Chapter 8 - Marriage, Family, Kinship Flashcards
What defines the custom of Marriage?
- Everywhere is understood to be socially approved sexual and economic union, usually.
between a man and a women. - It is presumed, by both the couple and others, to be more or less permanent, and it subsumes
reciprocal rights and obligations (Property, finances, and child rearing) between the two spouses
and their future children. - Expecting a long-term commitment.
- Marriage is a socially approved sexual union in that the couple’s sexual relationship is implicitly
understood and condoned.
What is “Sese”?
- The Na practice (China)
- the consensual sexual union of an unmarried couple,
- When a couple agrees to see each other, the man visits the woman discretely in the evening and
returns to his own residence the next morning. - No other tie exists between the lovers, not any expectations for a longer or monogamous
relationship.
What are four major explanations about why marriage exists?
Critically evaluate them.
- Gender Division of Labor
- Prolonged Infant Dependency
- Sexual Competition
- A Look at other Mammals and Birds
- females and males in every society perform different economic activities. (Division of labor)
- female has postpartum feeding problem (like some animals)
- society has to structure a way for women and men to share the products of their labor.
(Sharing) - child care by human females may limit the kinds of work they can do. They may need the help of a
man to do certain types of work, such as hunting, that are incompatible with child care. - sexual competition between males for females. Society had prevent such competition to survive.\
(Minimizing the rivalry) - arrangement that the father knows that he is the father.
- Comparing animal bonding: infant dependency and female sexuality,
Animal species in which females are able to simultaneously feed themselves and their babies after
birth (postpartum) tend not to mate stably.
On the other hand, species in which postpartum mothers cannot feed themselves and their babies
at the same time do typically form male-female bonds.
What kinds of economic transactions are associated with marriage?
- Different rituals and ceremonies
Marriage involves economic considerations:
- bride price/bride wealth
A substantial gift of goods or money given to the bride’s kin by the groom or his kin at or before the
marriage. The right to marry the bride. Most common one. Especially, Africa and Oceania.
Likely to practice horticulture and lack social stratification, where women contribute great deal to
primary subsistence activities, contribute more to economic activities. Where men make most of
the decisions in the house hold (lower status of women)
- bride service
Work performed by the groom for his bride’s family for variable length of time either before or after
the marriage. - exchange of females
Sister or a female relative of the groom is exchanged for the bride. Societies: horticultural and
egalitarian. - gift exchange
The exchange of gifts of about equal value by the two kin groups. - dowry
Substantial transfer of goods or money from the bride’s family to the bride, the groom or the
couple. - indirect dowry
Goods given by the groom’s kin to the bride (or her father, who passes most of them to her) at or
before her marriage.
Incest taboo
Prohibition of sexual intercourse or marriage between mother and son, father and daughter and brother and sister, often extends to other relatives.
What are some of the ways cultures restrict or express preferences for whom one marries?
Restrict: incest taboo,
Expresses preferences: Arranged Marriages, exogamy, endogamy, cross-cousins, parallel cousins (also restricted in some societies),
What is exogamy?
The rule specifying marriage to a person from outside the one’s own group (kin or community). Spouses come from a distance. The lower the density of the population, the greater the marriage distance. Example: the !Kung.
What is endogamy?
The rule specifying marriage to a person within one’s own group (kin, caste, community)
Example: India - within a caste
Cross-cousins?
Children of siblings of the opposite sex.
One’s cross-cousins are the father’s sister’s children and mother’s brother’s children.
Parallel cousins?
Children of siblings of the same sex.
One’s parallel cousins are the father’s brother’s children and the mother’s sister’s children.
Monogamy?
Marriage between only one man and only one women at a time.
Polygamy?
Plural marriage; one individual is married to more than one spouse simultaneously.
Two types of polygamy: Polygyny and Polyandry
Polygyny? Sororal polygyny? Nonsororal polygyny? Why is there harmony?
One type of polygamy. Allows a man to be married to more than one woman at the same time.
A mark of great wealth or higher status in many societies. .
- > sororal polygyny: man marries to two or more sister,
- > nonsororal polygyny: who are not related
Harmony, no jealousy and conflict between them:
- Whereas sororal co-wives nearly live under the same roof, co-wives who are not sisters tend to have separate living quarters.
- Co-wives have clearly defined equal rights in the matter of sex, economics, and personal possessions.
- Senior wife’s often have special prestige, which may compensate the first wife for her loss of physical attractiveness.
Polyandry?
A type of polygamy. The marriage of one woman to more than one man at the same time. If any society has twice as many of one gender than the other.
Why is polygyny a common practice?
- Social benefits
- economic and political advantages
- provide plenty of farm labor and extra food that can be marketed,
- Tend to be in influential in their communities and are likely to produce individuals who become
government officials, - wife’s can help with childcare, household work, provide companionship and allow more freedom to
come and go, - shortage of marriageable Males
- Men can have more children
- Maximize genetic variation Of the children
-> men in societies marrying at an older age.
