Unit 3

kindred

A bilateral set of close relatives who may be called upon for some purpose.

Androphilia

A complex issue: Male-male sex found in 90% of all societies, but Androphilia present in only 60% Androphilia universal in modern societies.

Nuclear family

A family consisting of a married couple and their young children.

Independent family

A family unit consisting of one monogamous (nuclear) family, or one polygynous or one polyandrous family.

Slash-and-burn

A form of shifting cultivation in which the natural vegetation is cut down and burned off. The cleared ground is used for a short time and then left to regenerate.

Dowry

A substantial transfer of goods or money from the bride's family to the bride.

Corvée

A system of required labor.

Gender Roles

All or nearly all societies assign certain activities to females and other activities to males. Gender roles refer to role assignments for females and males that are a product of a particular culture.

The Distribution of Goods and Services

Distribution of goods and services can be classified under three general types: Reciprocity Redistribution Market or Commercial Exchange

Subsistence economies

Economies in which almost all able-bodied adults are largely engaged in getting food for themselves and their families.

classificatory terms

Kinship terms that merge or equate relatives who are genealogically distinct from one another; the same term is used for a number of different kin.

Exogamy

The rule specifying marriage to a person from outside one's own group (kin or community).

Endogamy

The rule specifying marriage to a person within one's own group (kin, caste, community).

Special-purpose money

Objects of value for which only some goods and services can be exchanged.

Economic resources

Things that have value in a culture, including land, tools and other technology, goods, and money.

Savanna

Tropical grassland.

domestic

family or kinship

Strength theory

says that males generally possess greater strength and a superior capacity to mobilize their strength in quick bursts of energy; however, not all male activities require strength, and women do hunt in some societies.

The Worldwide Trend Toward Commercialization Nonagricultural Commercial Production

when a self‐sufficient society comes to depend more and more on trading for its livelihood. This is generally done to obtain other industrially made objects.

The Worldwide Trend Toward Commercialization Supplementary Cash Crops

when people cultivating the soil produce a surplus above their subsistence requirements, which is then sold for cash

Chayanov's Rule

when resources are converted primarily for household consumption, people will work harder if they have more consumers in the household fewer people work harder and more people work less

Tributary

wherein most people still produce their own food but an elite or aristocracy controls a portion of production, including the products of specialized crafts

Inbreeding Theory

will tend to produce offspring who are more likely to die early of genetic disorders than are the offspring of unrelated spouses

Steppe

Grassland with a dry, low grass cover.

consanguineal kin

One's biological relatives; relatives by birth.

affinal kin

One's relatives by marriage.

Postpartum sex taboo

Prohibition of sexual intercourse between a couple for a period of time after the birth of their child.

Environmental Restraints on Food-Getting

The physical environment normally exercises a restraining, rather than a determining, influence on how people in an area get their food. Aridity Lack of suitable domesticates

ambilineal descent

The rule of descent that affiliates individuals with groups of kin related to them through men or women.

Food Energy Extraction Systems: I Pastoralism

dependence on herd animal for food (milk, milk products, blood, & meat) • marginal agricultural land strong trading relations warlike & patrilineal

Polygyny

is a practice in which men are allowed to be married to more than one woman at the same time.

Redistribution

is the accumulation of goods or labor by a particular person, or in a particular place, for the purpose of subsequent distribution.

The expendability theory

is the idea that men will tend to do the dangerous work in a society because the loss of men is not as great a disadvantage reproductively as the loss of women. However, it does not explain why men would put themselves in danger.

Sexually dimorphic

A marked difference in size and appearance between males and females of a species

unilocal residence

A pattern of residence (patrilocal, matrilocal, or avunculocal) that specifies just one set of relatives that the married couple lives with or near.

Bilocal residence

A pattern of residence in which a married couple lives with or near either the husband's parents or the wife's parents

Patrilocal residence

A pattern of residence in which a married couple lives with or near the husband's parents.

Matrilocal residence

A pattern of residence in which a married couple lives with or near the wife's parents.

Avunculocal residence

A pattern of residence in which a married couple settles with or near the husband's mother's brother.

Neolocal residence

A pattern of residence whereby a married couple lives separately, and usu-ally at some distance, from the kin of both spouses.

totem

A plant or animal associated with a clan (sib) as a means of group identification; may have other special significance for the group.

