page_title: Parallel and cross cousins
section_title: Role
hierarchical_section_title: Parallel and cross cousins / Role
caption_attribution_description: English: An anthropology chart showing the relations between family members.
context_page_description: In discussing consanguineal kinship in anthropology, a parallel cousin or ortho-cousin is a cousin from a parent's same-sex sibling, while a cross-cousin is from a parent's opposite-sex sibling. Thus, a parallel cousin is the child of the father's brother or of the mother's sister, while a cross-cousin is the child of the mother's brother or of the father's sister. Where there are unilineal descent groups in a society, one's parallel cousins on one or both sides will belong to one's own descent group, while cross-cousins will not.
context_section_description: The role of cross-cousins is especially important in some cultures. For example, marriage is promoted between them in the Iroquois system. Parallel cousins are occasionally the subject of promoted marriage, such as the preferential marriage of a male to his father's brother's daughter, common among some pastoral peoples. Such a marriage helps keep property within a lineage. On the other hand, parallel cousin unions in some cultures would fall under an incest taboo, since parallel cousins are part of the subject's unilineage whereas cross-cousins are not.
caption: A chart showing family members in relation to a particular Subject (black triangle).
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