Marriage

Preferential Marriage Rules: Cousins •  Rules in unilineal descent societies about

the preferred categories of relatives for marriage partners: •  Cross cousins

•  The children of a parent’s siblings of the opposite sex, who are not in the same kin group.

•  Parallel cousins •  The children of a parent’s same-sex

siblings, who are in the same kin group.

Parallel vs. Cross Cousins

Incest Taboos •  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.

Incest Taboos •  Because sexual access is a basic right

conferred by marriage, incest taboos effectively prohibit marriage among certain kin.

•  The incest taboo is generally considered a cultural universal (though the Na are a counterexample).

•  What constitutes incest varies widely from culture to culture.

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.

Explaining the Taboo: Instinctive Horror •  Weaknesses:

•  If it were genetic, a taboo would be unnecessary.

•  Cannot explain why many societies allow cross cousins to marry.

Explaining the Taboo: Biological Degeneration •  Strengths:

•  A decline in fertility does accompany sibling mating over several generations.

•  Increases a group’s genetic diversity. •  Weakness:

•  Does not explain cross cousins marriages but the taboo against parallel cousins.

Explaining the Taboo: Attempt •  It directs sexual feelings away from one’s

family to avoid disrupting the family (attempt).

•  Strength: •  Explains the parent-child taboo.

•  Weakness: •  Does not explain the universal sibling

taboo.

Explaining the Taboo: Contempt •  People are less likely to be attracted to

those with whom they grew up (familiarity breeds contempt).

•  Strength: •  Explains the parent-child and sibling

taboos. •  Weakness:

•  Does not explain cross cousin marriages.

Explaining the Taboo: Marry Out or Die Out •  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.

•  This is the strongest hypothesis to explain the incest taboo.

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.

Exogamy •  This practice forces people to create and

maintain a wide social network by turning potential enemies (strangers) into affinal kin and allies.

•  This wider social network nurtures, helps, and protects one's group during times of need.

Endogamy •  Rules that marriage must be within a

particular group. •  Functions to express and maintain social

difference. •  Caste (Hindu); religion (Old Order

Amish, Islam- esp. women, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon); ethnicity (Jews).

Other examples?

Homogamy •  The practice of marrying someone similar

to you in terms of background, social status, aspirations, and interests.

Examples?

Preferential Marriage Rules: Levirate and Sororate •  Levirate - A man marries the widow of a

deceased brother. •  Ghost Marriage- A Nuer widow

marries her dead husband’s brother; the kids are considered the children of the dead husband.

•  Sororate - When a man’s wife dies, her sister is given to him as a wife.

Number of Spouses •  All societies have rules about how many

spouses a person can have at one time. •  Monogamy is the ideal norm in Europe

and many of its ex-colonies. •  Despite the ideal, the real norm is

increasingly serial monogamy.

Polygamy •  A rule allowing more than one spouse. •  Not everyone in such cultures has

multiple spouses.

Polygyny •  A man may have multiple wives. •  Typically associated with patrifocality

and male prestige (e.g., Igbo). •  Sometimes a survival strategy (e.g., a

Tiwi man may have a dozen wives who forage so they can all eat.)

A polygynous Igbo family

Polyandry •  A woman may have multiple husbands. •  Associated with matrifocality and is rare

and decreasing. •  In ancient Marquesan (French

Polynesian ) society, élite women could have two non-fraternal husbands.

Contemporary Marquesan man

Polyandry •  In most cases, (e.g., the Toda of S. India

and several Tibetan and Nepali ethnic groups), fraternal polyandry is associated with men traveling often.

Nepali fraternal polyandrous family

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.

•  “Love marriage” v. arranged marriage & social change.

Exchange of Goods in Marriage •  Three kinds of exchanges made in

connection with marriage are: •  Bride service •  Bridewealth •  Dowry

•  Typical in descent-based societies, where marriages create alliances.

•  Stabilize marriage by acting as pressure against divorce.

Exchange in Marriage and Gender •  Bride service and bridewealth are often

associated with higher women’s status. •  Dowry is often associated with lower

women’s status.

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 egalitarian 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.

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. •  When done as way to recompensate bride’s

family for their loss of her and her labor, it is associated with high status of women.

Dowry •  Less common than other forms of

exchange at marriage. •  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, in which case it’s associated with low status of women.

Bridewealth in New Guinea.

Dowry in India

Marriage as a Rite of Passage •  Arranged Marriages: common where alliance

is important. •  Courtship: common in societies without

arranged marriages. •  Among foragers and pastoralists/

horticulturalists, wedding are often simple ceremonies

•  Among agriculturalists (chiefdoms & states), they tend to be extravagant affairs, often with feasting.

Rules of Residence •  Neolocal residence - A couple

establishes an independent household after marriage. •  Commonly associated with industrial and

postindustrial societies. •  Advantages are

mobility and independence.

•  Disadvantage is socio-economic isolation.

Rules of Residence •  Patrilocal/virilocal residence - A woman

lives with her husband’s family after marriage. •  Commonly associated with patrifocality and

internal warfare. •  Matrilocal/uxorilocal residence - A man

lives in the household of his wife’s family. •  Commonly associated with matrifocality and

external warfare.

Rules of Residence •  Avunculocal residence - A married

couple is expected to live with the husband’s mother’s brother. •  Associated with matrilineality, but men

get wealth and status from their maternal uncles.

•  If a couple can choose between living with either spouse’s family, the pattern is called bilocal residence and is very adaptively flexible.

Divorce •  Marriages that are political alliances are

harder to break up than marriages that are more individual affairs.

•  Bridewealth and dowry discourage divorce. •  Divorce is more common in matrilineal and/or

matrilocal societies. •  Divorce is harder in patrilocal societies as the

woman may be less inclined to leave her children who, as members of their father’s lineage, would stay with him.

Divorce among Foragers •  Forces act to both promote divorce:

•  Marriages tend to be individual affairs without alliance concerns.

•  They have few material possessions. •  Forces act to discourage divorce:

•  The family unit is primary and labor is divided by gender.

•  A sparse population means few alternative spouses.

Divorce in Nation-states •  The U.S. has one of the world’s highest

divorce rates and a very large percentage of gainfully employed women.

•  Americans value independence. •  Protestantism tends to be less strict about

divorce. •  Many religions, such as Roman Catholicism,

Islam, and Orthodox Judaism have strict rules.