Who Do You Marry? 2: Using Know-How
‘Who do I marry?’ Since times lost in history for most people the answer to this
question has been ’you marry your cousin’.
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Last session we learned that some social scientists argue that this is the
result of a rule, which you must obey.
This week we will learn that other social scientists disagree: ‘You marry your
cousin’ is the result of people using their know-how.
Bourdieu’s Criticism of Levi-Strauss on Kinship Rules
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Last session we learned that Mauss and Levi-Strauss have an elegant and
convincing argument that explains why Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage is
common, and why other types of Cousin Marriage are rare or exceptional.
Bourdieu argues that this explanation is an illusion. Why?
Anthropologists have been talking mostly to men. Sure enough, if an
anthropologist interviews Kabyle men and asks a father ‘Who will your son
marry?’ the father will reply ‘My brother’s daughter’.
So the anthropologist goes away with the idea that the Kabyle have a rule,
Patrilateral Parallel-Cousin marriage (you marry your father’s brother’s
daughter).
This is true, they do have this rule, but the anthropologist has missed a vital
piece of information. This is only Official Kinship.
There is another network of marriage practices, Practical Kinship.
Official Kinship
This is used by Kabyle people in special circumstances.
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Kabyle people refer to the father’s brother’s daughter rule on formal occasions
(like when an anthropologist from the University of Paris asks them about their
marriage practices!)
On such formal occasions, Kabyle men’s job is to represent their kin group to
outsiders. Using official kinship is mostly a male domain.
But high-prestige Kabyle actually do obey the rule. This signals their high
status, their difference from the common sort.
Practical Kinship
Kabyle people do practical kinship when a marriage is on the agenda, when a boy or
girl in their kin group is reaching adolescence.
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This is the key issue. Kabyle people rely on help from their kin, kin-by-blood
and kin-by-marriage, when dealing with problems (problems which we in the
UK would probably turn over to the state).
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So the Kabyle keep a close eye on getting help with future problems when
they arrange a marriage.
The Kabyle kin group aims to create a marriage alliance with another kin
group who will help if they run into problems.
That target group’s got to have the resources to help; it’s got to be living near
enough to help; and it’s got to be reliable.
Kabyle women play the major part in fixing this.
Table 1: Ahmed’s marriage
to Khedouja
Great
Grandfather
Ahmed
Ahcene
Ardjab
Koula
Mohand
Our
Ahmed
=
Athman
Our
Khedouja
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Ahmed’s Marriage to Khedouja
So what’s going on here?
Arranging an Alliance
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Koula is probably the key player. With an eye to getting help with future
problems, she has figured out her best option out of those people she has to
hand.
Her plan is to marry her nephew Ahmed to her daughter Khedouja, which will
unite both sides of her family as able, nearby and reliable partners.
She will have laid out her plan for the marriage to her brother Mohand and her
husband Athman.
Problems with Koula’s Plan
But Koula’s plan has a serious problem which could hit both sides of her family.
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Jealous neighbours may accuse Ahmed of marrying his father’s sister’s
daughter. See the short dashes in the diagram.
This accusation would raise a big scandal that will hit both sides of Koula’s
family, husband’s and brother’s. Official kinship rules say Ahmed should be
marrying his father’s brother’s daughter. Official Kinship has come into play.
Jealous neighbours may call Ahmed ‘his mother’s son’, which is a deadly
insult for the Kabyle.
Calling someone ‘his mother’s son’ is used in witchcraft accusations, which
could end up with a mob murdering Ahmed. And that could provoke a blood
feud as his family retaliate by murdering other young men.
So it’s time for the men in both families to put their weight behind Koula’s plan and
take the lead in representing their kin groups publicly to outsiders.
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In public the families, led by their senior men, claim that Ahmed is related to
Khedouja through the males in his family, not through his mother. The
planned marriage is in line with official kinship rules. Official Kinship is in play
again.
See the long dashes in the diagram. Ahmed is related to Khedouja through
his father Mohand, through his grandfather Ahcene, through his grandfather’s
brother Ardjab, and through his grandfather’s brother’s son Athman – who is
Khedouja’s father.
So are they using know-how, not rules?
It certainly looks like it.
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Koula certainly knows how to fix partnerships of able, nearby and reliable
families out of the alternatives she has ready to hand
Nevertheless, certainly the Official Kinship rules come into play.
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Koula’s plan falls foul of the rules and both sides of her family have to deal
with that to avoid a potentially deadly scandal.
But then we must look at how the families deal with Official Kinship rules – they use
know-how.
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Both families, the men who must make the public case taking the lead, know
how to argue that Koula’s plan fits the official rules. We could say that ‘they
know how to work the rules’.
The rules don’t just determine what they do.
This is an excellent moment to refer back to what we have learned from philosophers
and theorists, Wittgenstein above all.
What is it to Obey a Rule?
Let’s revisit Philosophical Investigations.
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Sections §185-§239 focus on the seductive idea that our next step, what we
will do next in many settings, is determined by following a rule.
We can see that ‘Marry your father’s brother’s daughter’ would be an
example.
Wittgenstein argues that the idea gets its seductive power from an overlap
with the image of a machine, so that the machine acts as a metaphor for a
rule and vice versa.
Thus, if we are familiar with a machine, its movements seem completely
determined, as if its parts could only move in a particular way. It’s the same
with a rule: it seems as if a rule could only produce a determinate outcome.
Wittgenstein says this is wrong.
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A rule needs an interpretation. The interpretation needs an interpretation. And
so on to infinity. (This is known as the problem of infinite regress.)
This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course
of action can be made out to accord with a rule… if everything can be made out to accord with
the rule, then it can be made to conflict with it. And so there would be neither accord nor conflict
here. [Wittgenstein: §201]
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This looks very much like Koula’s family arguing that Ahmed’s marriage is “in
accord” with the official Kabyle Father’s Brother’s Daughter rule.
So what is it to obey a rule?
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Following Wittgenstein, we can say that the official Kabyle rule is like a signpost, saying ‘go this way’.
And we can get more from Wittgenstein.
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Let me ask this: what has the expression of a rule - say a sign-post - got to do with my actions? What
sort of connexion is there here? - Well, perhaps this one: I have been trained to react to this sign in a
particular way, and now I do so react to it. [Wittgenstein: §198]
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This looks very much like Koula’s family knowing how to work the father’s
brother’s daughter rule.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that there is no either/or here: neither just following rules nor just
using know-how.
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There are rules and we follow them, cousin-marriage rules of various sorts
included.
But we must know how to follow the rules and, as Ahmed’s marriage shows,
this includes knowing how to work them to suit you.
Bibliography
Bourdieu, Pierre (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Susse, Jennifer, (1995) “Obeying a rule: Wittgenstein’s Stress on Obedience in
Sections 198-202.” Conference, A Journal of Philosophy and Theory. 5(2):
15-28.
Wittgenstein, L. (1996). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
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