ANT 101

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Chapter Outline

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Define the concept of social organization and its parts.

2. Discuss the relationships between status, roles, and division of labor.

3. Explain the relationship of rank to power and prestige.

4. Compare and contrast the concepts of class and caste.

5. Discuss the nature and functions of master statuses.

6. Explain the nature of minorities.

7. Explain the relationship of kinship to descent.

Social Organization and Lifecycle

6

6.1 Organizational Patterns

• Groups • Statuses and Roles • Master Statuses • Division of Labor • Rank

6.2 Types of Social Organization

• Egalitarian Societies • Ranked Societies • Stratified Societies

6.3 Kinship

6.4 Lifecycle

• Rites of Passage • Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Naming • Enculturation, Childhood, and Adolescence • Courtship and Marriage • Parenthood • Divorce • Old Age • Death

8. Analyze the social and psychological functions of rites of passage.

9. Describe the more common customs in the world concerning pregnancy and childbirth.

10. Explain the three forms of learning that play a role in socialization.

11. Describe the most common customs in the world concerning sexuality and puberty.

12. Describe the most common customs in the world concerning marriage and divorce.

13. Describe the most common customs in the world concerning old age and death.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 Organizational Patterns

Nowhere are all people simply individuals. The ways in which we interact with others are everywhere conditioned by the way each society is organized so that individuals are categorized based on the groups they belong to and the statuses they hold. For instance, group membership and the statuses we hold determine the amount of social honor we are expected to be given by others and the amount of power we are entitled to use. Many of the social statuses that we acquire follow one another in a definite sequence from birth to death, known as the lifecycle, and are commonly recognized in cultures throughout the world. It is particularly common to publicly celebrate status changes: to proclaim the addition of a new member of the human community shortly after birth, to announce the passage from childhood to adulthood around the time of puberty, to move from an unmarried to married status, and to adjust to the loss of a member of the community at death.

6.1 Organizational Patterns

Throughout human history, cultural continuity has been maintained by symbolic communication among members of a particular society. The pattern of that com-munication is determined by how society is organized. The social organization of a society consists of (1) the various groups that form the society; (2) the statuses that individuals may hold; (3) the division of labor, or the way in which the tasks of society are distributed among individuals and groups; and (4) the rank accorded to each group and status.

Groups Every human society is a group whose members perceive themselves as having a com- mon identity because of the culture that binds them together. All human societies that have been studied subdivide into smaller groups that coalesce from time to time for specialized activities. Basketball fans scattered across the country are not a group, for example, but spectators at a specific game are. Groups tend to have geographical bound- aries, specifiable members, a common activity engaged in by members, and a division of labor. When a group is formally organized, it may have an explicitly formulated ideol- ogy and a goal-oriented “game plan” or set of procedures for carrying out the activity that brings its members together.

The members of social groups generally identify themselves symbolically with a name or some other emblem of their group identity. Commonly, the identifying emblem indicates the activity that draws the members together or represents some other important aspect of the group’s characteristics. Thus, the group identity of the United States of America is symbolized by a flag that portrays the political unity of that society’s 50 states by a group of 50 stars. The Great Seal of the United States of America contains the image of an eagle clutching an olive branch and arrows, symbols of peace and war, which suggest that the major purpose of the nation as a political entity is to maintain internal order and to defend the group. A smaller, more face-to-face group, such as a basketball team, may identify itself as a unified body by naming itself and by representing its athletic purpose with a symbol of its prowess, such as a charging bull or a buzzing hornet.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 Organizational Patterns

Statuses and Roles Besides groups, each pattern of social organization also includes several kinds of relation- ships. All relationships that a person may have with others are called statuses and exist in pairs, such as doctor and patient, husband and wife, parent and child, or friend and friend. The status pairs of a society are of two types: those in which the holders of the statuses are expected to behave in different but mutually compatible ways, and those in which the holders of the statuses are expected to behave in a similar way toward one another.

