Fortes—D Wilson

It would be extremely convenient if we could come up with a universally-applicable model of kinship relations and their interactions with external structures, of the whole somehow created within a community, but as Fortes so succinctly puts it, “in social structure we are always faced with parts and relations of diverse nature and variability” (3). Darn then—variability in communities, specifically in their organization of social ties, is both help and a hindrance to illuminating this issue—lots of examples to ponder, but many differences to explain and many contexts to keep in mind. How then do we approach any study of domestic life? Patterns perhaps?

In his description of the social ties employed by the Ashanti, Fortes describes a series of cycles of material life, experienced in tandem with institutional life. Writes Fortes, “Ties of kinship, marriage, and affinity regulate the structure of domestic and family groups, which have no permanent existence in time. Each domestic group comes into being, grows and expands, and finally dissolves. But the institutions it embodies, and the mode of organization it exhibits, are essential features of the social structure” (7). If we cannot come up with a model of domestic life, we can at least realise that there are phases shared between groups. These are both timeless and ephemeral, individual and collective. Regulations orchestrated by existing institutions play a large role in organizing these domestic ties, but at which points do institutions interfere with family life? Is the state or other body present at all times? One cannot separate one from the other.