Sex, marriage and kin ch. 6

marriage organizes sexuality and the production of future generations,

descent systems organize inheritance of property,

residence and family patterns are related to economic interdependence,

they are expressed in kinship terminology.
Kinship is
a social relationship formed either through consanguinity (blood ties)
or affinity (ties through marriage).
Kinship entails
rights, obligations, affection and childcare.
Families are
social and economic units organized around kinship.
The nuclear family
consists of a married couple and their children.
Nuclear family
serves as a primary arena for sexual, reproductive, economic and
socializing functions, is impermanent.
Marriage is
a public contract that creates an economic partnership, confers sexual rights,
defines the social identity of offspring and creates an alliance between kin groups.
Marriage is universal (exceptions e.g. Nayars of India)
Rights allocated by marriage (Edmund Leach)
1.
Marriage can establish the legal father of a woman's children and the legal
mother of a man's.
2.
Marriage can give either or both spouses a monopoly in the sexuality of the
other.
3.
Marriage can give either or both spouses rights to the labor of the other.
4.
Marriage can give either or both spouses rights over the other's property.
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5.
Marriage can establish a joint fund of property–a partnership–for the benefit
of the children.
6.
Marriage can establish a socially significant "relationship of affinity" between
spouses and their relatives.
Incest
sexual relations with a closer relative.
Incest taboo
prohibition of sexual relations between certain categories of relatives.
Incest taboo
is universal.
What constitute incest varies from culture to culture.
Explaining the taboo

Instinctive horror

Family disruption (attempt)


Childhood Familiarity (contempt)
Prevention of Inbreeding (biological degeneration)

"Marry out or die out"
Incest taboo
-the more accepted argument: the taboo originated to ensure exogamy (practice of
marrying out)
-the adaptive social results of exogamy, e.g. alliance formation, not only biological
degeneration.
Exogamy
Marrying outside of the group (kin, social, ethnic, religious, economic)
Maintains social
Advantages:
Political &economic alliances, affiliation continues
(e.g. European monarchies)
lower social classes
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Endogamy
In-marrying , marrying within one's own group (kin, social, ethnic, religious,
economic)
-Maintains social distance specially in stratified societies (caste, class, race)
Advantages:
Consolidation of wealth and status
(e.g. Hawaii, Egypt royal families,
elite social classes, most religious groups
Polygamy / Plural Marriages
 Polygyny (gyny  female, remember gynecologist) =
 Polyandry (andro  male, remember androcentric) =
serial monogamy = multiple marriages and divorces. = , = ,= ,= 
Polygyny
equal sex ratios  monogamy is norm in (monogamous &polygamous societies)
Polygyny  polyandry
sex ratios ≠
women():() men 
Kinship Symbols
∆: male,
○: female,
∆, ○,  □: ego
= marital tie (affinal) tie,
≠ divorced from
— blood (consanguineal) tie
=
Genealogical kin type notations
F: father, M: mother, S: son, B:brother,
Z: sister ,FZS (father's sister's son)
FZD (father's sister's daughter)
Descent
is culturally established affiliation between a child and one or both parents
Descent group
is a permanent social unit/group of kin whose members claim common ancestry.
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Unilineal descent
Kinship is traced through maternal or paternal line but not both
Patrilineal descent
Matrilineal descent ≠ Matriarchy
Bilateral descent
both maternal or paternal line.
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