The natural family, of course--that is to say, the more or less permanent association of father, mother and children, is always there in some shape and to some extent.

But, so long as the one-sided method of counting descent prevails, and is reinforced by totemism, the family cannot attain to the dignity of a formally recognized institution.

On the other hand, the totemic clan, of all the formally recognized groupings of society to which an individual belongs in virtue of his birth and kinship, is, so to speak, the most specific.

As the Australian puts it, it makes him what he "is." His social essence is to be a Cockatoo or a Crow.
Consequently his first duty is towards his clan and its members, human and not-human.

Wherever there are clans, and so long as there is any totemism worthy of the name, this would seem to be the general law.
Besides the specific unity, however, provided by the clan, there are wider, and, as it were, more generic unities into which a man is born, in totemic society of the complex type that is found in the actual world of to-day.
First, he belongs to a phratry.