From the data we have assembled and analysed the main structural features of one sector of English middle-class kinship are clear.

To begin with, it is evident that we can properly speak of the kinship of such people as a system. Behaviour towards people recognized as ‘relatives’ is not random; it tends to follow prescribed conventions, to be repetitive and to form part of articulated series of relationships in which ties with any one kinsman are affected by those with other kin.