-like base
(multimale-multifemale groups, sexual promiscuity and male philopatry) to the human
deep structure of kinship and social organization. We begin, then, with what Chapais calls
the male kin group. With male philopatry, males are staying in their natal groups while
females typically move out and join other groups to breed. This leaves an agnatic structure
of male kin in local groups, although this structure is not recognized by the groups
members; it lies dormant. Human kinship emerges, in part, with the activation of this
dormant agnatic structure.
Crucial to Chapaiss evolutionary sequence is the development of pair-bonding
(relatively stable mating bonds between males and females; what Fox called alliance) in
the human line. Pair-bonding promoted a number of changes ultimately leading to the
exogamy configuration. Indeed, Chapais likens the consequences of this new mating
system on hominid society to the effect of bipedal locomotion on the use of the hand (p.
27). Among the changes fostered or further developed by pair-bonding are fatherhood, or
father-offspring recognition, and agnatic kinship, or recognition of relations through the
father. Pair-bonding and fatherhood further strengthened sibling ties. Pair-bonding was also
crucial for the bilateral recognition of affines, in-laws, in a process that built upon
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cognitive abilities already present in primates. Chapais then provides a fascinating

discussion of how consanguineal and affinal kinship recognition may have led to the
formation of intergroup appeasing bridges. These bridges fostered peaceful relations
between local groups, setting the stage for a later systematic exchange of mates that would
unite affines within alliances.
Drawing a parallel with our physical evolution, Chapais suggests that several steps
in the evolutionary sequence of human society worked through preadaptations. Just as, for
example, the grasping hand was a preadaptation for tool use, so, too, elements of human
kinship and social organization were preadaptations for later stages of human society. For
example, co-feeding was a preadaptation for passive food sharing within family units. Pair-
bonding was a preadaptation for paternal care of offspring (and did not itself evolve as a
parental care strategy). Also significantly, uterine kinship, or recognition of kinship to and
through the mother, a capacity widely exhibited among many female philopatric primate
species today, was a preadaptation for agnatic kinship in the male kin group. Uterine
kinship among primates most likely works through an association mechanism: an offspring
comes to recognize and differentiate others on the basis of their associations with its
mother. This capacity was, then, already in place by the time pair-bonding and fatherhood
emerged, working as a preadaptation for recognition of kinship through the father.
Similarly, social partnerships among nonhuman primates were preadaptations for strong
partnerships based on mate exchange.
Several of Chapaiss claims will be controversial in the field of biological or
evolutionary anthropology; for example, his claim that pair-bonding predated, and did not
evolve as a strategy for, paternal investment in offspring (Mulder, 2008) and his assertion
that a primeval form of the exogamy configuration was in place before, and not dependent
on, language. But within these fields Chapais basic approach and theoretical bearings will
be seen as standard. In the study of kinship within cultural anthropology, by contrast, the
theoretical implications of the book are more profound and far reaching. Indeed, Primeval
kinship may instigate a long-overdue shift away from the position of strong cultural
relativism that has dominated kinship studies for nearly forty years. This position derives in
large part from David Schneider (1984) who claimed that the anthropological concept of
kinship was based on Eurocentric ideas of biological reproduction or genealogical
connections, that kinship in other cultures often is constructed on other bases (residence,
rituals and so on), and that kinship is therefore an invalid cross-cultural category. Hence,
kinship can only be studied and understood from within each culture separately, that is,
through a framework of cultural relativism. Chapais claims that a lack of fit between
genealogical kinship and cultural kinship categories is irrelevant to his discussion of the
origins of human kinship: even when culture negates or ignores the genealogical
content of a kinship bond, for example that of motherhood, it does not necessarily preclude
that bond from generating preferential relationships that do map onto genealogical kinship
(p. 54) There is, then, against Schneider, a true genealogical unity of humankind
regardless of diverse cultural ideologies of human relationships.
In my view, Schneider and his followers were trying to do more than assert that
anthropological kinship concepts are often mismatched with cultural kinship categories;
they were attempting also to remove biology (especially human reproductive biology) from
the study of kinship. In the case of Schneider, this removal was needed to keep culture
(symbols and meanings) as a separate analytical domain (Stone, 2004). It was not that
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biology did not exist, but that it was irrelevant to the understanding of kinship within any
culture. Some of his followers went even further to claim that not only kinship but also
notions of human reproductive biology are themselves cultural constructions and therefore
the idea of a metacultural, scientific biology is thoroughly irrelevant to our understanding
of kinship or human social life (Yanagisako and Collier, 1987). Notions of biological
reproduction were, to these anthropologists, only important in terms of how they were
understood by local people themselves. It is here that I see Chapaiss work as turning a
corner in kinship studies within cultural anthropology.
My opinion is that after Primeval kinship, it will be extremely difficult for anyone
to argue that human kinship (or for that matter fatherhood or marriage) is only or purely a
cultural construction, lacking any biological roots in our primate heritage. This reopens the
possibility of a scientific and comparative study of kinship that has been subdued for
decades. Chapais provides a way to understand cultural variations in kinship not as
negations of the validity of anthropological concepts or as impediments to any comparisons
or generalizations, but as diverse themes on a common, evolved stem pattern or deep
structure of human society. This innovation from primatology provides, then, a productive
way to integrate both biology and culture in the study of kinship. Although this approach
may be opposed by many within cultural anthropology, it will be extremely refreshing and
welcome to many others, (including, one may presume, readers of this journal).
Chapais follows both Lvi-Strauss and Fox in specifying that human mate exchange
was a matter of men exchanging women; women became objects of exchange between or
among men in male kin groups. On this issue Lvi-Strauss had declared that, worldwide,
women are the most precious possession and therefore appropriate as reciprocal gifts that
effectively build social alliances. Chapais moves beyond this to provide a credible answer
from evolutionary theory as to why it was females (and not males or both males and
females) who were exchanged. Since females, relative to males, contribute a much greater
reproductive effort or parental investment (in pregnancy, birth, lactation, and offspring
care) they are the scarcer, more valuable, reproductive resource; hence males, to enhance
their own reproductive success, will compete for and attempt to monopolize women. Thus
Lvi-Strausss argument about the prominent value of women to men transculturally can
hardly be more compatible with evolutionary theory, in particular with sexual selection
theory (p. 249).
Chapais, however, does not address the crucial question that all of this raises: How
(by what mechanism) did hominid males secure control over their kinswomen such that
they became possessions of men and objects of exchange, mere pawns in a male game of
alliance building? He does discuss how the combination of pair-bonding, female dispersal,
and tolerance between intermarrying kin groups are prerequisites for female exchange, but
still this does not explain how females agreed or were coerced to cease dispersing to
breed all on their own, which they had been perfectly capable of doing before, to migrating
and outbreeding under the direction or at the whim of males. Robin Fox had provided a
possible answer to this question: Females ceded to males the monopoly over mate
assignment (at least in outward appearance) because they were dependent on males for
meat from the hunt. Chapais does not incorporate this idea nor does he make use of the
ideas of others, for example Barbara Smuts (1995) or Marvin Harris (1993), on the
evolutionary origins of male control over females.
Chapaiss failure to address this question, even speculatively, is surprising since he
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so meticulously covers other issues related to human social origins. Another related
question is: Assuming that Chapais and his predecessors are right that males were
exchanging females, does this mean that the birth of human kinship, the full emergence of
the exogamy configuration, was simultaneously the birth of a distinctively human form of
female subordination to males? And, if so, does this imply that human female
subordination has an evolutionary, biological basis in our hominid heritage? Chapais does
not take up this problem, but if his evolutionary scenario carries these implications, many
anthropologists will want to see them spelled out and many others will find it
controversial, to say the least.
Primeval kinship presents powerful arguments concerning the origin and
evolutionary path of human kinship. It reopens old questions, long abandoned, about the
origins of human society, and addresses them with a brilliant synthesis of recent primate
data. Chapais has demonstrated that primatology is now positioned to make significant
contributions to the study of human kinship. This work will undoubtedly open further
debate and inspire further research. It effectively dispels the view that human kinship is a
purely cultural construction or that kinship can be understood outside the framework of our
primate legacy.

