Sex, Marriage and Family

1
Chapter 9

• Sex, Marriage and Family

2
Sexual Relations

• Among primates, the human female is unusual in
  her ability to engage in sexual activity whether
  she is fertile or not.
• Every society has rules that govern sexual access.

3
Distinction Between Marriage and Mating

• All animals, including humans, matesome for life
  and some not, some with a single individual and
  some with several.
• Mates are secured and held solely through
  personal effort and mutual consent.
• Marriage is a culturally recognized right and is
  backed by social, political, and ideological
  factors that regulate sexual relations and
  reproductive rights and obligations.

4
Marriage

• A relationship between one or more men (male or
  female) and one or more women (female or male)
  who are recognized by society as having a
  continuing claim to the right of sexual access to
  one another.

5
Social Functions of Marriage

• Create relationships between men and women that
  regulate mating and reproduction.
• Provide a mechanism for regulating the sexual
  division of labor.
• Creates a set of family relationships that
  provide for the material, educational, and
  emotional needs of children.

6
Sexual and Marriage Practices among the Nayar

• The Nayar are one of many examples of sexually
  permissive cultures.
• A landowning warrior caste, their estates are
  held by corporations made up of kinsmen related
  in the female line.
• These relatives live together in a household,
  with the eldest male serving as manager.
• Traditionally, Nayar boys began military training
  around age of 7, and were away from home for
  significant stretches of time.

7
The Nayar Three Traditional Transactions

• Ritual Husband
• Shortly before a girl experienced her first
  menstruation there was a ceremony that joined her
  with a ritual husband in a temporary union
  which did not necessarily involve sexual
  relations.

8
The Nayar Three Traditional Transactions

• Visiting Husband
• When a young Nayar woman entered into a
  continuing sexual liaison with a man approved by
  her family, it became a formal relationship that
  required the man to present her with gifts three
  times each year until the relationship was
  terminated.
• The man could spend the nights with her, but had
  no obligation to support her economically.
• The woman may have had such an arrangement with
  more than one man at the same time.

9
The Nayar Three Traditional Transactions

• Acknowledging Paternity
• When the woman became pregnant, one of the men
  with whom she has a relationship must acknowledge
  paternity by making gifts to the woman and the
  midwife.

10
Kin Relations

• Consanguineal kin
• Relatives by birth so-called blood relatives.
• Affinal kin
• Relatives by marriage.

11
Incest Taboo

• The prohibition of sexual relations between
  specified individuals, usually parent-child and
  sibling relations at a minimum.

Natural Aversion Theory there is a natural
aversion to sexual intercourse among those who
have grown up together. Inbreeding Theory
mating between close kin produces a higher
incidence of genetic defects. Family disruption
Theory mating between family members would
create intense jealousies creating
disfunction. Theory of Expanding Social
Alliances marry outside the immediate family
creates a wider network of inter-family-alliances.
12
Endogamy and Exogamy

• Endogamy
• Marriage within a particular group or category of
  individuals.
• Exogamy
• Marriage outside the group.

13
Question

• ____________ are relatives by birth, or so-called
  "blood kin."
• Affinal kin
• In laws
• Conjugal kin
• Kith and kin
• Consanguineal kin

14
Question

• Consanguineal kin are relatives by birth, or
  so-called "blood kin."

15
Question

• Marriage within a particular group of individuals
  is called
• incest.
• exogamy.
• monogamy.
• endogamy.
• polygamy.

16
Answer D

• Marriage within a particular group of individuals
  is called endogamy.

17
Forms of Marriage

• Monogamy
• Polygyny
• Polyandry
• Bigamy
• Group marriage
• Fictive (Ghost) marriage

18
Monogamy

• Monogamy is the most common form of marriage,
  primarily for economic reasons.
• In most of the world, marriage is not based on
  romantic love, but on economic considerations.

Paul Newman Joanne Woodward Married over 50
years.
http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic
le/2008/09/01/AR2008090102087.html
19
Serial Monogamy

• A form of marriage in which a man or woman
  marries a series of partners.
• Increasingly common among middle-class North
  Americans as individuals divorce and remarry.

Larry King 6th wife Shawn Southwick
20
Polygamy Vs. Polygyny

• Polygamy One individual having multiple spouses
  at the same time (Polymany gamousmarriage)
• Polygyny Marriage of a man to two or more women
  at the same time a form of polygamy.

Warren Jeffs, leader of a polygamist seck known
as the Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints. Arrested 2006, for rape
Sentenced , 2007 to 10yrs. Colorado City, AZ
Hilsdale, UT.
21
Polyandry

• Marriage of a woman to two or more men at one
  time a form of polygamy.

In Tibet, where inheritance is in the male line
and arable land is limited, the marriage of
brothers to a single woman (fraternal polyandry)
keeps the land together by preventing it from
being repeatedly subdivided among sons from one
generation to the next.
Also provides male labor for the Tibetan mixed
economy of farming, herding, and trading.
22
Bigamy

• Bigamy Two simultaneous monogamous marriages.

23
Group (Co-) Marriage

• Marriage in which several men and women have
  sexual access to one another.

