Social Organization
Marriage, Family, Kinship
• Marriage
– rules of sexual access
– form of exchange – establishes alliances
– accords a child 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
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?
Other Forms of Marriage
• Same Sex Marriages
– A Nuer woman who is unable to have children
is sometimes married as a "husband" to
another woman who then is impregnated by a
secret boyfriend.
– The barren woman becomes the socially
recognized father and thereby adds members
to her father's patrilineal kin group
Other Forms of marriage: Ghost
Marriage
• A Nuer man may marry a woman as a stand-in for
his deceased brother
– the children that are born of this union will be
considered descendents of the dead man -- the "ghost"
is the socially recognized father
– allows the continuation of the family line and
succession to an important social position
• A Nuer woman of wealth may marry a deceased
man to keep her wealth and power
– there will be no living husband, though she may
subsequently have children
– She is, in effect, a widow who takes care of her
husband's wealth and children until they are mature
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
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
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
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
are people buying their wives? Or
how is a wife like a T.V.?
• the price is negotiated & rights are not
given to the husband until the deal is done
– if the woman proves barren or troublesome
the goods are often refunded
– women have voice in the transactions
– women also has rights of her own in the
marriage relationship (commodities don't)
• the woman & her kinfolk can also end the
marriage if husband does not meet
obligations
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
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
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
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
Family in Canada, Europe, US
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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
The Modern Euro-North American
Family
• Family = nurturance, biofunction, love &
affection, cooperation, enduring
relationships, unconditional
• Market = sale of labour, negotiate contractual
relations of business, competitive, temporary,
contingent relations, law & legal sanctions
• family as last refuge against the state
(domestic issues & police)
• family and litigation today - family becoming
contract
Post-Marital Residence Patterns
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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)
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
KINSHIP STUDIES
SUFFIXES
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Lineal – line of descent
Local – place of residence
Lateral – of or relating to the side
Archy – government
KIN TYPES
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Consanguineals
Affinals
fictive kin
Lineals
Collaterals
DESCENT TERMS
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Bilateral
Unilineal
Matrilineal
Patrilineal
Cognatic
Endogamous Groups &
Marriage Partners
Kinship & Descent
• For some societies kinship & descent lines
are the main way people organize
themselves
• Kinship societies
– The relationships established within the
biological group and outside the biological
group are coded in kin terms
Kinship Patterns
• Relations of descent (endogamy)
– Consanguineal relationships (sanguine = red)
• Relations of blood
• Relations of alliance (exogamy)
– Affinal relationships (affinity)
– Through marriage (in-laws)
kinship and descent
• kinship as an idiom
– a way of expressing social relations and the
exchanges, rights, and obligations implied
• selective
– each system emphasizes different relations
• kinship principles define social groups
– produces forms of social stratification
• locate people within those groups
• position people and groups in relation to one
another both in space and time
kin terms
• sometimes mark specific relationships,
sometimes lump together several
genealogical relations
• lineal relatives/consanguines - 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
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.
kinship diagram
UNILINEAL DESCENT (unilateral)
• descent group membership figured
exclusively through female or male side
• matrilineal descent
• patrilineal descent
Lineal and Collateral Kin
Lineal Kin - ancestors or
descendants
Collateral Kin - sibling branches
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.
Patrilineage -- male ego
Patrilineage – female ego
Matrilateral and Patrilateral Kin
Patrilateral Kin
Matrilateral
Kin
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).
Matrilineal and Patrilineal Kin
Patrilineal Kin - linked through males.
Matrilineal Kin - linked through
females
Cross Relatives - cross sexed linked
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)
Strengths of Bilateral System
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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
Extensions of kin groups
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lineage
matrilineage
patrilineage
segmentary lineage
clan
phratry
moiety
kindred
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
Lineage
• a corporate descent group whose members
trace their genealogical links to a common
ancestor
• corporate = shares resources in common
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own property
organize labour
assign status
regulate relations with other groups
• endures beyond individual members
Clan (or sib)
• 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
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
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
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
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