patrilineal descent societies, with specific reference
to works in anthropology on kinship in the Middle
East and Central Asia and to the author’s own
research results in Azerbaijan.
Recently published works on the Caucasus and
Central Asia point to the existence of genealogi-
cally defined patrilineal and patrilocal descent
groups, regarding them as still important today
despite the economic and social changes during the
Soviet regime. Patrilineal descent reckoning and the
transmission of economic resources along the male
line are considered as structural characteristics of
these agnatic groups and held responsible for the
social devaluation of women.
Such descriptions of unilineal descent groups are
strictly based on the British functionalist lineage
theory, in which an opposition between agnation
and matrilaterality was created. Women as daugh-
ters, sisters, and wives were defined exclusively
with reference to fathers, brothers, and spouses and
were condemned to jural irrelevance. Even criti-
cism of this functionalist design continued to define
women in an agnatic perspective and independent
kinship classifications were not enlarged upon.
An analysis of patrilineal descent groups accord-
ing to the functionalist theory relieves these groups
from their embeddedness in the political, social,
economic, and religious contexts of their states and
is, therefore, inadequate. The author’s research in
rural Azerbaijan has shown that kinship systems do
develop in these contexts and that they are in fact
dependent upon them. Patrilineal descent cate-
gories exist in the consciousness of people. How-
ever, they neither form a permanent social structure
nor do they include every individual. Patrilineal
descent categories are not a structure but an option
which is chosen in specific situations, for instance,
when particular economically successful members
gain material advantage through the enmeshment
of primarily agnatic kin in the state bureaucracy.
Only then are solidarity groups formed, whose
members support one another in all social, politi-
cal, and economic matters. Yet, since these groups
are extremely dependent upon the economic suc-
cess and the social networks of their prominent
members, the durability of their solidarity is fragile
and could collapse at any time. Indeed, these soli-
darity groups follow the well-known pattern of
genealogically recruiting members, but these are
modern adaptions from the ideological reservoir of
patrilineal descent.
Patrilineal descent systems are held responsible
for the disadvantaged position of women. In the
perspective of patrilineal descent groups, daughters
or sisters who are given in marriage to other groups
the caucasus 337are lost members. The solidarity groups in Azer-
baijan do not comply with this. Because of their
economic strength married daughters remain in-
corporated in the group. For the women in ques-
tion the consequence is that even after marriage
their status as daughter/sister prevails over their
status as daughter-in-law; like their brothers they
continue to participate in the decision-making of
the group. Social marginality rests upon their hus-
bands, provided that they have no solidarity group
of their own.
Kinship terminology in Azerbaijan differentiates
between agnatic and uterine kin: agnatic kin is con-
ceived as sümük qohumluq(kinship of the bone)
and uterine kin as süd qohumluq(milk kinship).
Just as sümük qohumluqrefers to the patrilineal
descent category, süd qohumluqdescribes the uter-
ine kin, who are firstly the descendants of both
sexes of a remembered great-grandmother. Seen
genealogically süd qohumluqdescribes the trans-
mission of milk. However, it is not uterine descent
that is marked, but the equality of uterine positions
(mother, mother’s mother, mother’s sister, and so
forth), and this equality is based on the central con-
cept of motherhood. In its very essence süd qohum-
luqevolves after the birth of the first child of the
daughter. It is ritually marked but does not empha-
size the continuity of groups, but rather the life
process in general.
Süd qohumluq between women dissects the
socially dominant borderlines of agnatic solidarity
groups and dispels them. This is manifested in the
context of feuds between two groups who have an
affinal relationship with one another. While the
men of the two groups are obliged to their agnatic
bonds and interrupt the existing affinal relation-
ship between the two parties, the women continue
their relations of süd qohumluqwith the women of
the other group.
In principle, the two sexes always belong to both,
sümükand süd qohumluq. However, men as a
category are associated with sümük(bone) and
women with süd(milk). Just as men cannot pass
milk to the next generation, women are excluded
from the transmission of agnatic descent. In sum,
various aspects are concealed behind the terms
sümükand süd, depending one’s perspective. Sümük
qohumluq refers primarily to men, is realized
through agnation, objectivates “milk” during the
marriage process and regards the wife as alien. Süd
qohumluqrefers primarily to women, emphasizes
uterinity and stresses with the concepts of mother-
hood and birth the life process itself. But sümük
and südequally denote the unity of the sibling group,
of “brother” and “sister”; the value of consanguinity