What is this phratry? Meaning, origin, synonyms of the concept

The term that we want to introduce to you in this article is not a common word. It is much more correct to attribute it to specific, scientific and historical. Do you know that this is phratry? If the concept is not quite close, or you are aware of only one of its definitions, then we invite you to learn more about it.

Meaning of the word "phratry." Similar concepts

The term has several characteristics. Phratria is:

• One of the forms of social organization in Athens and other ancient Greek states. It was intermediate between phyla (community, clan association, usually including three phratries) and clan. Here, members of a phratry could have their own self-government and even a mythological cult. Former survivors of tribal organization, these social forms disappeared during the period of the classical dr. Greece.
• From the point of view of ethnography, this is a group of totems (clans), whose members are allowed to marry only with members of another tribal phratry.
• In paleontology, it will be a totality that is equivalent to a species in biology, but consists of extinct organisms.
• Phratries are also areas in the settlements of the ancient Mayan civilization. Representatives of a certain cult or tribe live in them.

Synonyms of the word "phratry" are:

• Brotherhood;
• gender;
• tribe.

Origin of the term

The word "phratry" comes from Greek. φρατρία, phratría , which means "brotherhood".

The term was coined by Lewis Henry Morgan - an American ethnographer, historian, and sociologist. He found some similarities in ancient Greek communities and associations of North American Indians. So, the tribe in the latter consisted of two clans, phratries, inside of which there was a strict clan exogamy (ban on marriage between members of one community).

Let us draw your attention to another theory, the authors of which were Yu. I. Semenov and S. P. Tolstov. They suggested that childbirth united in phratry to reduce the acute conflict within their fraternities, which was caused by sexual relations.

Features of phratry associations

According to L. G. Morgan, the main goal of phratries is the regulation of marriage, the prevention of closely related sexual relations within a small tribe. The latter, by its nature, was endogamous (i.e., marital relations within the given association were allowed), which allowed cultural traditions, competition for resources.

However, common features are characteristic of phratries in their diversity:

• Exogamy.
• Having your own name.
• Unilinearity - the connection of children only with a certain gender by the parent.
• Own ideology, belief.
• The presence of a common ancestor, most often mythological.

At the later stages of human development, not only two, but also three phratries within the tribe were allowed. Moreover, the division did not always have an exogamous nature - it could be due to social, military reasons.

We can trace the features of the former phratrial organization of life in the future, for example, in the parity of the tribal or political structure. This is dualistic mythology, the division of nomads into the right and left wing in Asia and so on.

The purpose of creating phratries

As for Russia, such a phenomenon as fistfights, when one half of the village opposed the other in this game, is also a kind of echo of the ancient division into phratries. In the modern RF, such a social organization is inherent only to Mansi and Khanty, a small community of Finno-Ugric peoples living in Siberia.

Thus, the main goal of the phratries was to prevent closely related crosses between members of the same tribe. However, this was not the only reason for such a separation, the echoes of which are also relevant for later eras.