A segmentary lineage society is characterized by the organization of the society into segments. Young people interacting within an ethnically diverse society. ...

A simple, non-anthropologist's explanation is that the close family is the smallest and closest segment, and will generally stand with each other. That family is also a part of a larger segment of more distant cousins, who will stand with each other when attacked by outsiders. They are then part of larger segments with the same characteristics. Basically, brothers will fight against cousins, unless outsiders come, and then they will join together. An old Arab saying expresses this idea: "Me against my brothers, me and my brothers against my cousins, me and my cousins against the world."^{[citation needed]} A family in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by analogous or comparable relationships — including domestic partnership, cohabitation, adoption, surname and (in some cases) ownership (as occurred in the...

The ancient Hebrew nation (the Israelites) is one of the more well-known examples, with 12 tribes originating from one common ancestor (Abraham). The largest segmentary lineage society today is the Pashtuns. An Israelite is a member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, descended from the twelve sons of the Biblical patriarch Jacob who was renamed Israel by God in the book of Genesis, 32:28 The Israelites were a group of Hebrews, as described in the Bible. ... The angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac (Rembrandt, 1634) Abraham (Hebrew: , Standard Avraham Ashkenazi Avrohom or Avruhom Tiberian  ; Arabic: ,  ; Geez: , ) is a figure in the Bible and Quran who is by believers regarded as the founding patriarch of the Israelites and of the Nabataean people in Jewish, Christian and... The Pashtuns (also Pushtun, Pakhtun, or ethnic Afghan; in referring to the period of the British Raj or earlier, sometimes Pathan) are an ethnic/religious group of people, living primarily in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India who follow Pashtunwali, their indigenous religion. ...

External link

• Segmentary Lineages, a chapter of Kinship and Social Organization written by Brian Schwimmer.