Families, Kinship, Descent, Marriage
Incest
Universal cultural taboo. Defined differently depending on culture.
Cross Cousins
Dad's sisters children and Mom's brother's children
Kinship System
Emcompass all of the blood and marriage relationshipsthat help people distinguish among different categories of kin, create rights and obligations amongst kin, and serve as the basis for the formation of certain types of kin groups.
Levirate
If the groom dies, the wife marries the groom's brother
Sororate
If wife dies, the groom marries the wife's sister
Eskimo Kinship System
In addition to distinguishing relatives based upon sex and generation, also distinguished between lineal relatives and collateral relatives
Nuclear Family
Mom dad and siblings in a home
Exogamy
Marrying outside of a certain group. Exo=out
Kinship Diagrams
All diagrams are different They are viewed from central point of focus called Ego.
Endogamy
Restricts marriage to within a group
Unilineal Descent
People trace their ancestry through either their mothers line or the fathers line, but not both. 60% of world is this
Dowry
Family of the bride gives to the groom and his family
Arranging a Marriage in India by, Serena Coontz
- Almost all marriages are arranged in India - It's called a love match - Indians rarely date or socialize with opposite sex - They think that the person their parents choose is a better match than one they would find themselves - Trusts them - They don't think they're qualified - It's tradition - In the US marriage is very rushed into - Dowry is prohibited by law - We have an ethnocentrism bias against arranged marriages
When Brothers Share a Wife by Melvyn C. Goldstein
- Brothers marrying the same wife is one of the world's rarest forms of marriage but its not uncommon in Tibetan society - 2, 3, or 4 brothers jointly take a wife - Oldest brother is dominant and the youngest doesn't really participate in the marriage until his mid teens - All brothers share work and act as sexual partners - Provide monogamy, polyandry and polygyny - Brothers do this so they don't have to split up the families and farm animals
The Invention of Marriage By, Stephanie Coontz
- Marriage is a social invention - Blackfoot Indian tribes- men needed wives because they didn't know how to build a home - Another theory says that the women needed the men for protection: this is the most widespread myth - Marriage was created in the efforts of men to control the productive and reproductive powers of women for their own private benefit - Rich men began to accumulate wives by offering horses to girls fathers - Keeping multiple wives was most common among groups that traded with fur companies
Nayars or Nair of Malabar India
- Traces kinship through matrilineal lines - Women inherit property and live in extended family houses called Tarawads
Economic considerations of marriage
- Transfer of rights is accompanied by the transfer of some type of economic consideration - Divided into bride wealth, bride service and dowry.
Social Functions of a marriage
1. create fairly stable relationships between man and women that regulate mating 2. provide mechanisms for regulating the sexual division of labor that exists to some extent in all societies.
Lewis Henry Morgan
1818-1881 - Performed the first survey of kinship terminologies - He argued that most kinship terminologies reflect different sets of distinctions. For example: most kinship terminologies distinguish between sexes and generations - Also argued that kinship terminologies distinguish between relatives by blood and marriage
Clan
A group of close knit and interrelated families
Family
A group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity or co-residence
Bilateral Descent
A person is related equally on both sides of the family
Lineal Relative
Blood Relative in direct line of your descent
Collateral relatives
Blood relative who is not your ancestory. So your cousins, neices, aunts, uncles, siblings
Marriage as group alliance
Bride wealth, bride service and dowry
Parallel Cousins
Children of the same sex sibling as your parent. Your mothers sisters kids and fathers brothers kids
Family Structures in the US from 1970-2000
Family arrangements have become more diverse with no particular household arrangement
Arranged Marriages
Family members of the prospective bride and groom handle the negotiations and for all practical purposes, the devision of whom one will marry is made primarily by one's parents or other influential relatives. - it's a marriage of two kin groups (families) rather than two individuals. - Found in societies with elaborate social hierarchies.
Monogamy
Having one and only one spouse at a time
Plural Marriage: Polygyny
Man has more than one wife
Plural Marriage: Polygamy
Multiple spouses
Zadrugas
Muslims in Bosnia Historic Case study They live together in an extended household with a male household head and his wife.
Marriage
No universally valid definition Converts strangers into kin through affinial relationships
Expanded Family Household
Not as traditional as nuclear - Half of US is this - There is no set family arrangement in the household
Ambilineal Descent
Parents have a choice of affiliating their children with either kinship group
Preferential Cousin marriage
Practiced in one form or another. Cross cousins or parallel
Affinal Kin relation
Related through marriage
Kinship
Relationship between entities that share a genealogical origin through either biological, cultural or historical descent. - It defines who are our relatives and who a person marries and where a person lives after marriage and who inherits property - Help people adopt to interpersonal and environmental challenges. - It's not just immediate family
Bride wealth
When the groom gives to the family of the bride
Bride service
When the groom offers his labor to the brides family
Neolocal Residence
The married couple establishes an independent place of residence away from relatives of either spouse.
Ambilocal (bilocal) residence
The married couple has a choice between living with either the relatives of the wife or the relatives of the husband
Avunculocal Residence
The married couple lives with or near the husbands mother's brother
Patrilocal Residence
The married couple lives with or near the relatives of the husband's father
Matrilocal Residence
The married couple lives with or near the relatives of the wife.
Patriarchy
The men in a society have more authority and decision making than women
Matriarchy
The women in a society have more authority and decision making than men
Kinship as adaptive
They provide a plan for aligning people and resources in strategic ways - Limits on sex and who can marry who - Establish economic parameters
Multilineal Descent
Traced through both females and males families
Patrilineal
Tracing through fathers line
Matrilineal
Tracing through mothers line 15% of unilineal descent groups
Descent and Descent group
Use this term to refer to a person's kinship connections traced back through a number of generations. - Rules of descent may be divided into two distinct types: unilineal and multilineal - Descent groups have a strong sense of identity and often share property and provide economic assistance.
Ficitive Kin relation
Used for relationships that are determined by neither blood nor marriage- adoption.
Plural Marriage: Polyandry
Wife has more than one husband
Effect on Industrialism and families
With demand of the city people are leaving the farm and moving to the city into nuclear families.
Nandi of Kenya
Woman may be married to a man but she can take a wife to help her with domestic duties while she is at work