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