1. Marriage, Family and Kinship
Chapter 7
Marriage, Family and Kinship

2. Chapter Outline A Society without Marriage: The Na of China
Forms and Functions of Marriage
Marriage Rules
The Exchange of Goods and Rights in Marriage
Family Structures, Households, and Rules of Residence

3. Chapter Outline Kinship Systems: Relations Through Blood and Marriage
The Classification of Kin
Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States

4. A Society without Marriage: The Na of China
The Na do not practice marriage, or even have a word for it.
In the idealized Na partnership men pass nights in a lover’s household and return to their families in the morning.
All sexual activity takes place during this concealed visit.

5. A Society without Marriage: The Na of China
As lovers, their relationship involves affection, respect, and intimacy, but not fidelity, permanence, or responsibility for children.

6. A Society without Marriage: The Na of China
Concealment is necessary because of a Na taboo forbidding a household’s male members to hear or see any sexual talk or activities involving household females.
Both women and men have multiple partners, no records are kept to determine paternity and the Na have no word for incest, illegitimate child, infidelity, or promiscuity.

7. Marriage Customs, rules, and obligations for relationships between:
Sexually cohabiting adults
Parents and children
Families of the bride and groom

8. Functions of Marriage Regulates sexual access Creates a family
Expands social group

9. Regulate Sexual Access
Limits sexual competition
Provides stability for children
Allows for stable economic exchange

10. Marriage
The heterosexual, monogamous marriage dominant in the United States is only one type of marriage.
Marriages built around plural spouses or same-sex relationships also fulfill the functions of marriage.

11. Indian Wedding
Each cultural group celebrates marriage in a unique way. How does a wedding ceremony reflect the type of family that the couple will establish?

12. Family
In the United States, the definition of the family is changing to accommodate:
the high divorce rate.
same-sex partnerships.
working mothers and single-parent households.
unmarried couples living together.
childless couples.
people who never marry.
people who remarry.

13. Marriage Rules
Every society has culturally defined rules concerning sexual relations and marriage.
Marriage rules may:
determine how many people one can marry.
allow for ending marriages.
dictate the rituals that legitimate marriage.
determine the rights established by marriage.

14. Incest Taboo
Prohibits certain individuals from having sex with each other
The most widespread taboo is mating between mother and son, father and daughter, and sister and brother.
Because sexual access is a basic right conferred by marriage, incest taboos effectively prohibit marriage among certain kin.

15. Reasons for Incest Taboo
Avoids inbreeding
Prevents disruption in the nuclear family
Directs sexual desires outside the family
Forces people to marry outside the family and create a larger social community

16. Forming Wider Alliances
Leads to joining families into a larger social community
Since such alliances are adaptive, the alliance theory can also account for the extension of the incest taboo to groups other than the nuclear family.

17. Exogamy
Rules specifying that a person must marry outside a particular group
Almost universal within the primary family group
Leads to alliances between different families and groups

18. Endogamy Rules that marriage must be within a particular group
In India, each caste is an endogamous group.
In the U.S., social classes tend to be endogamous.

19. Preferential Marriage Rules
Rules about the preferred categories of relatives for marriage partners
Cross cousins
The children of a parent’s siblings of the opposite sex
Parallel cousins
The children of a parent’s same-sex siblings

20. Kinship Diagram of Cousins

21. Preferential Marriage Rules
Levirate – A man marries the widow of his deceased brother.
Sororate – When a man’s wife dies, her sister is given to him as a wife.

22. Number of Spouses
All societies have rules about how many spouses a person can have at one time.
Monogamy is the norm only in Europe and North America.

23. Polygamy A rule allowing more than one spouse Polygyny
A rule permitting a man to have more than one wife at a time
Polyandry
A rule permitting a woman to have more than one husband at a time

24. Choosing a Mate
In most societies, marriage is important because it links kin groups of the married couple.
This accounts for the practice of arranged marriages.

25. Kinship Terminology
The system of kinship terms in a particular culture.
Genitor – A biological father
Pater – Socially designated father of a child, who may or may not be the biological father

26. Exchange of Goods in Marriage
Three kinds of exchanges made in connection with marriage
Bride service
Bridewealth
Dowry

27. Bride Service
The husband must work for a specified period of time for his wife’s family in exchange for his marital rights.
Occurs mainly in foraging societies, where accumulating material goods for an exchange at marriage is difficult
Among the Ju/’hoansi a man may work for his wife’s family until the birth of the third child.