Caste

A ranked group, often associated with a certain occupation, in which membership is determined at birth and marriage is restricted to members of one's own caste.

clan

A set of kin whose members believe themselves to be descended from a common ancestor or ancestress but cannot specify the links back to that founder; often designated by a totem. Also called a sib.

lineage

A set of kin whose members trace descent from a common ancestor through known links.

Bride price

A substantial gift of goods or money given to the bride's kin by the groom or his kin at or before the marriage. Also called bride wealth.

double descent or double unilineal descent

A system that affiliates individuals with a group of matrilineal kin for some purposes and with a group of patrilineal kin for other purposes.

Extensive (shifting) cultivation

A type of horticulture in which the land is worked for short periods and then left to regenerate for some years before being used again. Also called shifting cultivation.

phratry

A unilineal descent group composed of a number of supposedly related clans (sibs).

moiety

A unilineal descent group in a society that is divided into two such maximal groups; there may be smaller unilineal descent groups as well.

descriptive term

A unique term used for a distinct relative.

General-purpose money

A universally accepted medium of exchange.

Childhood‐Familiarity Theory

people who have been closely associated with each other since earliest childhood, such as siblings, are not sexually attracted to each other and would therefore avoid marriage with each other. rejected early bc some attracted to siblings

Food Energy Extraction Systems: I Horticulture

(gardening, swidden or slash and burn) no fertilization or irrigation no major soil modification extensive use of land (short to permanent fallow) • simple technology (ax, machete, and digging stick)

unilineal descent

Affiliation with a group of kin through descent links of one sex only.

Sexuality

Cultural Regulations of Sexuality Premarital Sex Sex in Marriage Extramarital Sex Homosexuality Reasons for Sexual Restrictiveness Research has shown that societies that are restrictive with one aspect of heterosexual sex tend to be restrictive with regard to other aspects. That is, when premarital sex is restricted so is extra-marital sex Reasons for Restrictiveness Population size Social inequality

Gender differences

Differences between females and males that reflect cultural expectations and experiences.

Cooperation and the organization of labor

Economies of scale Massing Division of skills

Why Is Marriage Nearly Universal?

Gender Division of Labor Prolonged Infant Dependency Sexual Competition A Look at Other Mammals and Birds under the heading of pair‐ bonds

Gender Concepts

Gender differences refer to cultural expectations and experiences of females and males. Sex differences refer to purely biological differences.

Generalized Reciprocity

Gift giving without any immediate or planned return

Balanced Reciprocity

Giving with the expectation of a straightforward immediate or limited-time trade.

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.

Prairie

Grassland with a high grass cover.

Global inequality

Has increased through time, but There has been advancement by the poor as measured in Longer life expectancy Greater literacy rates Freedom from hunger Lower poverty rates

Rank Societies

Hereditary inequality, or the degree to which one's parents' status predicts an individual's status Rank societies contain social groups that do not have very unequal access to economic resources or power, but they do have unequal access to prestige.

The Allocation of Resources Horticulturalists

Horticulturalists societies also tend to lack individual or family ownership, probably because their technologies do not enable them to effectively use the same land permanently, but they are more likely to assign individuals or families use of a particular plot of land.

Food Production

Horticulture is the growing of crops of all kinds with relatively simple tools and methods. Two Horticultural Societies: The Yanomamö (slash and burn) The Samoans

Physique and Physiology

Humans are sexually dimorphic, or the females and males of our species are generally of different size and appearance. Females have proportionately wider pelvises and a larger proportion of fat; males typically are taller and have heavier skeletons, a larger proportion of muscle, greater grip strength, proportionately larger hearts and lungs, and more aerobic capacity. Females achieve their ultimate height shortly after puberty, but boys continue to grow for years after puberty. Natural selection may have favored earlier cessation of female growth so the nutritional needs of a fetus would not compete with a growing mother's needs. Gender differences may be the result of both culture and genes.

Horticulture

Plant cultivation carried out with relatively simple tools and methods; nature is allowed to replace nutrients in the soil, in the absence of permanently cultivated fields. Horticultural societies tend to be larger, more sedentary, and more densely populated than foragers, and they tend to exhibit the beginnings of social differentiation.

Variation in Unilineal Descent Systems

Lineages Clans Phratries Moieties Combinations Patrilineal Organization Matrilineal Organization

The Distribution of Goods and Services

Market or commercial exchange, where prices depend on supply and demand. Kinds of Money Degrees of Commercialization Why Do Money and Market Exchange Develop? Possible Leveling Devices in Commercial Economies

Monogamy

Marriage between only one man and only one woman at a time.

