Graham A. Allan - A Sociology of Friendship and Kinship

Volume 1

A SOCIOLOGY OF FRIENDSHIP AND KINSHIP

First published in 1979 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd

This edition first published in 2022

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1979 George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-03-207714-7 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-00-321960-6 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-03-210363-1 (Volume 1) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-03-210373-0 (Volume 1) (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-00-321501-1 (Volume 1) (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003215011

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

First published in 1979

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights are reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

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George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd, 1979

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Many people have helped me in the course of writing this book. Amongst the most important are the individuals who allowed me to interview them about their various sociable relationships. Without their help and interest this book would not have been written. As promised, their names and that of the place in which they lived have been altered to ensure their anonymity. Colin Bell supervised the research from which this book grew and has continued to take an interest in it. I owe him a great deal, not only for his help and encouragement but also for informing my general perspective on sociology. Bill Williams was instrumental in my developing my thesis into this book. His numerous suggestions about its form and content have improved it greatly. Others who have commented on the research and helped in various ways include Mary Allan, Diana Barker, Eric Briggs, Joan Busfield, Steve Chibnall, John Hall, Joan Higgins, Halina Jarrowson, David Kennaby, Sue Lane, Duncan Mitchell, Don Munro, Bob Paisley, John Smith, Peter Townsend, Sue Wheatley and Bob Witkin.

I would also like to thank Ros Thomson, Alex Granger and Karen Fulbrook who at different times typed all or part of the book with remarkable speed and efficiency.

Finally I would like to thank the publishers of the Journal of Marriage and the Family and the British Journal of Sociology for allowing me to make use of material first published in articles entitled, respectively, Sibling solidarity (1977) and Class variations in friendship patterns (1977).

In one of the most-quoted sentences from any kinship research, Raymond Firth wrote: Kinship in Britain [is] pervasive, intangible, still largely unstudied, with its significance either not appreciated or in danger of being over-estimated (1961, p. 305). This volume has evolved from an attempt to add to the available knowledge of the significance of kin relationships in present-day Britain. As with all research, this task is more easily stated than achieved. Exactly what is meant by the significance of kin relationships? How is their significance to be recognised and measured? On what criteria is it to be decided? There are two aspects involved in answering these questions. First, it needs to be shown that kin relationships have some significance in the way people organise and run their everyday lives. This, indeed, is what a growing number of kinship studies have demonstrated. But to understand more fully the significance of kin relationships in modern social life it is necessary to go a stage further and compare kin relationships with other types of relationship that common knowledge and experience suggest are functionally similar. In particular, ties of friendship seem important here. In this way some standard by which to judge the significance of kin relationships can be achieved. As Bell notes, we do not really know how important kinship is unless it is studied in relation to other systems of interaction, like those of friendship, work and neighbouring (1971, p. 131).

But if kin relationships are to be compared with other types of relationship, it would seem inevitable that kinship per se becomes less important in the overall scheme of analysis. Certainly, as the comparative perspective of the present book developed, the primary focus shifted from kin relationships to other types of sociable relationships, with the variety of non-kin relationships that approach friendship becoming increasingly central. Concomitantly, the range of the comparisons possible between the different types of relationship was reduced, so that eventually interest centred on sociable interaction, be it with kin or non-kin, at the expense of the variety of other topics that are equally stimulating and legitimate. It is thus that what follows is concerned with analysing and comparing different types of sociable relationships.

I take the term sociable relationship to include all those that an individual enters into purposefully and voluntarily for primarily non-instrumental reasons. This is not intended to be taken as an authoritative and conclusive definition, but as an adequate working one in the present context. Indeed, giving a precise definition of sociable relationships is probably impossible. Various elements such as enjoyment of interaction, intention, non-instrumentality, lack of constraint, etc., are involved which do not necessarily relate to one another in any consistent manner. Thus while some relationships are quite evidently sociable and others are equally obviously not, at the boundary there are no clear-cut, objective criteria.