For the Iroquois addresses as sons and daughters not only his own children, but also those of his brothers and he is called father by all of them. But the actual use of these words was not in keeping with their fundamental meaning.
There could be no doubt to whom to apply the terms father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister. The offspring of such a couple was identified and acknowledged by all the world. Among them existed what Morgan terms the syndyasmian or pairing family, a monogamous state easily dissolved by either side.
Morgan, who spent the greater part of his life among the Iroquois in the State of New York and who had been adopted into one of their tribes, the Senecas, found among them a system of relationship that was in contradiction with their actual family relations.
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