Descent can often play a large roll on the social texture of a society. Descent, which is the tracing of kinship back to previous generations, can according to a society take different forms. One form of descent is that of unilineal which is divided up into two subsets consisting of patrilineal and matrilineal. Patrilineal descent is one in which the line of descent is traced through the male kin while matrilineal is through the female line. The Masai culture is a good example of a unilineal descent system with a patrilineal grouping. In general a patrilineal descent system places more importance on males and their place in the society while a matrilineal shifts the focus of the society to the females. Another subset of unilineal descent is clans. Clans are unilineal descent groups who are descended from either a common male line or a common female line. A good example of a patriclan or clan with male focus is the ancient Chinese samurais. Two other forms of descent are Cognatic where ther

Gender, descent and social class effect society in all of these ways.

Social class is a system of in which people are categorized and put into rankings or groups in which the society feels fits. In all types of social class systems there are three kinds of awards being sought after by a society. These three awards consist of wealth, power and prestige. A man by the name of Morton Fried came up with three different types of social class systems. The first one he labeled Egalitarian. In an Egalitarian society there is little noticeable difference in awards between individuals and families but there are cultural mechanisms in place to stop any one person from becoming to important. These types of societies are usually mobile tribes which limit acquired wealth and remove families abilities to claim over zealous amounts of land. The second type of society mentioned by Fried was Ranked. A Ranked society consists of limited high-ranking social positions that is usually acquired hereditarily as well as a wealth system and class system based on kin. Finally Fried explained the Stratified system which is broken down into two forms known as Caste and Class. The Caste part of the Stratified system is made up of formal, nam

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