| 1. Domain | 1.1 Scope of the Domain | Boundaries | The range of phenomena the science includes and excludes. | Studies how human societies structure relationships of descent, marriage, alliance, inheritance, household formation, and domestic labor. Includes kin groups, lineage systems, residence rules, marriage systems, household economies, caregiving patterns, relatedness, and genealogical representation. Excludes large-scale political organization unless rooted in kinship; excludes purely genetic ancestry unless linked to social kinship structures. |
| | Scale | The spatial, temporal, or organizational level at which the science operates (e.g., quantum, cellular, social, cosmic). | Operates at household, lineage, and community scales, across generational time and local to regional spatial contexts. |
| 1.2 Ontological Commitments | Entities | The kinds of things assumed to exist within the domain (particles, organisms, agents, fields, etc.). | Persons, kin categories, lineages, clans, households, affines (in-laws), consanguines (blood relatives), descent groups, marriage partners, caregivers, inheritance objects (land, property), domestic groups, genealogical relations. |
| | Properties | The fundamental attributes these entities possess (mass, charge, genotype, preference, etc.). | Relatedness, authority, inheritance rights, marital ties, caregiving obligations, residence patterns (patrilocal, matrilocal, neolocal), descent rules (patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral), generational depth, kinship terminology, gendered divisions of labor, household stability. |
| | Categories | The basic ontological types used to classify domain elements (substances, processes, relations, structures). | Kin types (consanguineal, affinal, fictive); descent systems (patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral, ambilineal); residence patterns; marriage types (monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, levirate, sororate); household types (nuclear, extended, joint, stem); alliance structures; inheritance regimes. |
| 1.3 State-Variables | Variables | The measurable or definable properties that describe system conditions. | Household size; lineage depth; marriage rates; fertility rates; residence transitions; property-transfer ratios; caregiving labor distribution; kinship terminological distinctions; generational spacing; inter-household alliance frequency; dispersal patterns; domestic economic productivity. |
| | Parameterization | How variables encode and represent the system’s state. | Encoded through genealogies, household censuses, kinship charts, marriage registers, property-transfer records, residence-mapping, time-use studies, fertility and mortality measures, formal kin terminology systems, descent-group membership rules. |
| 1.4 Admissible Idealizations | Simplifications | Conceptual reductions used to make the domain tractable (point masses, rational agents, perfect gases). | Treating kinship systems as internally coherent; assuming uniform rule adherence; ignoring informal or flexible kin ties; modeling households as stable units; assuming discrete lineage boundaries; treating kin terms as literal rather than metaphorical; neglecting individual preference variation; assuming gender roles are fixed. |
| | Validity Conditions | The limits and contexts in which idealizations hold or break down. | Break down under social mobility, migration, urbanization, fluid identity categories, cross-cultural marriage, flexible or negotiable kin roles, hidden or informal kinship, crisis-driven household restructuring, adoption/fostering practices. |
| 1.5 Domain Assumptions | Structural Assumptions | Background ontological stances such as determinism, continuity, randomness, discreteness. | Kinship provides a primary organizing structure for reproduction, inheritance, social identity, and domestic labor; descent rules regulate group membership; households are units of economic production and socialization; kinship terms encode structured relationships; marriage links households; caregiving and reproduction follow socially regulated patterns. |
| | Implicit Commitments | Unstated but necessary assumptions that shape the field’s conceptual structure. | Assumes genealogical and social kinship can be systematically recorded; assumes normative rules influence actual behavior; assumes kinship is meaningful even in societies with weak formal lineage systems; assumes domestic units produce patterned behavior rather than random arrangements. |
| 1.6 Internal Coherence Requirements | Consistency | The demand that domain concepts do not contradict one another. | Kinship terms must align with descent rules; residence patterns must be compatible with lineage systems; inheritance rules must match property distribution; household form must fit demographic realities; alliance patterns must reinforce rather than contradict descent structures. |
| | Compatibility | The requirement that entities, variables, and assumptions fit together into a unified descriptive framework. | Requires alignment across kinship terminology, residence rules, descent systems, inheritance regimes, marriage exchanges, and domestic labor organization. Kinship models must integrate with demographic, ecological, and economic conditions without contradiction. |
