Phratry

phratry: see clan.

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phratry

In ancient Greece, tribal subdivisions of households or families claiming a common kin relation. At the apex of each phratry were aristocratic clans that had certain hereditary rights, such as the right to hold priestly offices. Both phratries and clans were patrilineal. The Athenian phratry is well known. Every native Athenian male belonged to a phratry; they were concerned with such matters as legitimacy of descent and inheritance.

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Phratry 

a form of social organization, intermediate between the genos and phyle, in Athens and other states of preclassical Greece. A phratry generally had its own governing bodies and religion. In modern times, the term “phratry” was employed by L. H. Morgan, who discovered a similar social organization among the North American Indians. The phratry was an exogamous group of related clans; that is, its members married into other phratries. A dual organization of two phratries constituted a tribe. The principal function of a dual-phratric organization was to regulate exchanges. In later stages of social development, the division into phratries was not necessarily dual: tribes of three phratries also existed. In its later forms, the phratry was sometimes endogamous.

REFERENCES

Morgan, L. H. Drevnee obshchestvo, 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1935. (Translated from English.)
Zolotarev, A. M. Rodovoi stroi i pervobytnaia mifologiia. Moscow, 1964.
Semenov, Iu. I. Proiskhozhdenie braka isem’i. Moscow, 1974.