ABSTRACT
EPIGRAMMATISTS MAKE MUCH of the fact that man is the only animal who knows that ultimately he must die, and of the impact that this has on man's actions. Man is also the only animal who studies himself and his way of life. Clyde Kluckhohn has called anthropology a "mirror for man" in which he can see himself in his infinite variety. Since the early workers in our discipline first silvered that mirror, we anthropologists, along with laymen, have been interested in describing the variations in the form of the human family and in human social groups and relationships. \Vhy do some peoples inherit position and property through the mother while others inherit through the father? Was a matrilineal form of the family its earliest form? Is father-right or patriliny identical in all societies in which it exists?
