This study suggests that jural parenthood, i.e. socially recognized parenthood, is the basis of the creation of personal kinship networks, commonly referred to as personal kindreds. From 1968 to 1970, field work was conducted among second generation welfare families in an urban black community in a midwestern city in the United States. The majority of the adult men and women involved in the study had been raised as children at a poverty level, as are their children. Domestic arrangements and strategies among the black poor there assure that children are cared for, and kin and friends in need will be helped. New alliances are formed daily between kin and friends who exchange and give and obligate one another. Cooperation among people is not limited to households or nuclear families. Men, women and children, kin, and friends participate in domestic networks, aligning themselves to provide the basic functions often attributed to nuclear family units. Participants in domestic networks are primarily drawn from personal kinship networks. From the individual's viewpoint, he is immersed in a domestic circle of a large number of kinfolk he can call upon for help. Friends pass in and out of his domestic network, just as he passes in and out of the domestic networks of his friends. (Author/JM)