The term ''matrilateral'' describes kin (relatives) "on the mother's side". Social anthropologists have underlined that even where a social group demonstrates a strong emphasis on one or other line of inheritance (

matrilineal Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritan ...

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...

), relatives who fall outside this unilineal grouping will not simply be ignored. So, a strongly patrilineal orientation will be complemented by matrilateral ties with the mother's kin. Likewise within a strongly matrilineal organisation, patrilateral ties will enter the reckoning of relationships as an important balancing factor. This complementarity often has a moral or emotional tone to it: Malinowski's classic studies of the matrilineal Trobriand islanders showed that matrilineal ties were associated with discipline and authority, while patrilateral ties were characterised by nurturance and kindness (at least in principle). Likewise, in Chinua Achebe's novel ''

Things Fall Apart ''Things Fall Apart'' is a 1958 novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It is Achebe's debut novel and was written when he was working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. The novel was first published in London by Heinemann (publisher), ...

'', the hero, Okonkwo, is forced into exile from his own ancestral village to the village of his matrilateral kin who should, by rights, treat him with maternal fondness. Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is typically used by anthropologists to describe a form of marriage in which the sons of one consanguineous group marry the daughters of the consanguineous group from which their mother originates. This may take the form of a preference for this kind of cousin marriage or a prescription that this is what will happen. The logical consequences of cross-cousin marriage (matrilateral or patrilateral) for group formation were first discussed in detail by Reo Fortune''A Note on Some Forms of Kinship Structure'' Oceania 1933 IV(1):1–9 and have provoked a great deal of debate amongst social anthropologists including

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...

, Edmund Leach and

Rodney Needham Rodney Needham (15 May 1923 – 4 December 2006 in Oxford) was an English social anthropologist. Born Rodney Phillip Needham Green, he changed his name in 1947; the following year he married Maud Claudia (Ruth) Brysz. The couple would collaborat ...

(

alliance theory Alliance theory, also known as the general theory of exchanges, is a Structuralism, structuralist method of studying kinship relations. It finds its origins in Claude Lévi-Strauss's ''Elementary Structures of Kinship'' (1949) and is in oppositi ...

Notes

{{reflist Anthropology Anthropological categories of peoples Kinship and descent Marriage sv:Matrilinjär