Anthropologist Meredith F. Small’s forthcoming book “FAMILY” draws on research into family origins and the many ways kinship works across cultures. A Forbes review highlights Barí beliefs in multiple paternity and the Mosuo’s matrilineal households.
Among the Barí of South America, a pregnant woman may identify several men as fathers; all contribute fish and game to support her and the child during pregnancy. The Mosuo of southwestern China are matrilineal: people generally remain in their mothers’ households, and men traditionally support their mothers, sisters and sisters’ children rather than taking primary responsibility for their own biological children.
Small also discusses a 3.2-million-year-old group of 17 early hominin fossils dubbed the “First Family,” but the remains may have represented several families or none; the label was an assumption, not a confirmed relationship. Pegasus Books lists the 400-page hardcover for publication Oct. 6, 2026, at $29.95.
