863:, in which one is not allowed to marry any one suspected to be of respective kin. Individuals who shared godparents, and great grandparents were prohibited against marrying. The prohibitions against marriage also extended to that of natural godparents. This was because both natural and 'foster' or 'spiritual' parents had an investment on the child's spiritual well being, which would not be achieved by going against Canon Law. The practice of milk kinship is paralleled quite frequently, among scholarly works, with that of Christian godparent-hood or spiritual kinship. Parkes states that in both milk kinship and god-or co-parenthood "we deal with a fictitious kinship relationship between people of unequal status that is embedded in a long-term exchange of goods and services that we know as patronage". Iranians seemed to have "taken care to confine delegated suckling to subordinate non-kin – particularly those with whom marriage would be undesirable in any event". Marriage taboos due to milk kinship were taken very seriously since some regarded breast milk to be refined female blood from the womb, thus conveying a 'uterine substance' of kinship. Children who were milk kin to each other were prohibited to marry as well as two children from different parents who were suckled by the same woman. It was as much of a taboo to marry your milk-brother or -sister, as it was to marry a biological brother or sister. It is extremely important to understand that in all cases "What is forbidden by blood kinship is equally forbidden by milk kinship".
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strategically be useful for the future if the child is from a higher class family, as the milk women's children will become 'milk-brothers' and 'milk-sisters.' Thus peasant women would most often play the role of the 'milk' mother to her non-biological children, and they held an important role in maintaining the connection between herself and the master whose baby she is nursing. It was also a practical way to assist families who were of a very ill mother or whose mother died in childbirth. This would have been helpful in many societies where, especially in times of war, if families perished, other members of society would end up co-parenting through the link of milk-kinship.
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breast milk was a refinement of uterine blood. It is also suggested since that milk is of the woman, her moods and dispositions are transferred through the breast milk. Parkes mentions that milk-kinship was "further endorsed as a canonical impediment to marriage by several eastern
Christian churches". This indicates that this procedure was widely practiced among numerous religious communities, not just Islamic communities, in the early modern Mediterranean.
749:"Colactation links two families of unequal status and creates a durable and intimate bond; it removes from 'clients' their outsider status but excludes them as marriage partners...it brings about a social relationship that is an alternative to kinship bonds based on blood." People of different races and religions could be brought together strategically through the bonding of the milk mother and their milk 'children'.
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transformed male semen, yet mentions that HĂ©ritier has properly focused attention on evidently contested issues of 'patrifiliation' by breast-feeding, which remain to be understood. Parker posits that this somatic scheme seems to be unsubstantiated by current ethnographies, and also unwarranted in understanding the juridical reckoning of milk kinship that it purports to explain.
41:
822:). Altorki indicated that milk kinship had received little attention from anthropologists, despite its recognised significance in Muslim family law as a complex impediment to marriage. Milk kinship has since attracted further fieldwork throughout Islamic Asia and North Africa, demonstrating its importance as a culturally distinctive institution of adoptive affiliation.
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Noble offspring were often sent to milk kin fosterers that would foster them to maturity so that the children would be raised by their successive status subordinates. The purpose of this was for political importance to build milk kin as bodyguards. This was a major practice in the Hindu Kush society.
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One particular theory mentioned by Peter Parkes is an Arab folk-analogy that breast milk is supposed to be "transformed male semen" that arises from HĂ©ritier's
Somatic Scheme. There is no evidence that Arabs ever considered a mother's milk to be 'transformed sperm'. Another suggested analogy is that
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HĂ©ritier explains
Islamic juridical reckonings of milk kinship as the continuation of a somatic scheme of male filiative substances transmitted by lactation. But Parker critically interrogates its supposition of a peculiar Arab folk-physiology of lactation, whereby breast milk is supposed to be
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In reaction, a few scholars have cited
Islamic commentaries and jurisprudence. "A child is the product of the conjoint seed of man and woman . . . but milk is the property of woman alone; one should not conflate by analogy (qiyas) milk with male semen." Al-Qurtubi, Jami' al-ahkam V.83, cited in
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became his "milk-mother". The rest of her family was drawn into the relationship as well: her husband al-Harith became
Muhammad's "milk-father", and Muhammad was raised alongside their biological children as a "milk-brother". This milk kinship creates a familial relationship, such that a man
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Milk kinship was as relevant for peasants as 'fostering' or as 'hosting' other children, in that it secured the good will from their masters and their wives. As previously mentioned the milk women's family is the 'core range' to the child she is nursing and they become milk kin, which may
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that is communicated in the Arab saying 'the milk is from the man'. Héritier's somatic explanation has since been endorsed – and apparently confirmed – by several French ethnographers of the
Maghreb, also being further developed in her monograph on incest.
