1 Department of Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science , Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE , UK.
2 Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6 , Leipzig 04103 , Germany.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2019 Sep 2;374(1780):20180070. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2018.0070. Epub 2019 Jul 15.
Evolutionary ecologists have shown that relatives are important providers of support across many species. Among humans, cultural reckonings of kinship are more than just relatedness, as they interact with systems of descent, inheritance, marriage and residence. These cultural aspects of kinship may be particularly important when a person is determining which kin, if any, to call upon for help. Here, we explore the relationship between kinship and cooperation by drawing upon social support network data from two villages in South India. While these Tamil villages have a nominally male-biased kinship system (being patrilocal and patrilineal), matrilateral kin play essential social roles and many women reside in their natal villages, letting us tease apart the relative importance of genetic relatedness, kinship and residence in accessing social support. We find that people often name both their consanguineal and affinal kin as providing them with support, and we see some weakening of support with lesser relatedness. Matrilateral and patrilateral relatives are roughly equally likely to be named, and the greatest distinction instead is in their availability, which is highly contingent on post-marital residence patterns. People residing in their natal village have many more consanguineal relatives present than those who have relocated. Still, relocation has only a small effect on an individual's network size, as non-natal residents are more reliant on the few kin that they have present, most of whom are affines. In sum, marriage patterns have an important impact on kin availability, but the flexibility offered by the broadening of the concept of kin helps people develop the cooperative relationships that they rely upon, even in the absence of genetic relatives. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals'.
进化生态学家已经表明，亲属在许多物种中都是重要的支持提供者。在人类中，亲属关系的文化认知不仅仅是亲属关系，因为它们与血统、继承、婚姻和居住制度相互作用。当一个人决定向哪些亲属求助时，亲属关系的这些文化方面可能尤为重要。在这里，我们通过利用来自印度南部两个村庄的社会支持网络数据来探讨亲属关系与合作之间的关系。虽然这些泰米尔村庄的亲属制度名义上偏向男性（是父系和父系的），但女性的母系亲属发挥着重要的社会作用，许多女性居住在她们的娘家村，这让我们能够区分遗传关系、亲属关系和居住在获取社会支持方面的相对重要性。我们发现，人们经常将他们的血缘亲属和姻亲都称为提供支持的人，而且我们看到，随着亲缘关系的减弱，支持也会减弱。母系和父系亲属被提名的可能性大致相同，最大的区别在于他们的可用性，这高度取决于婚后的居住模式。居住在娘家村的人比那些已经搬离的人有更多的血缘亲属。尽管如此，搬迁对个人的网络规模只有很小的影响，因为非原籍居民更依赖他们现有的少数几个亲属，其中大多数是姻亲。总之，婚姻模式对亲属的可用性有重要影响，但亲属概念的扩大所提供的灵活性有助于人们发展他们所依赖的合作关系，即使在没有遗传亲属的情况下也是如此。本文是主题为“人类和其他哺乳动物中女性偏向的亲属关系的进化”的一部分。
