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For example, a person is considered to be a priest or Levite, if his father is a priest or Levite, and the members of all the Twelve Tribes are called Israelites because their father is Israel . In the first lines of the New Testament , the descent of Jesus Christ from King David is counted through the male lineage.
In anthropology, a lineage is a unilineal descent group that traces its ancestry to a demonstrably shared ancestor, known as the apical ancestor. [1] [2] [3] Lineages are formed through relationships traced either exclusively through the maternal line (matrilineage), paternal line (patrilineage), or some combination of both (). [4]
Within the descent group patrilineal descent lines were hierarchically organized, with descent from elder brothers invariably ranking higher than descent from younger brothers. The oldest member of the senior line (da zong) was the group's leader and the sole person who could perform rituals honouring the group's deceased founder and chief ...
Where there are unilineal descent groups in a society (i.e. matrilineal and/or patrilineal), one's parallel cousins on one or both sides will belong to one's own descent group, while cross-cousins will not (assuming descent group exogamy).
Nevertheless, graphs depicting matrilineal descent (mother-daughter relationships) and patrilineal descent (father-son relationships) do form trees. Assuming no common ancestor, an ancestry chart is a perfect binary tree , as each person has exactly one mother and one father; these thus have a regular structure.
In the anthropological study of kinship, a moiety (/ ˈ m ɔɪ ə t i /) is a descent group that coexists with only one other descent group within a society.In such cases, the community usually has unilineal descent (either patri-or matrilineal) so that any individual belongs to one of the two moiety groups by birth, and all marriages take place between members of opposite moieties.
A good example is the Yakurr of the Crossriver state of Nigeria. Unilineal rules affiliates an individual through the descent of one sex only, that is, either through males or through females. They are subdivided into two: patrilineal (male) and matrilineal (female). Most societies are patrilineal.
Patrilineal primogeniture predominated in ancient times. The Laws of Manu state that the oldest son inherits all of the father's estate. [60] Since the Middle Ages patrilineal equal inheritance has prevailed in perhaps a majority of groups, [61] although the eldest son often received an extra share. [62]