Affines comprise the kin of one's spouse, and the spouses of one's kin and their close kin. All consanguineal kinship relations begin inevitably at the birth of the younger partner. But most affines are added to one in later life, when one's primary loyalties are already formed. The greater social distance and the mutual suspicion which result call, as is commonly recognised, for special rules and more precisely defined rights and duties, at least in the beginning.
The relationship of a girl to her husband's household has already been described (p. 8). Beyond them, she will be referred to asgelin (bride, daughter-in-law), by all who identify with her husband's group. If she is strange to her husband's village then all his co-villagers may call her gelin : certainly his close kin, especially his agnates, will do so.
The corresponding male terms, guvah or damat , also mean equally bridegroom or son-in-law. The ties of a man to his wife's parents are more than friendliness. They have done him a great and never to be repaid favour by granting him their daughter, and he owes them respect and services. When Musa (K) needed help with his harvest (p. 156) his son-in-law left his own harvest in another village in order to help, and this with no expectation of return.
This subordinate relationship alters with time. As the wife's security, stake and power in her marital household increase, her parents' hold over her, and thus, indirectly, over her husband, decreases. His deference to them may change to personal warmth or to formal coolness. In time, of course, they will die, and the head of his wife's natal household will be her brother, a man of his own generation. At this stage, formal duties matter less, and actual relations vary from great warmth to active hostility.
Early in marriage, the groom's parents will normally be providing the young couple with a part of their own home, and the parents of the bride will be watching anxiously to see fair play for their daughter. Some marriages are deliberately arranged in order to provide or cement an alliance, giving the two sides reasons for ostensible friendliness. Very often they are already kin. The relationship between the two sets of parents is