uterine nephew

English[edit]

uterine nephew (plural uterine nephews)

(anthropology) The son of one's sister.
- 1963, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, New York: Basic Books, page 44:
  In Dobu, the mother's brother is held to be the harshest of all the relatives. “The motherʼs brother may beat children long after their parents have ceased to do so,” and they are forbidden to utter his name. There is a tender relationship with the “navel,” the motherʼs sisterʼs husband, who is the fatherʼs double, rather than with the father himself. Nevertheless, the father is considered “less harsh” than the motherʼs brother and will always seek, contrary to the laws of inheritance, to favor his son at the expense of his uterine nephew. And, finally, “the strongest of all social bonds” is the one between brother and sister.⁴⁴