Kinship in the Seventies: A Decade Review of Research and Theory

The quantity of research on kinship in the past decade has decreased somewhat from previous periods, but the diversity of this research has certainly increased. While research in the sixties was dominated by the isolated nuclear family hypothesis, that of the seventies is much more varied and oriented more toward explanatory than descriptive generalizations. This review concentrates on the knowledge which has been generated regarding antecedents of interaction with kin and, to a lesser extent, the exchange of mutual aid between kin. Research in the past decade has supported many generalizations from earlier work, but it has also cast doubt upon many previously accepted conclusions.