| 2. Evidence Layer | 2.1 Observable Phenomena | Observables | The aspects of the domain that can produce detectable signals accessible to measurement. | Household composition; marriage patterns; residence shifts; inheritance transfers; genealogical relations; domestic labor distribution; caregiving arrangements; sibling sets; kinship terminology use; alliance formation; household fission/fusion events; birth and fertility patterns; lineage membership; fosterage or adoption practices. |
| | Detection Limits | The boundaries of what can be resolved or sensed by current instruments or methods. | Hidden kinship ties; unrecorded informal adoption; incomplete household census; unreliable genealogies in oral traditions; ambiguous kin terms used metaphorically; concealed property transfers; unobserved domestic labor; migration obscuring descent patterns; rapid household turnover; memory limits in multi-generational recall. |
| 2.2 Measurement Systems | Units | Standardized quantifications (meters, seconds, volts, decibels, dollars, etc.) necessary for consistent comparison. | Household counts; number of kin per ego; descent-depth metrics; marriage rates; residence-type frequencies; property-transfer values; time-use hours; fertility rates; kinship-term frequency; generational spacing (years); co-residence duration. |
| | Instruments | Devices and tools (microscopes, spectrometers, sensors, surveys, detectors) used to produce measurements. | Ethnographic surveys; genealogical interviews; household censuses; kinship-diagramming tools; demographic and health surveys; property and land registries; time-use logs; archival marriage/birth/death records; participant observation; oral-history documentation; GIS mapping of households. |
| 2.3 Operational Definitions | Definitions | Terms defined by specific measurement procedures, ensuring empirical clarity. | Household defined by co-residence and shared domestic production; descent defined by socially recognized parent–child links; kin categories defined by culturally specific rules; marriage defined by socially sanctioned union; inheritance defined as transfer of property/rights; residence pattern defined by post-marital location relative to kin. |
| | Procedures | The explicit steps required to perform a measurement in a reproducible way. | Collecting genealogies; mapping household units; recording marriage and residence histories; coding kinship terms; tracking property inheritance; conducting time-use observations; quantifying labor division; documenting household fissions/fusions; sampling marriage alliances across generations. |
| 2.4 Data Acquisition | Protocols | Formal processes for gathering data under controlled or standardized conditions. | Structured genealogical interviews; standardized household surveys; repeated demographic follow-ups; ethnographic field immersion; archival retrieval of lineage records; cross-checking kin relations through multiple informants; photographic and spatial mapping of domestic units; consistent updating of household rosters. |
| | Sampling | Rules determining which subset of the domain is measured and how representative it is. | Sampling households within communities; stratified sampling by lineage or clan; sampling marital unions; sampling inheritance events; purposive sampling of extended-family units; random selection of co-resident groups; sampling across rural/urban contexts; sampling individuals across age cohorts. |
| 2.5 Data Character & Format | Data Types | The form raw evidence takes (time series, spectra, images, counts, qualitative records). | Genealogical charts; household census tables; kinship-term lexicons; marriage and fertility histories; inheritance registers; time-use datasets; domestic-labor distribution tables; co-residence maps; qualitative ethnographic field notes; longitudinal kinship panels. |
| | Resolution | The granularity or precision with which data is captured. | Determined by frequency of household surveys, accuracy of genealogical recall, availability of archival records, level of ethnographic detail, frequency of demographic transitions, clarity of kin definitions, and precision in recording property transfers. |
| 2.6 Reliability & Calibration | Calibration | Adjustment procedures ensuring instruments produce accurate results. | Cross-checking genealogies across informants; validating kinship terminology with linguistic analysis; triangulating inheritance records with land registries; re-measuring household composition longitudinally; calibrating time-use data via repeated observations; verifying marriage records with external sources; reconciling conflicting lineage claims through multiple data modalities. |
| | Error Characterization | Identification and quantification of noise, uncertainty, bias, and measurement error. | Recall bias; intentional misreporting; kinship-term ambiguity; missing lineage branches; undercounting of domestic labor; misattributed parentage; unregistered marriages; incomplete property records; observer effects in time-use studies; sampling error in small populations. |
| 3. Structural Layer | 3.1 Patterns & Regularities | Laws / Relations | Stable, repeatable patterns governing how observables behave across conditions. | Descent rules reliably structure group membership; marriage exchanges reinforce alliances; residence patterns predict household form; inheritance rules mirror descent ideology; kin terminology maps social roles; domestic labor correlates with gender and age; household fission–fusion cycles follow demographic and economic pressures; kin-support networks buffer subsistence risk; cross-cousin marriage stabilizes alliance cycles in certain descent systems. |
