1. Marriage, Family, Kinship

2. MAKING US, MAKING THEM Incest taboo
The prohibition of sexual relations between specified individuals, usually parent-child and sibling relations at a minimum
All cultures have an incest taboo
The absence of a rule among other primates suggests perhaps an adaptive response for humans

3. Social Explanation – Levi-Strauss
Incest promotes exogamy
Seeking a mate outside one’s own group
Seeking others to become us
Denotes “them” vs. “us”
Establishes & maintains alliances
Promotes genetic admixture & variation
Preserves family roles
Guards against socially destructive conflict

4. The Incest Taboo: The Threshold of Culture
Levi-Strauss: the incest taboo is “in origin neither purely cultural nor purely natural, nor is a composite mixture of elements from both nature and culture. It is the fundamental step because of which, by which, but above all in which, the transition from nature to culture is accomplished.”
“It brings about and is in itself the advent of a new order.”

5. Incest taboo, Exogamy, Endogamy
Exogamy – seeking people to have sexual relations outside one’s group
Seeking others to become us
Endogamy – mating or marriage within a group to which one belongs
Most societies are endogamous groups
Exogamy & incest imply endogamy
3 basic models for (structures which lie underneath)

6. Endogamy Implies Exogamy
Exogamy links groups together
Endogamy keeps groups apart
Rules of endogamy help maintain social, economic, & political distinctions & preserve limitations to the access of wealth & resources

7. Marriage, Family, Kinship
rules of sexual access
form of exchange – establishes alliances
accords a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum.
family -- smallest, organized unit of kin and non-kin who interact daily, providing for the domestic needs of children and ensuring their survival
descent group -- who one is related to beyond marriage
Alliance -- relations between descent groups

8. Marriage and the Family

9. Marriage
A relationship between one or more men (male or female) and one or more women (female or male) recognized by society as having a continuing claim to the right of access to one another
All societies have marriage
About the social control of sexuality

10. Or Marriage….
Marriage is a relationship established between a woman and one or more persons which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum.

11. Forms of Marriage Monogamy = marriage between two partners
Polygamy = plural marriage = an individual has more than one spouse
Polygyny = one man many wives
Polyandry = one woman many husbands
No marriage
Serial monogamy = preferred practice in the West?

12. Forms of Marriage Levirate & sororate
Levirate = a widow marries dead husband’s brother
Sororate = a widower marries dead wife’s sister
Keeps inheritance within the same group

13. Forms of Marriage Cousin marriage
Patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage = marriage of a man to his father’s brother’s daughter
Or of a woman to her father’s brother’s son
Preferred form in Bali
Hint: parallel refers to sex linking relative
Property is retained in the male line of descent
Often related to more property ownership

14. Forms of Marriage Cousin marriage
Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage
Marriage of a woman to her father’s sister’s son
Or of a man to his mother’s brother’s daughter
Less about property than about ties of solidarity between groups

15. Levi-Strauss on Marriage as Exchange
Levi-Strauss: "It's not the man that marries the maid, but field marries field, vineyard marries vineyard, cattle marries cattle”
a set of rights the couple & their families obtain over one another, including rights to the couple's children

16. Marriage and wealth exchange
Bridewealth
payment to wife and/or wife’s family
pays for loss of daughter
Dowry
payment to husband and/or husband family
correlated to low women gender status
pays for adding women to descent group

17. buying & selling of commodities is a one time event
bridewealth establishes an enduring bundle of reciprocal rights & obligations between relatives of the couple that will last as long as the marriage lasts

18. MARRIAGE EXCHANGES marriage means alliances
people don't just take a spouse they assume obligations to a group of in-laws
often more a relationship between groups than one between individuals-marriage involves

19. Levi-Strauss and women as objects of exchange
marriage systems - a form of exchange - "that as soon as I am forbidden a woman, she thereby becomes available to another man, and somewhere else a man renounces a woman who thereby becomes available to me." (Levi-Strauss:51)
wife givers & wife takers
nevertheless, as exchange marriage implies reciprocity = obligations assumed in creation & maintenance of alliances

20. Marriage and the Family
Variation in forms of marriage related to variations in forms of family
Nuclear family = parents and children
Extended family = 3 or more generations
Joint family or collateral household = siblings, their spouses and children
Forms of family change over time, over life cycle

21. Forms of Family & Subsistence
Forager band = group of nuclear families
Industrial economy = also nuclear family
Neither foragers nor industrial societies tied to the land
Emphasis on mobility, small-size, self-sufficiency
Cultivators and Horticulturalists = extended, joint, collateral households
Extended family associated with sedentary cultivation, herding & private property
Keeps property in family
Provides needed labor

22. Family in Canada, Europe, US
A unit bounded biologically & legally
Associated with property
Economic self sufficiency
Associated with emotional life
Associated with a space inside a home
Emerges in complex state-governed societies
Keep neighbors out compared to others that add children & neighbors as kin

23. Post-Marital Residence Patterns
Patrilocal
Matrilocal
Bi-local
Neolocal
Avunculocal – living with mother’s brother or father’s sister
Virilocal – living with husband’s relatives (patrilineal descent)
Uxorilocal – living with wife’s relatives (matrilineal descent)

24. Post-Marital Residence Patterns
70% of all societies patrilocal
Matrifocal households – women headed households with no permanently resident husband-father
Patrifocal – 3 men and a baby?
Post-marital residence patterns change during life cycle of marriage, over time

25. Kinship Patterns Relations of descent (endogamy)
Consanguineal relationships (sanguine = red)
Relations of blood
Relations of alliance (exogamy)
Affinal relationships (affinity)
Through marriage (in-laws)

26. Kinship & Descent
For many societies kinship & descent lines are the main way people organize themselves
The relationships we establish with others and within our biological group and outside our group are coded in kin terms

27. kin terms
sometimes mark specific relationships, sometimes lump together several genealogical relations
lineal relatives - ancestor, descendent on direct line of descent to or from ego
collateral kin - all other biological kin, siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles
affines - relatives by marriage

28. Relationships are traced through a central individual labelled EGO.
Kinship Symbols
A circle
        
represents a female
A triangle
       
represents a male
An equal sign
          
represents a marriage
A vertical line
           
represents descent or parentage
A horizontal line
represents a sibling bond.
Relationships are traced through a central individual labelled EGO.

