Kinship and descent in the context of Descent (disambiguation)

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 inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent where a person inherits his or her mother's lineage. In a matrilineal descent system, individuals belong to the same descent group as their mothers. This is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.

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 inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent where a person inherits his or her mother's lineage. In a matrilineal descent system, individuals belong to the same descent group as their mothers. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, in contrast to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry. The matriline is also sometimes referred to as the "distaff" side or "spindle" side.

Bilateral descent is a system of family lineage in which the relatives on the mother's side and father's side are equally important for emotional ties or for transfer of property or wealth. It is a family arrangement where descent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents. Families who use this system trace descent through both parents simultaneously and recognize multiple ancestors, but unlike with cognatic descent it is not used to form descent groups.

While bilateral descent is increasingly the norm in Western culture, traditionally it is only found among relatively few groups in West Africa, India, Australia, Indonesia, Melanesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Polynesia. Anthropologists believe that a tribal structure based on bilateral descent helps members live in extreme environments because it allows individuals to rely on two sets of families dispersed over a wide area. Historically, North Germanic peoples in Scandinavia in the Late Iron Age and Early Middle Ages had a bilateral society, where the descent of both parents were important. Genealogies featuring the legendary danish king Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye gives him the matronymic name Áslaugsson due to his mother Aslaug's connection to Völsungs.