Marriage

Marriage merely means a socially approved sexual and economic union, usually between a man and a woman. The Na and Nayar Exceptions Same‐Sex Marriages

Nonsororal polygyny

Marriage of a man to two or more women who are not sisters.

Nonfraternal polyandry

Marriage of a woman to two or more men who are not brothers.

The Allocation of Resources Pastoralists

Pastoralists often combine the adaptive habits of both foragers and horticulturalists because they need large territories for grazing herds. While they tend to hold grazing land communally, pastoralists customarily own their herds individually.

Patterns of Marital Residence

Patrilocal residence Matrilocal residence Bilocal residence Avunculocal residence Neolocal residence

Hunter-gatherers

People who collect food from naturally occurring resources, that is, wild plants, animals, and fish. The term hunter-gatherers minimizes sometimes heavy dependence on fishing. Also referred to as foragers or food collectors.

Polygamy

Plural marriage; one individual is married to more than one spouse simultaneously. Polygyny and polyandry are types of polygamy.

Complex Foragers

Societies that depend on fishing are more likely to have more permanent communities and more social inequality, social inequality, higher population densities, food storage, occupational specialization, resource ownership, slavery, and competitiveness.

How Does One Marry?

Some societies mark marriages by elaborate rites and celebrations, while others do so in much more informal ways. Economic Transactions in Marriage Bride Price Bride Service Exchange of Females Gift Exchange Dowry Indirect Dowry

Explaining Ambilineal and Bilateral Systems

Some societies with unilineal descent groups may be transformed into ambilineal ones under special conditions, such as depopulation. The conditions that favor bilateral systems are in a large part opposite to those favoring unilateral descent.

Commercialization

The increasing dependence on buying and selling, with money usually as the medium of exchange.

The Emergence of Unilineal Systems.

Unilineal descent groups are most common in societies in the middle range of cultural complexity. Unilineal descent groups often have important functions in the social, economic, political, and religious realms of life

The Worldwide Trend Toward Commercialization Introduction of Commercial and Industrial Agriculture

commercial agriculture- cultivation for sale, rather than personal consumption, becomes industrialized when some of the production processes are done by machine.

Sudanese System

common in complex and stratified cultures The Sudanese system uses a different term for each relative. The system is associated with relatively great political complexity, class stratification, and occupational specialization and may reflect the need to make fine distinctions among members of descent groups.

Cooperation Theory

promoting cooperation among family groups and thus helping communities to survive

industrial societies

rely largely on mechanized production, in agriculture as well as in factories

environmental restraints on food-getting.

-Cross-cultural evidence indicates that neither foraging nor food production is significantly associated with any particular type of habitat. -Foragers farther from the equator depend much more on animals and fish; those closer to the equator depend more on plants. It is thought that foragers in tropical forests could not survive without the carbohydrates they obtain from agriculturalists. -Approximately 80 percent of all societies that practice horticulture or simple agriculture are in the tropics, whereas 75 percent of all societies that practice intensive agriculture are not in tropical forest environments; an exception is tropical rice paddies. Pastoralism is typically practiced in grassland regions. -The physical environment does not by itself account for the system of food-getting in an area; technological, social, and political factors rather than environmental factors mostly determine food-getting practices in a given environment.

Class

A category of people who have about the same opportunity to obtain economic resources, power, and prestige.

Cash crops

A cultivated commodity raised for sale rather than for personal consumption by the cultivator.

Levirate

A custom whereby a man is obliged to marry his deceased brother's wife.

Sororate

A custom whereby a woman is obliged to marry her deceased sister's husband.

Extended family

A family consisting of two or more single-parent, monogamous, polygynous, or polyandrous families linked by a blood tie. In extended families, the newlyweds are assimilated into an existing family unit. More likely to perpetuate itself as a social unit

Potlatch

A feast among Pacific Northwest Native Americans at which great quantities of food and goods are given to the guests in order to gain prestige for the host(s).

Pastoralism

A form of subsistence technology in which food-getting is based directly or indirectly on the maintenance of domesticated animals. They tend to be found in drought-prone regions. People in pastoral societies mostly live in small communities that are typically nomadic or seminomadic. Pastoral people typically do not eat their animals but use their milk and blood; they get other foods from trade with agricultural groups.

