The Principles of Kinship 'Throughout a considerable period, and in a large number of societies, men met in a curious frame of mind, with exaggerated fear and an equally exaggerated generosity which appear stupid in no one's eyes but our own In all the societies which immediately preceded our own and which still surround us, and even in many usages of popular morality, there is no middle path. There is either complete trust or complete mistrust. One lays casual hospitality to one's daughter or one's property, ng away, from down one's arms, renounces magic, and gives everythi There is no barbarism or, properly speaking, even archaism in thi attitude. It merely represents the systematization, pushed to the limit, of characteristics inherent in social relationships No relationship can be arbitrarily isolated from all other relat i It is likewise impossible to remain on this or that side of the world of relation- ships. The social environment should not be conceived of as an empty frame- g work within which beings and things can be linked, or simply juxtaposed.It i is inseparable from the things which people it. Together they constitute a field of gravitation in which the weights and distances form a co-ordinated whole, and in which a change in any element produces a change in the total equilibrium of the system. We have given a partial illustration at least of this principle in our analysis of cross-cousin marriage. However, it can be seen how its field of application must be extended to all the rules of kinship and above all, to that universal and fundamental rule, the prohibition of incest. Every kinship system(and no human society is without one) has a total character, and it is because of this that the mother, sister, and daughter are perpetually coupled, as it were, with elements of the system which, in relation to them, are neither son, nor brother, nor father, because the latter are themselves coupled with other women, or other classes of women,or feminine elements defined by a relationship of a different order. Because marriage is exchange, because marriage is the archetype of exchange, the analysis of exchange can help in the understanding of the solidarity which unites the gift and the counter-gift, and one marriage with other marriages It is true that Seligman disputes that the woman is the sole or predominant instrument of the alliance. She cites the institution of blood brotherhood as expressed by the henamo relationship among the natives of New Guinea. 2 The establishment of blood-brotherhood does indeed create a bond of lliance between individuals, but by making them brothers it entails a prohibition on marriage with the sister. It is far from our mind to claim that the exchange or gift of women is the only way to establish an alliance in primitive societies. We have shown elsewhere how, among certain native groups of Brazil, the community could be expressed by the terms for brother- in-law'and 'brother. The brother-in-law is ally, collaborator and friend it is the term given to adult males belonging to the band with which an 1 Mauss,1925,p.138. 2 B Z Seligman, 1935, pp. 75-93