Differentiate between classificatory and descriptive kinship terms.

Historically, the systematic study of kinship terminology began with the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan, whose pioneering work, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, was published in 1871. An important element in Morgan’s formulation was the distinction between classificatory and descriptive systems of kinship. In a classificatory system some collateral kin-relatives not in ego’s direct line of descent or ancestry-are placed in the same terminological grouping as lineal kin-relatives in ego's direct line of descent. Classificatory systems such as that of the Iroquois designate the father and his brother, and conversely the mother and her sister, by the same term. In many societies with unilineal descent-that is, systems that emphasize either the mother's or the father's line, but not both-ego uses one set of terms to refer to brothers, sisters, and parallel cousins (those whose genealogical ties are traced through a related parent of the same sex, as in a father’s brother or a mother’s sister), while another set of terms is employed for cross-cousins (the offspring of a father’s sister or a mother’s brother). This arrangement emphasizes the fact that cross-cousins do not belong to the lineage with ego, ego's siblings, and ego's parallel cousins, thus designating marriage between cross-cousins as exogamous.

Descriptive terminology, in contrast to classificatory terminology, maintains a separation between lineal and collateral kin; for example, mother and mother’s sister, although of the same generation and sex, are distinguished. Descriptive systems are typically found wherever the nuclear family operates as a relatively autonomous unit economically and socially; as a result, they are relatively rare in ethnographic literature.

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