Chapter 7 Flashcards
Nuclear families
Consists of parents and their children
Most people belong to ____ nuclear families
Two
A family of orientation
The family in which one is born and grows up
A family of procreation
Formed when one marries and has children
Nuclear family organization is
Widespread but not universal
In certain societies, the nuclear family is
Rare, nonexistent or has no special role
Extended families and descent groups most or all
Functions otherwise associated with the nuclear family
Among the Muslims of western Bosnia
Nuclear families were embedded within large extended families
Zadrugas
Large extended families headed by a male household head and his wife
Tarawads
Nayars of southern India lived in matrilineal extended family compounds, headed by a senior woman
For many North Americans, the nuclear family is
The only well-defined kin group
Most prevalent residence pattern among middle-class North Americans
Neolocality
Neolocality
Married couples are expected to establish a new place of residence
Expanded family households (includes non-nuclear relatives)
Are more common among lower-class North Americans
An extended family household includes
Three or more generations
A collateral household includes
Siblings, their spouses, and children
Greater frequency of expanded family households among poorer Americans
Is an adaptation to poverty that enables relatives to pool their resources
Nuclear family remains a cultural idea for Americans, other domestic arrangements
Outnumber the “traditional” American household more than four to one
With more women joining the workforce,
The age of first marriage has increased
Just as the divorce rate has also risen dramatically,
the number of single-parent families has too
Percentage of adults who are married has
Decreased
Trends toward smaller families and living units in the US is
Also detectable in Western Europe and other industrial nations
Two basic social units of traditional foraging societies
Nuclear family and the band
Although nuclear families are impermanent among foragers and in other societies
They are usually more stable than bands are
Typically, bands exist only seasonally
Breaking up into nuclear families when resources became scarce
Mobility and the emphasis on small, economically self-sufficient family units
Promote the nuclear family as a basic kin group in both industrial and foraging societies
Descent group
A permanent social unit whose members claim common ancestry
Two types of unilineal descent
Patrilineal and Matrilineal
Patrilineal descent
People automatically have lifetime membership in their father’s group
In Patrilineal descent children of the group’s men
Join the group while the children of the group’s women are excluded
Matrilineal descent
People join the mother’s group automatically at birth and stay members throughout life
Matrilineal descent groups include
Only children of the group’s women
Patrilineal descent is much more
Common than matrilineal descent
Descent groups may be
Lineages or clans
Lineage
A descent group whose members can demonstrate their common descent from an apical ancestor
Clan
A descent group whose members claim common descent from an apical ancestor but cannot demonstrate it
Demonstrated descent
Lineage
Stipulated descent
Clan
Totem
A clan’s apical ancestor who is nonhuman (an animal or a plant)
Descent groups usually have
Branches that live in different villages
Many societies have both
Lineages and clans
Descent groups are permanent and
Enduring units whose members have access to lineage estates
Patrilineal and matrilineal descent, and post-marital residence rules
Ensures half of the people born in each generation will live on the ancestral estate
Two different unilocal rules of post-martial residence
Patrilocality and Matrilocality
Patrilocality
Rule for married couples, they move to the husband’s community and their children grow up in their father’s village
Matrilocality
Rule for married couples, they live in the wife’s community so their children grow up in their mother’s village
There is no single definition of _____ to account for across cultures.
Marriage
Not a universally valid definition for marriage
A man and woman such that children born are recognized as legitimate offspring
Many societies have norms of plural marriage or
Same-sex marriage
Some societies focus on civil marriages while
Others focus on religious marriage
Some societies focus on biological paternity while
Others focus on social paternity
Exogamy
Practice of seeking a spouse outside one’s own group
Exogamy forces people to
Create and maintain a wide social network
Wider social network nurtures, helps, and protects
One’s group during times of need
Incest
Refers to sexual relations with a relative
Incest taboo is
A cultural universal
What constitutes incest varies
Widely from culture to culture
A cross-cultural study of 87 societies revealed
Incest occurred in several of them
A number of classic ethnographies reported incidents of incest among,
Yanomami, Ashanti and Ojibwa
Statistics show a significant risk of father-daughter incest under certain conditions,
Such as stepfathers and fathers without significant parental responsibility
