analysis led her to object to the general thesis Lévi-Strauss used to characterize alliance.68 Héritier showed that, if it is true that two brothers or two sisters cannot marry in the same direction, a brother and a sister can do so, which means that in every other generation an exchange of ‘real or classificatory sisters is possible without violating any rules’. She thereby showed that elementary forms of restricted exchange are present in Crow–Omaha systems, even if they are concealed beneath numerous tacit prohibitions. Radcliffe-Brown’s sacrosanct rule – the genealogical equivalence of siblings – therefore does not apply in this case. Cross-sex siblings can do what parallel-sex siblings cannot; a brother and a sister do what two brothers or two sisters cannot do: marry in the same direction, replicate an alliance.
Alongside Crow-Omaha systems, which many anthropologists, such as Viveiros de Castro, continue with some reason not to regard as genuine, specific ‘systems’, Lévi-Strauss placed in the category of semi-complex systems and without analyzing them, the Iroquois and Hawaiian systems. And the matter has been left up in the air ever since. We will return to this issue later when we analyze the difference between Iroquois and Dravidian systems. The Baruya, as we will recall, have an Iroquois system, practice direct sister exchange, forbid the repetition of marriages before several generations, and diversify their alliances in each generation so that two brothers do not marry in the same direction or into their mother’s or their father’s lineages. According to this description, the Baruya should be placed in societies with semi-complex structures. But in their case, it is their ‘regime’ of ‘marriage’ that would be ‘semi-complex’ and not their kinship system or terminology.69
(3) Systems that fall into ‘complex structures’ of kinship, where marriage prohibitions concern ‘kin positions defined by their degree of proximity to Ego’. The formula corresponds specifically to cognatic systems with kindred, like the Western European systems and those of the Canadian Inuit. In this case, beyond the more or less narrow circle of prohibited kin, other criteria that have nothing to do with kinship intervene in the choice of a spouse and therefore in marriage strategies, if these exist. With complex systems, kinship, according to Lévi-Strauss, ‘leaves the determination of the spouse to other, economic or psychological, mechanisms’. We have seen that this was true of the Melpa, who sought to use marriage to make an affine into a moka partner or to make a moka partner into an affine.
Once again, combining the word ‘complex’ with the word ‘structure’ is not the best solution. When it comes to structure, contemporary Western systems, the Canadian Inuit system,70 or that of the New Guinea Garia are not complex, or much less, in any event, than the Australian or Iroquois systems – like those of the New Guinea Yafar or the Ngawbe in Costa Rica. What is complex is the variety of criteria other than kinship that determine the spouse and eventually the marriage strategies these various criteria can inspire in certain social strata or classes. In any event, today we see more clearly that kinship does not suffice to organize any society. For example, whether one considers the Australian Aborigines, the Baruya or the South Indian Pramalai Kallar,71 one cannot get married if one has not been initiated. In Europe, until recently, a young man did not marry before he had done his ‘military service’ or reached his majority. Kinship is always subordinated to other social relations, placed in the service of other goals than that of reproducing kinship.
THE ELEMENTARY STRUCTURES OF KINSHIP
Let us come back to this classification of kinship systems in order to illustrate a few examples and point out some of the problems they raise.
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