Food Energy Extraction Systems: II

Agriculture hoeing and plowing, fertilizing and mulching • irrigation and water control traction animals

The Allocation of Resources Colonialism, the State, and Land Rights

Almost universally worldwide, colonial conquerors and settlers from expanding state societies have taken land from the native people. Typically, state authorities do not like communal land-use systems and see mobile pastoralists as difficult to control.

Ambilineal Systems

Ambilineal descent affiliates individuals with kin related to them through either men or women.

Whom Should One Marry?

Arranged Marriages Exogamy and Endogamy Cousin Marriages Levirate and Sororate

Food Production

Beginning about 10,000 years ago, certain peoples in diverse geographic locations made the revolutionary changeover to food production. Three types of food production systems: Horticulture Intensive Agriculture Pastoralism

Prestige

Being accorded particular respect or honor.

The Origin of Food Production

Certain conditions must have pushed people to switch from collecting to producing food: Population growth in regions of bountiful wild resources Global population growth The emergence of hotter, drier summers and colder winters

Cross-cousins

Children of siblings of the opposite sex. One's cross-cousins are the father's sisters' children and mother's brothers' children.

Parallel cousins

Children of siblings of the same sex. One's parallel cousins are the father's brothers' children and the mother's sisters' children.

Egalitarian Societies

Egalitarian societies contain no social groups with greater or lesser access to economic resources, power, or prestige. However, women have lower status than men some people may be better hunters or more skilled artists than others, but there is still equal access to status positions for people of the same ability, so society is not socially stratified.

Ethnicity and Inequality

Ethnicity refers to common origins and language, a shared history, and selected cultural differences, such as difference in religion, that characterize a group of people.

The Allocation of Resources Technology

Every society makes use of technology, including tools, constructions, and required skills. Knowledge Technological access varies, generally being widespread among forager and horticultural societies, but not among industrial or postindustrial societies

Family

Family is defined as a social and economic unit consisting minimally of one or more parents and their children. Adoption Variation in Family Form Nuclear family Independent family Extended family

Intensive agriculture

Food production characterized by the permanent cultivation of fields and made possible by the use of the plow, draft animals or machines, fertilizers, irrigation, water-storage techniques, and other complex agricultural techniques. Societies using intensive agriculture are more likely than horticulturalists to have towns and cities, a high degree of craft specialization, complex political organization, and large differences in wealth and power.

The Allocation of Resources Foragers

Foragers- In food-collecting societies individual or family ownership of land is generally lacking. If there is ownership, it is tends to be by collective groups such as kinship groups or through communities. Territoriality is stronger when the plants and animals collected are predictably located and abundant.

Foraging

Foraging, or food collection, is generally defined as a food-getting strategy that obtains wild plant and animal resources through gathering, hunting, scavenging, or fishing. -The Inupiaq of the North American Arctic

Class Societies

Fully stratified, or class societies, range from somewhat open to virtually closed class, or caste, systems. Open Class Systems Recognition of Class Caste Systems Slavery

The Conversion of Resources

In all societies, resources have to be transformed or converted through labor into food, tools, and other goods in a process called production. Types of Economic Production: Domestic Industrial Tributary Post‐industrial Forced and Required Labor Corvée, taxation, slavery Division of Labor The Organization of Labor Making Decisions About Work All societies have some division of labor, or customary assignment of different kinds of work to different kinds of people. Gender and Age

Political Leadership and Warfare

In almost every known society, men rather than women are the leaders in the political arena. Warfare is almost exclusively a male activity. Read Highlight of Adams' and Women Warriors External war and endogamous marriage

Race

In biology, race refers to a subpopulation or variety of a species that differs somewhat in gene frequencies from other varieties of the species. Many anthropologists do not think that the concept of race is usefully applied to humans because humans do not fall into geographic populations that can be easily distinguished in terms of different sets of biological or physical traits. Thus, race in humans is largely a culturally assigned category.

The Spread and Intensification of Food Production

In the competition for land between food producers and food collectors, the food producers may have had a significant advantage. Larger population for producers

ego

In the reckoning of kinship, the reference point or focal person.

