Family, Clan and Tribe : In Reference to R. H. Lowie's Social Organization

Abstract

Main Contents : The merit in Lowie's emphasis on the individual family as over against the clandogma of the last century ; ambiguity in his discussion of the bilateral character of the family ; advisability of recognizing the unilateral type of family, suggested in a previous work of the present writer ; Lowie's neglect of Mead's limited possibilities of emphasis (in the intra-familial relationships), Goldenweiser's unilateral family, and Linton's consanguine family ; the subtle problem, which Lowie does partly appreciate, of discrimination between the family (either individual or joint) and the "pure" unilateral groups (lineage and clan) (not in size nor in function, but rather in the principle of structure) ; the need for taking into consideration not only residence but also familial affiliation in the marriage situation ; Lowie's theory of the origin of clan and problems of unilaterality and affiliation in family membership ; neglect of the political significance of the tribe by many anthropologists, including Lowie ; the unfortunate way of applying the term "tribe" in the current anthropological works ; that is, the uncertainty about whether it is an abstraction from the objective classification by ethnologists, or whether it is referring primarily to the subjective classification by the people themselves ; the need for recognition of political function of the tribe, explicit or implicit ; some suggestions of Wissler, Reichard, Murdock, Hoebel, Van Royen and Mallinckrodt. Finally, Lowie's contribution to modern social anthropology and his cultural objectivism ; the huge accumulation of knowledge and insights through a long series of more or less "objective" studies of culture since Boas which has formed the background for development of the contemporary, psychologically oriented American anthropology ; desirability of introducing Lowie's theories into Japan, where there now exists a tendency simply to "imitate" this new trend without giving due consideration to its background ; an additional importance in introducing his theories for refuting or mitigating the 19th century evolutionary theoretical perspectives still so prevalent in Japanese cultural sciences.