28. Bridewealth The most common form of marriage exchange
Cash or goods are given by the groom’s kin to the bride’s kin to seal a marriage.
Legitimates the new reproductive and socioeconomic unit created by the marriage
Bridewealth paid at marriage is returned if a marriage is terminated.

29. Bridewealth in New Guinea
How might bridewealth increase the value of both the man and woman?

30. Dowry A presentation of goods by the bride’s kin to the groom’s family
Less common than other forms of exchange at marriage

31. Dowry
Dowry has different meanings and functions in different societies.
In some cases it represents a woman’s share of her family inheritance.
In other cases it is a payment transferred from the bride’s family to the groom’s family.

32. Types of Families
Anthropologists identify two basic types of families.
The nuclear family is organized around the conjugal tie, the relationship between husband and wife.
The extended family is based on consanguineal, or blood, relations extending over three or more generations.

33. Rules of Residence
Neolocal Residence – A couple establishes an independent household after marriage.
Patrilocal residence – A woman lives with her husband’s family after marriage.
Matrilocal residence – A man lives in the household of his wife’s family.

34. Rules of Residence
Avunculocal residence – A married couple is expected to live with the husband’s mother’s brother.
If a couple can choose between living with either the wife’s or the husband’s family, the pattern is called bilocal residence.

35. Composite Family
Aggregates of nuclear families linked by a common spouse
Example: Polygynous household consisting of one man with several wives
Most composite families are patrilocal, a system under which a bride lives with her husband’s family after marriage.

36. Extended Family
Blood relations extending over three or more generations
Economic advantages: keeps land intact and provides security in times of crisis
Provides a sense of participation and dignity for the older family members

37. Extended Family
A patrilineal extended family is organized around a man, his sons, and the sons’ wives and children.
A matrilineal family is organized around a woman, her daughters and the daughters’ husbands and children.

38. Kinship
Culturally defined relationship established on the basis of blood ties or through marriage
Kinship system – Kin relations, kin groups, and terms for classifying kin in a society

39. Functions of Kinship Provides continuity between generations
Defines a group on whom a person can rely for aid

40. Descent Groups Affiliations between children and parents Functions:
Organize domestic life
Enculturate children
Allow transfer of property
Carry out religious ritual
Settle disputes

41. Unilineal Descent
Descent based on links through paternal or maternal line
Advantages:
Forms nonoverlapping descent groups that perpetuate themselves over time even though membership changes
Provides clear group membership for everyone in the society

42. Lineage
Group of kin whose members trace descent from a known common ancestor

43. Patrilineage Descent is traced through male lineage.
Inheritance moves from father to son, as does succession to office.
Man’s position as father and husband is the most important source of male authority.
Example: Nuer of Sudan

44. Kinship Diagram of Patrilineal Descent
Sons and daughters belong to their father’s descent group (shown in dark green), as do the children of sons but not of daughters.

45. Matrilineage Descent is traced through the female line.
Children belong to the mother’s descent group.
The inclusion of a husband in the household is less important.
Women usually have higher status.
Example: Hopi

46. Kinship Diagram of Matrilineal Descent
Sons and daughters are members of
their mother’s descent group (shown in dark green), as are the children of daughters but not of sons.

47. Corporate Descent Groups
Permanent units with an existence beyond the individuals who are members at any given time.
Old members die and new ones are admitted through birth, but the integrity of the corporate group persists.
Such groups may own property and manage resources.

48. Clan
Unilineal kinship group whose members believe they are descended from a common ancestor but who can’t trace the link through known relatives

49. Double Descent
Tracing descent through both matrilineal and patrilineal links
Double descent systems occur in only 5% of the world’s cultures.
In these societies, a person belongs both to the group of the father and to the group of the mother, but the descent groups operate in different areas of life.

