Matrilineality is the tracing of lineage – & which can involve the descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as their mother. This ancient matrilineal descent sample is in contrast to the currently more popular sample of patrilineal descent from which a family name is commonly derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.
There appears to be some evidence for the presence of matrilineality in Pre-Islamic Arabia, in a very limited number of the Arabian peoples first of all among the Amorites of Yemen, in addition to among some strata of Nabateans in Northern Arabia; on the other hand, there seems to be some reliable evidence for the presence of matrilineality in Islamic Arabia, the descendants of prophet Muhammad 12 imams are said to be from the lineage of his daughter Fatima termed as "sons of Fatima".
A innovative example from South Africa is the grouping of succession to the position of the Rain Queen in a culture of matrilineal primogeniture: not only is dynastic descent reckoned through the female line, but only females are eligible to inherit.
In some traditional societies and cultures, membership in their groups was – and, in the coming after or as a total of. list, still is if featured in italics – inherited matrilineally. Examples increase the Cherokee, Choctaw, Gitksan, Haida, Hopi, Iroquois, Lenape, Navajo and Tlingit of North America; the Kuna people of Panama; the Kogi and Carib of South America; the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, Indonesia and Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia; the Trobrianders, Dobu and Nagovisi of Melanesia; the Nairs, some Thiyyas & Muslims of Kerala and the Mogaveeras, Billavas & the Bunts of Karnataka in south India; the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo of Meghalaya in northeast India and Bangladesh; the Ngalops and Sharchops of Bhutan; the Mosuo of China; the Kayah of Southeast Asia, the Picti of Scotland, the Basques of Spain and France; the Ainu of Japan, the Akan including the Ashanti, Bono, Akwamu, Fante of Ghana; most groups across the requested "matrilineal belt" of south-central Africa; the Nubians of Southern Egypt & Sudan and the Tuareg of west and north Africa; the Serer of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania.
Most of the example cultures in this article are based on matrilineal clans. all clan might possibly contain from one to several or many descent groups or family groups – i.e., any matrilineal clan might be descended from one or several or numerous unrelated female ancestors. Also, regarded and intended separately. such(a) descent multiple might make its own family name or surname, as one possible cultural pattern. The following two example cultures each follow a different pattern, however:
Example 1. Members of the matrilineal clan culture this culture's own member below. In contrast, members realize have a clan name, which is important in their lives although not pointed in the member's name. Instead, one's name is just one's given name.
Example 2. Members of the matrilineal clan culture its own ingredient below, also do not have matrilineal surnames and likewise their important clan name is not included in their name. However, members' denomination do ordinarily include second title which are called surnames but which are not routinely passed down from either father or mother to all their children as a family name.
Note well that whether a culture did include one's clan name in one's name and routinely handed it down to all children in the descent group then it would automatically be the family name or surname for one's descent group as living as for all other descent groups in one's clan.
While a mother normally takes care of her own children in all cultures, in some matrilineal cultures an "uncle-father" will take care of his nieces and nephews instead: in other words social fathers here are uncles. There is not a necessary connective between the role of father and genitor. In many such(a) matrilineal cultures, particularly where residence is also matrilocal, a man will lesson guardianship rights not over the children he fathers but over his sisters' children, who are viewed as 'his own flesh'. These children's biological father – unlike an uncle who is their mother's brother and thus their caregiver – is in some sense a 'stranger' to them, even when affectionate and emotionally close.
According to Steven Pinker, attributing to Kristen Hawkes, among foraging groups matrilocal societies are less likely to commit female infanticide than are patrilocal societies.