A kinship system is no, structure but a practice, a praxis, a method, and even a strategy, Louis Berthe, analyzing a relationship of alliance and hierarchy, show; convincingly that a village intervenes as a third party to permit rnatrirn nial connections between elements that the disjunction of two moierie would forbid from the strict viewpoint of structure: The third len,. must be interpreted much more as a method than as a true strucrur.a element.