50. Cognatic Descent Bilateral
System under which both maternal and paternal lines are used in reckoning descent
Ambilineal
A form of bilateral descent in which an individual may choose to affiliate with either the father’s or mother's descent group

51. Kinship Classification System
The system of kinship terms and the rules for using these terms
Every kinship classification system classes some relatives together and differentiates them from other relatives.
Some systems have a small number of kinship terms, others have a different term for almost every relative.

52. Ego
Ego is the person from whose perspective the chart is drawn and viewed.
If Ego refers to his father and his father’s brothers by the same term, his relationship with them tends to be similar.
If Ego’s father and father’s brothers are referred to by different terms, Ego will likely act differently toward each of them and they will act differently toward him.

53. Principles of Classifying Kin
Generation
Relative age
Lineality vs. collaterality
Gender
Consanguineal vs. affinal kin
Sex of linking relative
Bifurcation

54. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
In l984, a woman and her 15-month-old baby were murdered in American Fork, Utah.
Two Mormon fundamentalists and polygamists, Ronald and Daniel Lafferty, admitted to the killing, justifying it as a revelation from God.
Dan was sentenced to life without parole.
Ronald was sentenced to die by a firing squad, though appeals have kept him alive.

55. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
Recently, Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was convicted as an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old church member by orchestrating her marriage, under duress, to her first cousin.
Jeffs received a sentence of ten years.

56. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
Following the revelations of founder Joseph Smith, Mormons permitted plural marriage from the late 1830s until 1890.
In that year, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Mormon polygamy is “a crime against the laws, and abhorrent to the sentiments and feelings of the civilized world”.
Polygamy continues among the Mormon sect that calls itself Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints.

57. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
Opponents of polygamy cite evidence of incest, child abuse, violence against women, rape, and the coerced marriage and sexual relations between teenage girls and much older men, as reasons to continue to hold polygamy illegal.

58. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
You decide:
Consider the advantages and disadvantages of polygamy in the contemporary United States.
In what ways might it be adaptive?
How is it maladaptive?

59. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
You decide:
Consider the outlawing of polygamy in the United States, in spite of the freedom of religious practice guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
How would you build a case either for or against criminalization of this religiously-based form of marriage?

60. Bringing it Back Home: Polygamy in the United States
You decide:
Many of the attacks on Mormon polygamy stress its oppression of women.
Consider the different possible perceptions of polygamy in the United States today from a male and female point of view.

61. Quick Quiz

62. 1. Explanations for the function of incest taboos include all except which of the following?
It forces people to make alliances with other families, expanding societal links.
Taboos prohibiting mating between closely-related individuals arose because of the higher incidence of deleterious traits.
Incest taboos restrict damaging consequences of inbreeding.

63. Answer: b
Explanations regarding the function of familial incest taboos don’t include the following:
Taboos prohibiting mating between closely-related individuals arose because of the higher incidence of deleterious traits.

64. 2. A young husband has an unfortunate encounter with a crocodile as he is herding his cows along the banks of the Nile River. As custom dictates, his brother marries the bereaved widow, adding her to his polygynous household. This is an example of
the sororate.
the practice of bride-service.
the levirate.
an arranged marriage.

65. Answer: c
A young husband has an unfortunate encounter with a crocodile as he is herding his cows along the banks of the Nile River. As custom dictates, his brother subsequently marries the bereaved widow, adding her to his polygynous household. This is an example of the levirate.

66. 3. Pater is distinguished from genitor, in that pater refers to
the biological father who may or may not have a role in a child's upbringing.
the man who is socially recognized as being responsible for a child's upbringing.
one who is suspected of being the biological father.
a term that means "proven" paternity.

67. Answer: b
Pater is distinguished from genitor, in that pater refers to the man who is socially recognized as being responsible for a child's upbringing.

68. 4. Which statement best summarizes anthropological thinking on the functions of dowry?
The dowry is a woman's wealth to keep as her own economic security.
Dowry is compensation from the groom's family since the bride will not inherit from her family.
In societies that practice the dowry, it is part of the process of legitimization of the new alliance formed by a marriage.

69. Answer: c
The following statement best summarizes anthropological thinking on the functions of dowry across the societies in which this custom is practiced:
In societies that practice the dowry, it is part of the process of legitimization of the new alliance formed by a marriage.