Ch.12 Flashcards
Briefly describe what anthropologists mean by relatedness.
Focussing on how such human experiences as sexuality, conception, birth, and nurturance are selectively interpreted and shaped into shared cultural practices, that anthropologist call relatedness.
Takes,many forms: friendship, marriage, parenthood, shared links to a common ancestor, workplace associations, etc.
These intimate every day, relationships are always in bedded in, and shaped by, brother, structures of power, wealth, and meaning.
What do we call systems based on ideas of shared substance?
Substance believed to be shared may be a bodily one (blood, genes, or mothers milk) or a spiritual one (soul, spirit, nurturance, or love). These are called kinship systems: social relationships that are prototypically derived from the universal human experience of mating, birth, and nurturance
What do we call the different relationships based on mating, on birth, and on nurturance?
Mating marriage: are referred to, affinal relationship
Affinal relationship: kinship connections, through marriage, or affinity.
Consanguineal relationships: based on birth —> kinship connections, based on descent
Are all systems of relatedness in different societies the same?
No, they are not. Different societies highlight some features of these experiences, while downplaying, or even ignoring others.
European‘s North American know that in their societies mating is not the same thing as marriage, although a culturally valid marriage encourages mating between the married partners. Similarly, all births do not constitute valid with links of descent: children whose parents have not been married according to accepted, legal or religious specifications do not fit the cultural logic of descent, and many societies offer no positions that they can properly fill. Finally, not all acts of nurturance are recognized as adoption : consider, foster parents in Canada, whose custody of foster children is officially temporary.
Identify the two major strategies of establishing patterns of descent.
- bilateral descent: The descent group is formed by people who believe they are related to each other by connections, made through their mothers and fathers equally. That is, they believe themselves to be just as related to the father side of the family as to their mothers.
- Unilinear descent, is based on the assumption that the most significant can relationships must be traced through either the mother or the father. Such descent groups are the most common kind of distant group in the world today.
Identify and briefly describe the two main forms of lineages.
• Bilateral kinship
— 1 is made up of people who claim to be related to one another through ties. Either from the mothers or the father’s side to a common ancestor. This is rare.
— bilateral kindred, consists of The Relatives of one person or group of siblings.
• unilinear descent
— patrilineal: traced through a father
— matrilineal: traced through a mother
Which lineage system is more common?
Unilinear descent groups.
Descent is based on the assumption that a persons most significant kin relationships are aligned through ones mother or ones father.
Lineages are unilinear descend groups, whose members believe they can specify all the parent child links that unite them.
Are matrilineages just mirror images of patrilineages? Explain.
Yes. Certain features of matrilineages make them more than just images of patrilieages. The prototypical kernel of matrilineages is the sister brother pair may be thought of as a group of brothers and sisters connected through links made by women.
The most important man in a boys life is not his father, but his mother’s brother, from whom he will receive his lineage inheritance.
Briefly describe adoption and naming among the Inuit of Nunavut.
It is called, custom adoption. A traditional form of adoption in which the adopte maintains a flexible relationship with her or his birth and adoptive families.
This form of adoption is generally considered to be more welcoming and less stigmatized, then adoption among southerners
Parents and other relatives assign the adoptee the name of a deceased relative. This act not only commemorates the deceased but Also forms of vital, symbolic connection between the adoptee and her or his name sake, allowing the namesake to live on in the community.
It is often viewed as reincarnation— the embodiment of continuity from person to person, and generation to generation.
Outline the key characteristics of a prototypical marriage.
- Transforms the status of the participants.
- Stipulate to the degree of sexual access the married partners are expected to have two each other, ranging from exclusive to preferential.
- Perpetuates social patterns through the production or adoption of offspring, who also have rights and obligations.
- Creates relationships between the kin of the partners.
- It’s symbolically marked in someway.
Briefly describe woman marriage among the Nuer.
A woman could marry another woman, and become the father of the children. The wife bore. This involves the distinction between pater (biological father) and genitor (social father).
The female husband (the pater) had to have some cattle of her own to use for bridewealth payments to the wife’s lineage. Once the bridewealth had been paid, the marriage was established. The female husband, then got a kinsman, friend, or neighbour (the genitor) to impregnate the wife, and to help with certain tasks around the Homestead , that the Nuer believed could be done only by men.
Female husband was unable to have children herself
Briefly describe ghost marriage among the Nuer.
The Nuer believed that a man who died without male heirs left, an unhappy and angry spirit, who might trouble his living kin. The spirit was angry because of basic obligation of Nuer kinship was for a man to be remembered through and by his sons: his name had to be continued in his lineage. To appease the angry spirit, kinsman of the dead man, a brother, or a brothers son would often marry a woman “to his name”.
• Bridewealth cattle were paid in the name of the dead man to the patrilineage of a woman.
• kinsman acted as though he were the true husband
• children of the union were referred to as though they were the kinsman’s, but officially they were not.
• ghost marriages serve to perpetuate social patterns
Identify the four patterns of residence after marriage.
Neolocal residence: in which the new couples set up an independent household, at a place of their own choosing. Tends to be found in societies that are more or less individualistic in their organization.
Patrilocal: when the married couple lives with or near the husband’s father’s family. Observed by more societies in the contemporary world than any other residents pattern.
Matrilocal: when the married couple lives with or near the family, in which the wife was raised. (Near wife’s mother)
Avunculocal: a married couple lives with or near the husbands mother’s brother.
Identify and briefly describe the three different forms of marriage (in terms of how many spouses a person may have).
Monogamy: a marriage pattern in which a person may be married to only one spouse at a time
Polygamy: a marriage pattern in which a person may be married to more than one spouse at a time
Polygyny: a marriage pattern in which a man may be married to more than one wife at a time
Polyandry: a marriage pattern in which a woman may be married to more than one husband at a time
What is fraternal polyandry?
A group of brothers may marry one woman. During the wedding, one brother, usually the oldest, serves as the groom. Other brothers, including those yet to be born to the husband’s parents are married by this wedding, establishes public recognition of the marriage. The wife and her husband live together, usually patrilocally.
• all, brothers have equal sexual access to the wife, and all act as fathers to the children. Sometimes a child is recognized as having one particular genitor, who may be a different brother from the genitor of his or her siblings.
