Marriage, Family, Kinship
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
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
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.”
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)
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
Marriage, Family, Kinship
• Marriage
– 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 birthstatus 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
Marriage and the Family
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
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.
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?
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
•
•
•
•
•
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
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)
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 Patterns
• Relations of descent (endogamy)
– Consanguineal relationships (sanguine = red)
• Relations of blood
• Relations of alliance (exogamy)
– Affinal relationships (affinity)
– Through marriage (in-laws)
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
Matrilineal and Patrilineal Kin
Patrilineal Kin - linked through males.
Matrilineal Kin - linked through
females
Cross Relatives - cross sexed linked
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).
Dual Descent or Ambilineal
Descent
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)
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
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
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
–
–
–
–
own property
organize labour
assign status
regulate relations with other groups
• endures beyond individual members
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
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
totemism defined by A.R. RadcliffeBrown
• 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
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
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