| | Invariants | Quantities or properties that remain constant under transformations (symmetries, conservation laws). | Universal parent–child dyad; generational sequencing; reciprocal obligations between spouses and affines; stable kin categories (mother, father, sibling) across cultures; minimal residence rules; consistent patterns of resource transfer; stable norms of childcare allocation; patterned authority by age and gender. |
| 3.2 Causal Architecture | Mechanisms | Underlying processes or structures that produce the observed regularities. | Descent rules generate group cohesion; marriage exchanges create alliances; inheritance shapes property concentration; residence determines labor pooling and cooperation; kin obligations drive reciprocity networks; demographic constraints shape household composition; social norms regulate partner choice; ecological pressures determine household size; conflict or scarcity prompts household fission or reorganization. |
| | Pathways | Organized sequences of interactions forming a causal chain or network. | Descent ideology → lineage membership → inheritance rights → political influence; Marriage rule → alliance formation → resource exchange → inter-household cohesion; Residence pattern → domestic labor distribution → economic productivity; Fertility and mortality → household restructuring → new kinship obligations; Migration → dispersal → attenuation of kin ties or formation of new clusters. |
| 3.3 Theoretical Vocabulary | Concepts | Core terms that encode the domain’s structure (force, gene, equilibrium, field). | Descent, lineage, clan, affinal ties, consanguinity, alliance theory, kinship terminology, reciprocity, residence rule, inheritance regime, household economy, domestic labor, fictive kinship, generational hierarchy, alliance cycle, social reproduction. |
| | Classifications | Taxonomies, categories, or typologies that organize entities and relations. | Unilineal vs bilateral descent; patrilineal vs matrilineal vs ambilineal systems; residence types (patrilocal, matrilocal, avunculocal, neolocal); marriage systems (monogamy, polygyny, polyandry); household types (nuclear, joint, extended); inheritance modes (primogeniture, ultimogeniture, partible inheritance); kinship terminological systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Omaha, Crow, Sudanese). |
| 3.4 Formal Representations | Equations | Mathematical constructs expressing laws, relations, or mechanisms. | Genealogical distance formulas; household fission–fusion models; demographic equations linking fertility/mortality to household structure; alliance-cycling models; kinship-coefficient calculations (r-values) for relatedness; economic-production functions dependent on household composition; inheritance-distribution equations. |
| | Models | Structured representations—mathematical, computational, or conceptual—used to predict and explain phenomena. | Kinship charts; lineage trees; alliance-cycle diagrams; marriage-exchange models; domestic labor–allocation models; household-economy simulations; demographic microsimulations of household transition; residence-mobility models; agent-based models of kin cooperation. |
| 3.5 Idealized Structures | Simplified Models | Purposeful abstractions that capture essential dynamics while omitting irrelevant detail. | Perfect adherence to descent rules; stable household composition; uniform kin obligations; strict gender roles; symmetrical alliance exchange; no informal kinship; no remarriage or blended families; no adoption or fostering; households as static economic units; absence of conflict or power asymmetry. |
| | Limit Conditions | Regimes where specific models or approximations hold (classical vs. quantum, linear vs. nonlinear). | Fail under high migration; flexible or negotiated kin ties; stepfamilies and blended households; informal adoption and fostering; urbanization; wage labor reducing kin dependence; religious conversion altering kin rules; interethnic marriage; demographic crises disrupting household stability. |
| 3.6 Integrative Frameworks | Unifying Theories | Higher-order structures that connect disparate laws or mechanisms under a coherent whole. | Alliance theory linking marriage exchange and descent; structural-functionalism unifying household roles and social order; evolutionary and ecological theory linking kin cooperation to subsistence strategies; demography integrating fertility, mortality, and household transitions; network theory mapping kinship as relational structure; economic anthropology linking domestic production and kinship. |
| | Interdisciplinary Links | Points where the theory connects to adjacent sciences or larger explanatory systems. | Sociology (family systems); demography (fertility & household transitions); evolutionary biology (relatedness and cooperation); economics (household production, inheritance); psychology (attachment and caregiving); legal studies (marriage and inheritance law); geography (spatial residence patterns). |
