Marriage

1
Marriage Kinship
2
Kinship

• Relationship between any entities that share a
  genealogical origin, through either biological,
  cultural, or historical descent.
• Kinship system includes people related both by
  descent and marriage

3
Kinship Patterns

• A network of people who are related by marriage,
  blood, or social practice
• Kinship is a means by which societies can
  socialize children and transmit culture from one
  generation to the next
• Kinship creates complex social bonds
• Affinity - Human kinship relations through
  marriage

4
Incest Taboo

• All known human societies prohibit sexual
  relations between persons who are classified as
  close blood kin.
• Cultural variations
• Sanctions against violations of the incest
  prohibition are not universally strong

5
Why is the Incest prohibition universal?

• Social advantage of the rule
• Expansion of the group through inclusion of new
  members
• Forging of alliances across kin boundaries
• Functionalist Explanation
• Widespread incest would lead to biological
  degeneration through transmission of inheritable
  disease

6
Marriage

• Two individuals involved in a socially approved
  relationship
• Intimate, mutual long-term obligations
• Fulfilled customary, ceremonial, or legal
  requirements

7
Functionalism and the FamilyThe Family Satisfies
Common Social Functions

• Socialization
• Family is responsible for primary care and early
  learning
• Birth
• Regulates sexual activity
• Choosing mates and perpetuating population
• Economic
• Assigning assets
• Important economic production and consumption
  unit
• Support and comfort
• Help with problems
• Social placement
• Children inherit status and class of parents

8
Romantic Love

• An emotional identification between two
  individuals
• Intense
• Convinced they cannot live without each other
• Not considered important for marriage until 20th
  century
• An important incentive to marry
• Love provides a source of support
• Strong commitment to each other

9
Types of Families

• Nuclear Family a social unit composed of a
  husband, a wife, and their children
• Family orientation family to which one was born
• Blended family spouses and their children from
  former marriages live as a single nuclear family
• Binuclear family divorced parents form separate
  households children divide their time with each
• Extended Family
• Composed of two or more generations of kin that
  functions as an independent social and economic
  unit

10

• Endogamy ? one marries inside the group.
• Exogamy ? one marries outside the group.
• Most human groups are both endogamous and
  exogamous to varying degrees
• Expected to marry ones own kind, but not
  someone classified as a close relative

11
Inheritance Succession

• Kinship connected with inheritance and
  succession.
• Both institutions deal with transmission of
  resources from one generation to the next.
• Inheritance ? transmission of property
• Succession ? transmission of office, specified
  rights, and duties as an ascribed status

12
Six possible principles for transmission of kin
group membership and resources

• Patrlineal transmission of membership and / or
  resources takes place only through the fathers
  lineage
• Matrilineal transmission of membership and / or
  resources takes place only through the mothers
  lineage
• Double some resources are transmitted through
  the fathers lineage, others through the mothers
  lineage. The two lineages are kept separate
• Cognatic resources can be transmitted through
  kin on both mothers and fathers side
  (bilaterally)
• Parallel rare variety whereby men transmit to
  their sons and women to their daughters
• Crossing or Alternating - rare variety which
  represents the opposite of the previous one men
  transmit to their daughters, women to their sons

13
Clans Lineages

• Lineage consists of a person who can indicate, by
  stating all the intermediate links, common
  descent from a shared ancestor
• Clan encompasses people who assume shared descent
  from an ancestor without being able to enumerate
  all of these links

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• Monogamy individual has only one spouse at a
  time
• Polygyny a system where a man can have several
  wives
• Polyandry where a woman can have several
  husbands
• Marriage is very commonly perceived as a
  relationship between groups
• Divorce occurs in most societies in the world
• About 30 percent of first marriages in the US end
  in divorce.

15
Polygyny

• Polygyny is the preferred form of marriage in
  83.6 percent of human societies.
• It is especially common in frontiers, areas of
  internal warfare, and where fraternal work groups
  are the basis of subsistence

16
Levirate Marriage

• Polygyny is often associated with the custom of
  the levirate, in which a close relative is
  expected to marry a mans widow
• - The levirate produces offspring for the
  deceased man
• - It also provides for the economic welfare of
  the widow.

17
Polyandry

• Common where the subsistence base is highly
  limited and increased family size is detrimental
• Practiced in about half a percent of societies.

18
Household and postmarital residence rules

• - Virilocality (patrilocality)
• Living with or by the husbands parents
• Practiced in about 67 percent of societies,
  especially where men predominate in food
  production and where internal warfare is common.
• Matrilocality
• Living with or by the wifes parents
• - found in about 15 percent of societies,
  particularly those where women are the main food
  producers

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• Bilocality
• Spouses live separately from each other
• - practiced in about 5 to 10 percent of
  societies, where flexibility in residence choice
  is beneficial
• Neolocality
• - Resides separately from both sets of
  parents
• practiced in about 5 percent of societies,
  where independent nuclear families are most
  adaptive

20
Dowry Bridewealth

• Dowry bride brings gifts from her family into
  the marriage. Seen as compensation to the mans
  family for undertaking to support the woman
  economically
• Costs associated with having daughters marry are
  a main cause of the high rates of female
  infanticide in India
• Bridewealth (Bride-price) grooms kin is
  obliged to transfer resources to the brides kin
  in return for his rights to her labor and
  reproductive powers
• Establishes the rights of the man to the woman
  and her children