In a wide array of lineage-based societies with a classificatory kinship system, potential spouses are sought from a specific class of relative as determined by a prescriptive marriage rule. This rule may be expressed by anthropologists using a “descriptive” kinship term, such as a “man’s mother’s brother’s daughter” (also known as a “cross-cousin”). Such descriptive rules mask the participant’s perspective: a man should marry a woman from his mother’s lineage. Within the society’s kinship terminology, such relatives are usually indicated by a specific term which sets them apart as potentially marriageable.

Pierre Bourdieu notes, however, that very few marriages ever follow the rule, and that when they do so, it is for “practical kinship” reasons such as the preservation of family property, rather than the “official kinship” ideology.In a wide array of lineage-based societies with a classificatory kinship system, potential spouses are sought from a specific class of relative as determined by a prescriptive marriage rule. This rule may be expressed by anthropologists using a “descriptive” kinship term, such as a “man’s mother’s brother’s daughter” (also known as a “cross-cousin”).

Such descriptive rules mask the participant’s perspective: a man should marry a woman from his mother’s lineage. Within the society’s kinship terminology, such relatives are usually indicated by a specific term which sets them apart as potentially marriageable. Pierre Bourdieu notes, however, that very few marriages ever follow the rule, and that when they do so, it is for “practical kinship” reasons such as the preservation of family property, rather than the “official kinship” ideology.