1. Kinship, Family, and Marriage
Overview and learning outcomes
Types of families, marriages and kinship
How are we related to one another?
Are biology and marriage the only basis for kinship?
Descent patterns
Is a country like one big family? How is kinship changing in the US?

2. Class survey
Work with a partner to briefly analyze some marital and kinship patterns in your extended family:
Average age of marriage (compare grandparents, parents and children’s generation if known)
Any married couples that stayed living with the parents after getting married?
Number of children per couple (max.)
Frequency of divorce (% divorced couples in extended family) and remarriage
Grandparents residing with their children’s or grandchildren’s family or independently
Same-sex legal unions or marriages
Same-sex couples with children through IVF, surrogacy, or adoption
Interracial, intercultural or interfaith marriages

3. Recent changes in American families
23% of Americans live in nuclear families (avg. 2.6 people per hh; 3.1 persons per family)
Increase in women joining workforce
Higher median age of 1st marriage (25.3 for women / 27.1 for men)
Higher divorce rate (> 50%)
More single parent families (x 4 since 1970)
Percentage of married adults has decreased
Smaller families/living units

4. Nuclear & extended families
Nuclear family - parents & their children; widespread but not universal
Extended family – related nuclear families
What is the dominant concept of kin group in the US?
Incest taboo – nearly universal among nuclear families worldwide

5. Family organization in industrial societies
Mainly nuclear
Neolocality - married couples expected to establish new place of residence
Expanded family households enables pooling of financial and other resources
Collateral household = siblings and their spouses & children

6. Kinship by genealogy: descent groups
Descent group - permanent social unit whose members claim common ancestry
2 types of unilineal descent:
Patrilineal (father’s group) - more common
Matrilineal (mother’s group) – e.g., Ashanti in Ghana, Hopi in Arizona
Bilateral descent – traced through both genders (common in which society?)
Lineage - descent group with demonstrated apical ancestor
Clan - descent group with assumed apical ancestor
Totem - nonhuman ancestor (animal/plant)

7. Marriage rules
Exogamy - marrying outside the group (increases social and biological diversity)
Endogamy - marrying within the group
Rules for marrying within the group vary cross-culturally (e.g., incest prohibitions)

8. Marital residence patterns
Patrilocal - married couples live with husband’s community (common in Arab societies)
Matrilocal - Married couples live with wife’s community
Ambilocal – Couple chooses which parents to live with
Neolocal – couple forms a new household on their own

9. How Are We Related to One Another?
Descent
The Nuer of Southern Sudan
Copyright © 2014, W.W. Norton & Company

10. Marital rights Establish legal parenthood Rights to spouse’s property
Establish joint property for benefit of children
Establish relationship of affinity with in-laws
Rights to spouse’s labor
Exclusive sexuality (not always mutual)

11. Marriage in non-industrial societies
Marriage as a social alliance
Bridewealth - customary gift from husband and his kin to wife and her kin; insurance against divorce (more common)
Brideservice - groom must work for bride’s family
Dowry - wife’s group provides substantial gifts to husband’s family; less common
Which one correlates more with high or low status for women?

12. Plural marriages Polygamy - more than 1 spouse (man or woman)
Polygyny - man has more than 1 wife
Polyandry - woman has more than 1 husband (rare – less than 1% of world: parts of South Asia such as the Himalayas where men are often absent from family for work)
Group marriage (rare) – several men and women married simultaneously to one another

13. Divorce: nonindustrial groups
Alliance marriages are harder to break up than individual choice marriages
Bridewealth discourages divorce (why?)
Replacement marriages preserve group alliances
Divorce is harder in patrilocal societies if women have to leave their children

14. Divorce: Western society
Multiple reasons; high incidence
Largest increase between (doubled)
U.S. – approx. half of all marriages end in divorce settled through court system or mediation.
Creation of family subunits with step and half siblings