General Trends in the Evolution of Food Energy Extraction Systems

Increased landscape modification (e.g., terracing) Lowered biodiversity (lack of conservation) Increased energy output per unit area- intensification Increased energy input per unit area- intensification Specialization and monocropping Decreased use of wild resources Greater energy input per unit output (through petrochemicals)

The Allocation of Resources Intensive Agriculturalists

Individual ownership of land resources is common among intensive agriculturalists. However, some communist and socialist nations undertake intensive agriculture by forming state-run agricultural collectives

Food Energy Extraction Systems: II

Industrial Agriculture petrochemical dependent (fertilizers, insecticides & fuel) machinery monocropping severe landscape modification

Food Production

Intensive Agriculture involves techniques that enable people to cultivate fields permanently. Two Groups of Intensive Agriculturalists: Rural Greece Rural Vietnam: The Mekong Delta Pastoralism is typically practiced in grassland regions of the earth where agriculture is sometimes possible: Steppes Prairies Savannas

Kinship Terminology

Inuit, or Eskimo System Omaha System Crow System Iroquois System Sudanese System Hawaiian System

Food Production

Pastoralism is a subsistence technology principally involving the raising of large herds of animals. Two Pastoral Societies: The Basseri The Saami

The Worldwide Trend Toward Commercialization

Migratory Labor Nonagricultural Commercial Production Supplementary Cash Crops Introduction of Commercial and Industrial Agriculture

General Features of Foragers

Most live in small communities Follow a nomadic lifestyle Division of labor based on age and gender

Possible Reasons for Extended- Family Households

Most societies commonly have extended‐family households, and Mostly found in societies with sedentary agricultural economies. Prevents economically ruinous division of family property. Found where either parent must be away from the household to work. Need for cooperation in agricultural or pastoral tasks

The Allocation of Resources land

Natural Resources: land- Every society has access to natural resources—land, water, plants, animals, minerals—and cultural rules for determining who has access to particular resources. Societies differ in their rules for land access, but the differences generally relate to a society's food-getting method

Class Societies

Open Class Systems- Class systems are referred to as open if there is some possibility of moving from one class to another. Degree of Openness- Some class systems are more open than others Degree of Inequality- more unequal societies generally have less mobility from one class to another Caste Systems are characterized as extremely rigid and closed systems, with caste membership permanently determined at birth. Slavery has existed in various forms in many times and places, regardless of "race" and culture. Slavery has ranged from closed class systems, or caste systems, to relatively open class systems.

Relative Contributions to Work

Primary subsistence activities- gathering, hunting, fishing, herding, and farming Secondary subsistence activities- the processing and preparation of food for eating and storing Overall Work Chapter 14 women work more than men Subsistence Work

Incentives to labor

Profit Chayanov's Rule Social rewards of sharing Achievement or status

Incest taboo

Prohibition of sexual intercourse or marriage between mother and son, father and daughter, and brother and sister; often extends to other relatives.

Racism and Inequality

Racism is the belief that some "races" are inferior to others. Race as a Construct in Biology Race as a Social Category

Personality Differences

Recent field studies have found somewhat consistent male-female differences in personality. Boys tend to be more aggressive Girls tend to be more responsible and helpful Misconceptions about Differences in Behavior The Six Cultures project casts doubt on some beliefs about gender differences: Dependency Sociability and Passivity

Functions of Unilineal Descent Groups

Regulating Marriage Economic Functions Political Functions Religious Functions

Gender Roles

Roles that are culturally assigned to genders Why are females and males generally assigned different tasks? Strength theory Compatibility-with-child-care theory economy-of-effort theory Expendability theory

rules of descent

Rules that connect individuals with particular sets of kin because of known or presumed common ancestry.

Peasants

Rural people who produce food for their own subsistence but who must also contribute or sell their surpluses to others (in towns and cities) who do not produce their own food.

Family‐Disruption Theory

Sexual competition among family members would create so much rivalry and tension that the family could not function as an effective unit. Because the family must function effectively for society to survive, society has to curtail competition within the family. The familial incest taboo is thus imposed to keep the family intact.

Variation in Degree of Social Inequality

Social Stratification- when social groups, such as families, classes, and ethnic groups, have unequal access to important advantages: Economic resources Power Prestige

The Emergence of Stratification

Social stratification appears to have emerged relatively recently in human history, about 8,000 years ago based on archaeological evidence.

Kinship Terminology

Societies tend to refer to a number of different kin by the same classificatory term. Cousin in our system Mother or father in Iroquois Consanguineal kin Affinal kin

Hawaiian system

The Hawaiian system of kinship terminology, the least complex, uses the smallest number of terms. All relatives of the same sex in the same generation are referred to by the same term.

Inuit, or Eskimo System

The Inuit type of kinship terminology is not generally found where there are unilineal or ambilineal descent groups; the only kin group that appears to be present is the bilateral kindred, so the same terms are used for both sides of the family.