Ex Among members of an Eskimo hunting crew a
headman could lend his wife to a crew member who
could then borrow his wife in turn. The families
enter into a partnership relationship that can be
as strong as kinship where the children are
raised with retained recognition of the
relationship.
24
Fictive (Ghost) Marriage

• Marriage by proxy to the symbols of someone not
  physically present to establish the social status
  of a spouse and heirs.
• Ex In the Nuer culture (who are cattle herders)
  of southern Sudan a woman can marry a man who has
  died without any heirs.
• The deceased mans brother may stand-in on his
  behalf if they have offspring the children will
  be considered the dead mans legitimate heirs.

25
Cousin Marriage

• 19 states allow first cousin marriages in US.
• 31 states do not allow it.
• In some societies, the preferred spouse for a man
  is his fathers brothers daughter, known as
  patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage. (Arabs,
  ancient Israelites Greeks).
• Parallel cousin marriage
• Some societies favor matrilateral cross-cousin
  marriagemarriage of a man to his mothers
  brothers daughter, or a woman to her fathers
  sisters son.
• Cross cousin marriage

26
Arguments Against Same Sex Marriage

• Marriage has always been between males and
  females.
• Same-sex marriages have been documented for a
  number of societies in Africa but in other parts
  of the world as well.
• Same-sex unions legitimize gays and lesbians,
  whose sexual orientations have been widely
  regarded as unnatural.
• Neither cross-cultural studies nor studies of
  other animal species suggest that homosexual
  behavior is unnatural.

27
Arguments Against Same Sex Marriage

• The function of marriage is to produce children.
• Marriage involves economic, political, and legal
  considerations.
• It is increasingly common for same-sex partners
  to have children through adoption or reproductive
  technologies.

28
Marriage Exchanges

• Bride-price
• Payment of money from the grooms to the brides
  kin.
• 46 of all societies, most widely found in Africa
  (82 of societies).
• Bride service
• The groom is expected to work for a period of
  time for the brides family.
• Often moves in with them to help hunt, etc.
• Found in approximately 14 of societies.
• Dowry
• Payment of a womans inheritance at the time of
  marriage to her or her husband.
• Found in less than 3 of societies

29
Dowry

• In some societies when a woman marries, she
  receives her share of the family inheritance
  which she brings to her new family. Shown here
  are Slovakian women carrying the objects of a
  womans dowry.

30
Question

• Bride __________ refers to the period of time a
  groom is expected to work for his bride's family.
• price
• service
• period
• exchange
• work

31
Answer B

• Bride service refers to the period of time a
  groom is expected to work for his bride's family.

32
Divorce

• Factors contributing to divorce
• Many marriages are based on ideals of romantic
  love or the idealization of youth.
• Establishing an intimate bond in a society in
  which people are taught to seek individual
  gratification is difficult.

33
Marriage Family

• Family consists of people who consider
  themselves related by blood, marriage or
  adoption.
• Nuclear Vs. Extended families
• Married couples couples w/ kids single parents
  with child/ren polygamous spouses w/ kids/ - to
  several generations of parents w/ kids.
• Patrilineal Vs. Matrilineal

34
Functions of the Family
The family fulfills basic needs or functions
within the society.
Functions

• Socialization of children
• Care of the sick and aged
• Recreation
• Sexual control
• Reproduction
• Economic productivity

35
Household

• Basic residential unit in which economic
  production, consumption, inheritance, child
  rearing, and shelter are organized and carried
  out.
• i.e., Family members that live in the same house.

36
Forms of the Family

• Conjugal family
• A family consisting of one (or more) man (who may
  be a female) married to one (or more) woman (who
  may be a male), and their offspring.
• Consanguineal family
• Related women, their brothers, and the womens
  offspring.

37
Forms of the Family

• Nuclear family
• A group consisting of one or more parents and
  dependent offspring, which may include a
  stepparent, stepsiblings, and adopted children.
• Extended family
• A collection of nuclear families, related by ties
  of blood, that live in one household.

38
Nuclear Families and the Inuit

• Among Inuit people in Canada who still hunt for
  much of their food, nuclear families are typical.
  Their isolation from other relatives is usually
  temporary. Much of the time they are found in
  groups of at least a few related families.

39
Extended Family

• In the Maya communities of Central America and
  Mexico, sons bring their wives to live in houses
  built on the edges of a small open plaza, on one
  edge of which their fathers house already
  stands. All members of the family work together
  for the common good and deal with outsiders as a
  single unit.

40
Household Types in the United States in 2000
41
Five Basic Residence Patterns

• Patrilocal
• Matrilocal
• Ambilocal
• Neolocal
• Avunculocal

42
Residence Patterns

• Patrilocal residence
• A residence pattern in which a married couple
  lives in the locality associated with the
  husbands fathers relatives.
• Matrilocal residence
• A residence pattern in which a married couple
  lives in the locality associated with the wifes
  relatives.

43
Residence Patterns

• Ambilocal residence
• A pattern in which a married couple may choose
  either matrilocal or patrilocal residence.
• Neolocal residence
• A pattern in which a married couple may establish
  their household in a location apart from either
  the husbands or the wifes relatives.

44
Residence Patterns

• Avunculocal residence
• Residence of a married couple with the husbands
  mothers brother.

45
Families in a Globalized World

• Many of Chinas 114 million migrant laborers work
  in factories and live in factory dormitories such
  as this.