ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that we can best interpret some aspects of Gnau social structure as results of the emphasis they put on relationships set up by marriage; the effect of intravillage marriage in isolating the village as an independent community may be set in contrast to the recognition of ties of common descent outside the village. The forms of society in New Guinea so vary that the author must begin by an account of the main features of Gnau social structure. Inheritors of defunct lineages seem now to regard it as their duty to tell the anthropologist the separate and extinct genealogy from which they inherit. Where consecutive genealogical links are known, the boundaries of a unit are clearly established by the agnatic descent rule. Descent is agnatic and women move at marriage to the home of their husband.
