Marriage - San Jose State University · 2018-08-15 · Marriage & Economic Exchange: Dowry • The transfer of wealth, usually from parents to their daughter, at the time of marriage

Marriage

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

• Kinship - Social relationships that are typically derived from the universal human experiences of mating, birth and nurturance

• Descent - The principle based on culturally recognized parent-child connections that define social categories to which people belong

• Adoption - Kinship relations based on nurturance, often in the absence of another connection based on mating or birth

• How does marriage fit in here?


Why do people get married?


Why do people get married?


Religious Civil

Arranged

Common LawLove

Types ofMarriage

???


Marriage

• Monogamy (statistically dominant)

• Polygyny (culturally widespread)

• Polyandry (rare, but illustrative)

Marriage constructs alliances between families, lineages and clans.


Marriage• an institution that prototypically involves a

man and a woman

• transforms the status of the participants

• stipulates the degree of sexual access, ranging from exclusive to preferential

• gives offspring a position in society

• establishes connections between the kin of the husband and the kin of the wife (alliances)

• is symbolically marked in some way


Marriage patterns

• Monogamy - person may be married to only one spouse at a time

• Polygamy - person may be married to more than one spouse at a time

• Polygyny - a man may be married to more than one wife at a time

• Polyandry - a woman may be married to more one husband at a time


Families

• nuclear

• extended

• fictive

• blended

• single parent

• childless


Foraging Horticulture Pastoralism Agriculture Industrial

Descent &Inheritance Bilinear

Unilinear (Matrilineal or

Patrilineal)


Patrilineal)


Patrilineal)Bilineal

Marital Residence

NeolocalBilocal

MatrilocalPatrilocal

MatrilocalPatrilocal

Matrilocal Patrilocal

Neolocal Bilocal

Household Type Nuclear Extended Extended Extended

NuclearSingle parentSingle person


Marriage & Economic Exchange:Bridewealth

• The transfer of certain symbolically important goods from the family of the groom to the family of the bride on the occasion of their marriage. It represents compensation to the wife’s lineage for the loss of her labor and her childbearing capacities.

• most common in societies that combine agriculture, pastoralism, and patrilocal marriage

• creates affinal relations between the relatives of the wife and those of the husband


Marriage & Economic Exchange:Dowry

• The transfer of wealth, usually from parents to their daughter, at the time of marriage

• It is found primarily in agricultural societies of Europe, Asia, and some parts of Africa

• Considered wife’s contribution to the establishment of the new household

• Can be reclaimed by woman in the case of divorce


When Brothers Take a Wife

Tibet


When Brothers Take a Wife

• Fraternal Polyandry

• Pros / Cons

• Other marriage patterns?


Uterine Families & Women’s Community

• China

• Extended families based on patrilineal descent

• Kinship for men

• Kinship for women


Uterine Families & the Women’s Community

• Uterine families - mother and mother’s children

• Uterine family has no ideology, no formal structure, no public existence. It is built out of sentiments and loyalty


Uterine Families and Women’s Community

• Why is the women’s community important?


Documents

Marriage - San Jose State University · 2018-08-15 · Marriage & Economic Exchange: Dowry • The transfer of wealth, usually from parents to their daughter, at the time of marriage