Various features of the family have been argued to be universal
among the world's societies. These include marriage and the family
itself, male dominance and the division of labor by sex, incest taboos
and exogamy, and the distinction between legitimate and illegiti
mate birth. Each of these features except illegitimacy has a long
history of theoretical and comparative investigation. The author
argues that illegitimacy underlies each of the other family univer
sals, in the sense that it is a given in their theoretical accounts.
Hence it is more basic to family and kinship, and more primordial,
than the others. Theoretical and comparative work on illegitimacy
as a social norm and value is sorely needed, for without understand
ing illegitimacy in this way, we cannot fully account for the other
purported universal features of the family.
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