| 4. Method Layer | 4.1 Inquiry Design | Experimental Design | Structured plans for manipulating variables to test causal claims. | Controlled elicitation of kinship terminology; manipulating hypothetical marriage/residence choices in structured interviews; testing reciprocity expectations in economic games; experimental household labor-sharing tasks; simulation of inheritance decisions; varying informational cues to test rule comprehension in descent systems. |
| | Observational Design | Systematic approaches for gathering non-manipulated data (surveys, field studies, natural experiments). | Long-term ethnographic immersion; systematic household censuses; tracking marriage, birth, and residence histories; observing caregiving and labor routines; documenting alliance exchanges; recording property transfers; natural experiments via environmental shocks or migration events; longitudinal monitoring of household fission/fusion. |
| 4.2 Testing & Validation | Hypothesis Testing | Procedures for evaluating whether evidence supports or contradicts specific claims. | Testing whether descent rules correlate with residence patterns; validating kinship terminologies across contexts; testing alliance-theory predictions using marriage-exchange data; evaluating whether inheritance patterns match descent ideology; testing kin-support networks against demographic stress; validating household-production models; testing kinship effects on cooperation. |
| | Replication | The requirement that results be independently reproducible under similar conditions. | Re-coding genealogies using independent researchers; repeating household surveys across seasons or years; replicating kinship-term elicitations; reanalyzing marriage/exchange networks; reevaluating inheritance records with new archival materials; validating domestic labor studies across communities; repeating demographic microsimulations. |
| 4.3 Inference & Evaluation | Statistical Inference | Rules for drawing conclusions from noisy or incomplete data. | Estimating relatedness structures; modeling household formation probabilities; inferring descent-group membership patterns; analyzing marriage networks with graph methods; regression models linking kinship rules to economic outcomes; survival analysis for household transitions; evaluating time-use distributions; modeling alliance cycles. |
| | Model Comparison | Criteria (fit, simplicity, predictive accuracy, robustness) used to evaluate competing models. | Comparing unilineal vs bilateral descent models; evaluating alliance theory vs economic/rational-choice explanations; testing household-economy models against demographic alternatives; comparing diffusion models of kinship norms; contrasting typological vs graded kinship classification systems; comparing inheritance-regime predictions. |
| 4.4 Error Management | Error Analysis | Identification and quantification of random and systematic errors. | Identifying recall bias in genealogies; resolving conflicting kin reports; distinguishing fictive from biological kin; correcting property-transfer misrecords; accounting for missing household members due to migration; identifying cultural ambiguity in kin terms; quantifying observer effects in time-use studies; detecting underreporting of informal care or labor. |
| | Bias Control | Methods for minimizing subjective, instrumental, or procedural biases. | Using multiple informants to triangulate kin relations; blinding coders for genealogical interpretation; stratified sampling of households; re-verifying archival inheritance documents; controlling for prestige or social-desirability distortion; ensuring neutral question framing; calibrating household surveys across demographic subgroups. |
| 4.5 Adjudication & Revision | Peer Scrutiny | Collective evaluation of claims through critique, review, and debate. | Reassessing genealogies for internal consistency; auditing kinship diagrams against field notes; reviewing coding of marriage/exchange rules; evaluating cross-cultural comparability of kin terms; replicating analyses with alternative classification schemes; reinterpreting residence patterns with updated census data. |
| | Theory Revision | Procedures for modifying, replacing, or discarding models based on new evidence. | Updating descent models to incorporate flexible or negotiated kinship; revising alliance theory with new ethnographic evidence; modifying household-economy theory based on time-use data; adjusting inheritance models to reflect contemporary sociolegal change; integrating findings from migration or urbanization studies; revising kinship typologies to account for blended families and fictive kin. |
| 4.6 Integrity Conditions | Transparency | Requirements to disclose methods, data, assumptions, and limitations. | Full disclosure of genealogical methods, sampling procedures, coding rules, interview guides, time-use protocols, and analytic models; open sharing of anonymized datasets; documenting uncertainty and contested kin assignments; clarifying culturally sensitive interpretations. |
| | Ethical Standards | Norms ensuring responsible conduct in experimentation, data handling, and publication. | Protecting respondent confidentiality; respecting cultural norms around kinship disclosure; avoiding intrusion into sensitive domestic relations; obtaining informed consent for genealogical mapping; ensuring that published kinship data cannot be misused for discrimination; honoring community rights over heritage and ancestral knowledge. |