Iroquois System

The Iroquois system is like the Omaha and Crow systems in having terms for "mother" and "father" extend beyond the nuclear family, but the Iroquois system does not have lumping across generations. No cousins have the same terms as in the parental generation.

The Omaha and Crow systems

The Omaha and Crow systems of kin terminology are associated with unilineal descent (patrilineal and matrilineal, respectively). The terms differ on each side of the family and are lumped across generations on the less important side of the family.

Restrictions on Marriage:

The Universal Incest Taboo Perhaps the most rigid regulation specifying whom one may or may not marry is the incest taboo. Why is the familial incest taboo universal? Childhood‐Familiarity Theory Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory Family‐Disruption Theory Cooperation Theory Inbreeding Theory

Power

The ability to make others do what they do not want to do or influence based on the threat of force.

Gender stratification

The degree of unequal access by the different genders to prestige, authority, power, rights, and economic resources.

Food production

The form of subsistence technology in which food-getting is dependent on the cultivation and domestication of plants and animals.

Manumission

The granting of freedom to a slave.

Sororal polygyny

The marriage of a man to two or more sisters at the same time.

Fraternal polyandry

The marriage of a woman to two or more brothers at the same time.

Polyandry

The marriage of one woman to more than one man at a time.

Patrilineal descent

The rule of descent that affiliates individuals with kin of both sexes related to them through men only.

Matrilineal descent

The rule of descent that affiliates individuals with kin of both sexes related to them through women only.

Optimal foraging theory

The theory that individuals seek to maximize the returns (in calories and nutrients) on their labor in deciding which animals and plants they will go after. Optimal foraging theory The theory that individuals seek to maximize the returns (in calories and nutrients) on their labor in deciding which animals and plants they will go after.

bilateral kinship

The type of kinship system in which individuals affiliate more or less equally with their mother's and father's relatives.

Sex differences

The typical differences between females and males that are most likely due to biological differences.

Relative Status of Women

Theories suggest that women will have higher status when: (1) women contribute substantially to primary subsistence activities; (2) where residence is organized around women; (3) where warfare is unimportant; and (4) where political hierarchies are less centralized. There appears to be variation in the degree of gender stratification from one society to another. Less complex societies, however, seem to approach more equal status for males and females in a variety of areas of life. However, this is not true in the West in recent times

How Many Does One Marry?

We think of marriage as involving just one man and one woman at a time, but most societies allow a man to be married to more than one woman at a time. -Polygamy -Polygyny -One theory is that societies that have a long postpartum sex taboo allow this practice. -High parasite load and wealth -Sororal Polygyny -Non‐sororal Polygyny -Polyandry -Fraternal Polyandry -Nonfraternal Polyandry

Proximate and ultimate causes of the incest taboo

Westermarck Effect Close family interactions leads to disinterest (proximate) Inbreeding Prevention Reduced fitness from inbreeding (ultimate)

Bride service

Work performed by the groom for his bride's family for a variable length of time either before or after the marriage.

Matrilineal Organization

although the line of descent passes through females, females rarely exercise authority in their kin groups. Usually males do. Thus, the lines of authority and descent do not converge

Reciprocity

consists of giving and taking without the use of money. Sharing may (a) create social relationships that ensure help when needed, (b) equalize distribution of goods within and between communities, and (c) be most likely when resources are unpredictable. Generalized Reciprocity Balanced Reciprocity Negative Reciprocity (not spelled out in text)

Food Energy Extraction Systems: I Hunting & Gathering

extracting what the environment produces through hunting, gathering, and fishing

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

incest taboo is a reaction against unconscious, unacceptable desires.57 He suggested that the son is attracted to his mother (as the daughter is to her father) and as a result feels jealousy and hostility toward his father

Patrilineal Organization

most frequent type of descent system. descent affiliation is transmitted through males, and it is also the males who exercise authority. Consequently, in the patrilineal system, lines of descent and of authority converge

The Worldwide Trend Toward Commercialization Migratory Labor

some members of a community move to a place that offers the possibility of working for a wage.

The economy-of-effort interpretation

suggests that it would be advantageous for one gender to perform tasks that are related in terms of knowledge and training and tasks that are physically located near each other.

The compatibility-with-child-care theory

suggests that women make child care a priority and fit in other tasks but does not explain why men usually prepare soil for planting and make wood, bone, horn, and shell objects, tasks that can probably be stopped to tend to a child and no more dangerous than cooking.