💾 Archived View for kwiecien.us › logarion › tetrilineage.gmi captured on 2020-09-24 at 02:41:12. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Tetrilineage

Authors: Ben <benulo@systemli.org>

Dated: 2020-08-04

Today I was having a pointless discussion with one of my friends about the the topic of lineage. My point of view was that the concept of lineage doesn't make sense because everyone has two parents; not only do you have two parents, but your parents have two parents, ad infinitum.

Therefore, we all have millions of ancestors, and there's no genetic or scientific reason why one should be considered more important or influential than another. The only way to pretend this is the case is to exclude one of the sexes from consideration, so lineage seems possible if we consider only male parents or female parents.

Related to that logic, my friend insisted that there's only two possible lineages: patrilineal and matrilineal. However, I am not satisfied with this and thought that I could come up with something better: tetrilineage.

This concept is based on the "Tetris shape" which resembles an "L". (Yes, I know there's more than one Tetris shape.) Your tetrilineage can be determined by going back two generations and then switching sexes on the third, so for example, starting with your own gender, if you are male then your lineage traces back to your father's father's mother, and then her mother's mother's father, and so on.