Editing Matrilineality (section)

{{short description|Tracing of kinship through the female line}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2025}}<!--[[Special:Diff/201943869|since 2008]]-->
{{Anthropology of kinship |concepts}}
'''Matrilineality''', at times called '''matriliny''', is the tracing of [[kinship]] through the female line. It may also correlate with a [[social system]] in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's [[Lineage (anthropology)|lineage]], and which can involve the [[inheritance]] of property and titles. A matriline is a [[line of descent]] from a [[female]] [[ancestor]] to a [[Kinship|descendant]] of either [[gender]] in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothers. In a matrilineal [[Kinship and descent|descent system]], individuals  belong to the same [[descent group]] as their mothers. This is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of [[patrilineal descent]] from which a [[family name]] is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their '''enatic''' or '''uterine''' ancestry, corresponding to the [[patrilineal]] or "agnatic" ancestry.