Human Family Systems: An Evolutionary View

Human Family Systems integrates the approaches of anthropology and evolutionary biology to understand both the uniformity and the variability in human systems of marriage and kinship. It looks at the kind of mating and reproductive system we evolved as a unique species of mammal and primate, and at the kind of cultural adaptations we developed in the wide range of habitats our species colonized. Our genome and our culture are seen as interacting in an evolutionary process of adaptation to complex and changing environments. Human systems of kinship and marriage are, simply put, the uniquely human ways of raising babies successfully to become themselves reproductive adults.