References

Fox, R. (1975). Primate kin and human kinship. In R. Fox, (ed.), Biosocial
anthropology (pp. 9-35). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Fox, R. (1980). The red lamp of incest. New York: Dutton.
Fox, R. (1991) Reply to Rodseth, L., Wrangham, R.W., Harrigan, A.M., and Smuts, B.B.,
The human community as a primate society. Current Anthropology, 32, 242-243.
Harris, M. (1993). The evolution of human gender hierarchies: A trial formulation.
In B. Miller (Ed.), Sex and gender hierarchies (pp. 57-79). Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Mulder, M. (2008). Bonding as key to hominid origins: Primatology meets socio-cultural
analysis in a controversial account of human evolution. A review of Chapais,
B. (2008), Primeval kinship: how pair bonding gave birth to human society.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Nature, 454, 29-30.
Rodseth , L., Wrangham, R.W., Harrigan, A.M., and Smuts, B.B. (1991). The human
community as a primate society. Current Anthropology, 32, 221-241.
Schneider, D.M. (1984). A critique of the study of kinship. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Smuts, B.B. (1995). The evolutionary origins of patriarchy. Human Nature, 6, 1-32.
Stone, L. (2004). The demise and revival of kinship. In R. Parkin and L. Stone (Eds.),
Kinship and family: An anthropological reader (pp. 241-256). Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing.
Yanagisako, S.J., and Collier, J.F. (1987). Toward a unified analysis of gender and
kinship. In J.F. Collier and S.J. Yanagisako (Eds.), Gender and kinship: Essays
toward a unified analysis (pp. 14-50). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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