29. kinship diagram

30. Descent Unilineal Kinship and Descent
unilineal descent groups, either patrilineages or matrilineages according to the prevailing descent rule
over twice the number of descent system (70% of all groups considered in one sample) follow unilineal kinship rules (Murdock 1949:59
In many societies unilineal descent groups assume important corporate functions such as land ownership, political representation and mutual aid and support

31. Unilineal Descent
Patrilineal systems are much more common than matrilineal ones, occurring at roughly twice the incidence
the "tribes" of Israel were patrilineages and ancient Greek and Roman family organization.
Matrilineal systems are less frequent but are still ethnographically important.
West African Ashanti kingdom developed within a matrilineal society
heir to the throne is not the king's (Asantehene's) own child but his sister's son
Early British emissaries to Ashanti learned about this family system the hard way
supported several of the Asantehene's sons to be educated in England only to realize that the allies they had so carefully cultivated were not in line to assume the throne.

32. Lineal and Collateral Kin
                                                                               
   
Lineal Kin - ancestors or descendants
Collateral Kin - sibling branches

33. Matrilineal and Patrilineal Kin
Patrilineal , or agnatic, relatives are identified by tracing descent exclusively through males from a founding male ancestor.
Matrilineal , or uterine, relatives are identified by tracing descent exclusively through females from a founding female ancestor.

34. Matrilineal and Patrilineal Kin
                                                                               
   
Patrilineal Kin - linked through males.
Matrilineal Kin - linked through females
Cross Relatives - cross sexed linked

35. Patrilineage -- male ego
                                                                                                                                                             

36. Patrilineage – female ego
                                                                               

37. Matrilateral and Patrilateral Kin
                                                                               
Matrilateral and Patrilateral Kin
Patrilateral Kin Matrilateral Kin
   
Patrilateral Kin
Matrilateral Kin

38. cross relatives
kin on each side, who are neither patrilineal or matrilineal
cross cousins are of particular importance, especially for some marriage systems
Cross cousins can be identified as the children of opposite sexed siblings (of a brother and sister) and parallel cousins as the children of same sexed siblings (of two brothers or two sisters).

39. Dual Descent or Ambilineal Descent
                                                                               

40. Bilateral Descent Also called cognatic descent Canada, US, Europe
ego sees his or her relatives on both sides as being of equal closeness & relevance
the degree of closeness is based on generational distance separating the individuals (our system)

41. Bilateral Kindred
a person's bilateral set of relatives who may be called upon for some purpose
no two persons belong exactly to the same kin group
ego centered with kindred of close relatives spreading out on both your mother's and father's sides
connected only because of you

42. Strengths of Bilateral System
Overlapping membership
Widely extended, can form broad networks
Flexible
Useful for groups that do not live in same place
Useful when valued resources are limited

43. Structures of Descent lineages (patri & matri) - common ancestor
clan – several lineages common ancestor, usually large groups that are associated with mythical ancestors
phratry - unilineal descent group composed of a number of supposedly related clans
moieties - means half, when an entire society is divided into 2 unilineal descent groups
many societies have 2 or more types of descent groups in various combinations
some have lineages & clans, others may have clans & phrateries but no lineages

44. Lineage
a corporate descent group whose members trace their genealogical links to a common ancestor
corporate = shares resources in common
own property
organize labour
assign status
regulate relations with other groups
endures beyond individual members

45. Clan
a non-corporate descent group whose members claim descent from a common ancestor without knowing the genealogical inks to that ancestor
often produced through fission of lineage into newer, smaller lineage

46. characteristics of the clan
greater genealogical depth than lineage
lacks residential unity (in contrast to lineage)
a ceremonial unit that meets on special occasions
handle important integrative functions
may regulate marriage outside clan

47. clans are often dependent on symbols as integrative feature
totem: a symbol of a clan’s mythical origin that reinforces clan member’s common descent
totem from Ojibwa ototeman; he is a relative of mine

48. totemism defined by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown
a set of “customs and beliefs by which there is set up a special system of relations between the society and the plants, animals, and other natural objects that are important in the social life”
among the Haida of west coast Canada
Bear, Killer Whale, Cannibal Spirit, Salmon, and Beaver

49. Phratries and Moieties
less common forms of descent groups
phratry: a unilineal descent group composed of at least two clans that supposedly share a common ancestry, whether they do or not
if a society is broken into only two large groups (clan or phratry), each group is referred to as a MOIETY
moieties, phratries, clans and lineages
from most inclusive to the least inclusive
all typically associated with exogamy

50. Functions of Kinship and Descent
function as primary groups
institutions which normally recruit personnel by the criterion of inherited status
group's unity and character reflect bonds formed upon common origin and identity and which address the general welfare of the membership rather than a specific and intentionally defined objective
type of functions varies crossculturally
include the major activities of economic, political, and religious life
In a general sense, the kinship unit often constitutes a corporate group which becomes a legal entity in itself and is assigned collective rights on behalf of its members and their estates