885:, milk kinship established a second family that could take responsibility for a child whose biological parents came to harm. "Milk kinship in Islam thus appears to be a culturally distinctive, but by no means unique, institutional form of adoptive
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to feed a child either from the same community, or a neighbouring one. This wet nurse played the strategic role in forging relations between her family and the family of the child she was nursing, as well as their community.
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Benkheira (2001a: 26). The rules of Sunni marital incest apply through a standard of adoptive kin relations. But the modern jurisprudence does not negate nor explain the origin of the
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732:, though it became a widely used mechanism for developing alliances in many hierarchical societies during that time. Milk kinship used the practice of
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raised their children that way. Every warrior called every old woman in the tribe "Mother". Every old warrior, they called him "Grandfather".
717:, formed during nursing by a non-biological mother, was a form of fostering allegiance with fellow community members. This particular form of
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881:, milk kinship was widely practiced in many Arab countries for both religious and strategic purposes. Like the Christian practice of
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895:, illustrates the practice of traditional Arab milk kinship. In his early childhood, he was sent away to foster-parents amongst the
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Soraya
Altorki (1980) published a pioneering article on Sunni Arab notions of kinship created through suckling breast milk (Arabic:
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Giladi, A. 1998. 'Breast-feeding in medieval
Islamic thought. A preliminary study of legal and medical writings',
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Avner Giladi, "Breast-feeding in
Medieval Islamic thought. A preliminary study of legal and medical writings",
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Altorki. Soraya. 1980. 'Milk
Kinship in Arab Society: An Unexplored Problem in the Ethnography of Marriage',
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Infants, parents and wet nurses. Medieval Islamic views on Breast-feeding and their social implications
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Ensel, R. 2002. 'Colactation and fictive kinship as rites of incorporation and reversal in Morocco',
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thesis posits that Islamic marriage between milk kin is forbidden because of an ancient pre-Islamic
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R. Ensel, "Colactation and fictive kinship as rites of incorporation and reversal in Morocco",
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Parkes, Peter. 2004. 'Fosterage. Kinship, and Legend: When Milk Was Thicker than Blood?',
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his milk-mother or his milk-sister (the daughter or milk-daughter of his milk-mother).
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and other hierarchal systems did not matter in terms of milk kinship participation.
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Soler, Elena. 2010. "Parentesco de leche y movilidad social. La nodriza pasiega"
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Soler, Elena (2011). Lactancia y parentesco. Una Mirada antropolĂłgica. Anthropos
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Parkes, Peter. 2005. 'Milk Kinship in Islam. Substance, Structure, History',
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chief, was a baby, he nursed at the breast of every woman in the tribe. The
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El Guindi, Fadwa. 'Milk and Blood: Kinship among Muslim Arabs in Quatar',
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Parkes, Peter, "Milk Kinship in Islam: Substance, Structure, History",
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Anthropos: International Review of Anthropology and Linguistics
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Identité de substance et parenté de lait dans le monde arabe
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marriages prohibited due to marriage or sexual intercourse
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1198:. Leiden: Brill.
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967:Fictive kin
918:Crazy Horse
873:Rada (fiqh)
825:HĂ©ritier's
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519:Diane Bell
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300:Matrifocal
244:Avunculate
234:Collateral
1184:7: 83–96.
1165:Ethnology
992:Wet nurse
976:Godparent
887:kinship."
861:Canon Law
738:wet nurse
486:Sexuality
401:(debated)
219:Bilateral
125:Polyandry
1258:Archived
1146:18259349
1097:, p. 74.
1093:(2006),
932:See also
893:Muhammad
463:Feminist
454:in India
394:Sudanese
389:Hawaiian
369:Iroquois
360:By group
311:Neolocal
295:Extended
215:Cognatic
160:Sororate
155:Levirate
115:Polygamy
110:Polygyny
105:Monogamy
90:Endogamy
80:Marriage
70:Affinity
24:a series
22:Part of
1068:(1994).
922:Lakotan
897:Bedouin
877:In the
827:somatic
719:kinship
472:Chambri
440:Chinese
435:Burmese
316:Nuclear
203:Descent
186:Fictive
95:Exogamy
65:Lineage
33:kinship
1144:
1134:
795:Warsaw
229:Lineal
100:Moiety
60:Family
26:on the
1128:Wiley
926:Sioux
916:When
840:taboo
736:by a
723:class
477:Mosuo
379:Omaha
140:Dowry
1176:View
1142:OCLC
1132:ISBN
831:meme
374:Crow
190:Milk
175:Clan
793:in
1273::
1140:.
1130:.
1057:^
1021:^
842:.
789:,
784:c.
782:,
1148:.
703:e
696:t
689:v
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