The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

housekeeping, which prevails without exception deep into the middle stage of barbarism, necessitated a maximum size for the family community, which varied according to circumstances but was quite definite in any given place. As soon as the notion of the impropriety of sexual intercourse between children of the same mother arose, it must have manifested itself during such splittings of old and foundations of new household communities (which, however, did not necessarily coincide with the family group). One or more lines of sisters formed the core of one, their biological brothers the core of the other. In this way or similar, the form named by Morgan as the Punaluafamilie Punaluan family emerged from the consanguine family. According to the Hawaiian custom, a number of sisters, whether biological or more distant (that is, cousins of the first, second, or more distant degree), were the common wives of their common husbands, from which, however, their brothers were excluded. These men no longer called each other brothers—which they did not have to be anymore—but Punalua intimate comrade/associate. Likewise, a number of biological or distant brothers had a number of wives, not their sisters, in common marriage, and these women called each other Punalua. This is the classic form of a family formation that later allowed for a series of variations, the essential character of which was mutual sharing of men and women within a certain family circle, from which, however, the brothers of the wives—first the biological ones, later the more distant ones as well—and conversely also the sisters of the men were excluded.

This form of family now provides us with the most complete accuracy regarding the degrees of kinship as expressed by the American system. The children of my mother’s sisters are still her children, just as the children of my father’s brothers are also his children, and they are all my siblings; but the children of my mother’s brothers are now...