Status pairs in which both parties are expected to behave in different but compatible ways are called complementary statuses. The status of doctor, for example, requires the exis- tence of the complementary status of patient, that of parent implies that of offspring, and without the status of student there could be no teacher. In each of these cases, the holder of one status of the pair is expected to behave differently from the holder of the second status, and one of the statuses may have access to a greater amount of honor, social power, and/or wealth. Thus, parents have the power to train and control their children rather than the other way around, and it is the teacher who tests and assigns grades to the stu- dent, not vice versa.

Statuses such as friend, neighbor, enemy, colleague, or ally, on the other hand, imply the existence of two or more holders of the same status who are expected to act toward one another in similar ways. Statuses paired in this way are called symmetrical statuses. One cannot be an enemy unless there is someone who will respond in kind as an enemy (Wat- zlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967).

In every society, each person may be involved in many different kinds of relationships and therefore have many different statuses. The same person may be a wife, a mother, a student, an employee, a friend, and a political activist. Some statuses are ones that we have little or no choice about; these are known as ascribed statuses, and often include characteristics such as sex, family membership, or in some societies, racial identity.

Some statuses, such as those based on sex, race, or physical disability, may be mistakenly thought of as natural results of physical characteristics, rather than recognized as some- thing that is ascribed to individuals by society. Nevertheless, playing the social roles asso- ciated with such statuses involves learning to conform to the expectations that people have about those statuses. It is people’s beliefs about biology, not biology itself, that controls the content of social roles. Of course, when people who share some biological characteristic are socialized into playing roles that their culture claims are a natural result of those bio- logical traits, their learned role-playing is then treated as evidence that the original beliefs were correct. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a situation in which a group’s shared beliefs cause people to behave so that an expected outcome occurs. In this case playing the learned role seems to prove the culture’s association of the behaviors with biology. For instance, an active female child may be subject to intensive social training that leads her to conform to a more passive and nonaggressive role because her society considers these traits attributes of the female status. Similarly, Scott (1969) has described an interesting process by which those with poor vision may acquire the status of blind persons. Having been labeled blind by legal criteria, such persons may begin to interact with various care- giving agencies. In the process of providing their services, these agencies may unwittingly

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 Organizational Patterns

encourage their poorly sighted clients to learn to perceive themselves as helpless. Learn- ing to play the blind role inhibits the use of whatever vision the clients actually possess.

When statuses are assigned to people based on the belief that certain roles arise naturally from biological characteristics, those beliefs (e.g., beliefs about the “natural” roles of one sex or race) may function as a powerful justification for role differences between groups. For instance, in societies where men hold powerful statuses, the culture may contain beliefs that men are somehow naturally more dominant than women. Or where, one racial group dominates another in the same society, the members who hold the more highly ranked statuses tend to be described as inherent leaders, while those of the subordinate race tend to be portrayed as naturally lazy, less intelligent, and in need of guidance. Such sexist and racist beliefs (discussed in Chapters 3 and 5) function to keep the existing sys- tem of status differences stable and difficult to change. Violations of the predominant role expectations are likely to be viewed not just as the breaking of social conventions but as attempts to go against the “natural” characteristics of biology. Thus, the belief that social roles are determined by biology functions as a powerful force against change in those social roles.

Other statuses must be acquired during our lifetimes and may change as our position in life changes. These statuses, such as team captain, college student, or club member, are known as achieved statuses.

The ways in which the holder of a status is expected to behave are called the roles of that status. Every status has several different roles, each of which is considered appro- priate for certain times and places. For instance, in a classroom, students take notes, ask and respond to questions, and occasionally take tests. At home they are expected to read and study assignments and compose term papers. Their written assignments may require them to carry out library research or demonstrate other information-gathering skills. Peo- ple in these situations behave in the role of student. However, when these same people go to a party on Saturday night, they assume a role other than student and behave differently.

By conforming their behavior to the role expectations of others, holders of a particular sta- tus symbolically communicate that they wish to be responded to in a manner appropriate to that specific status rather than to another status that they also hold. The team captain is expected to direct action on the field; off the field, the same person may be expected to lis- ten to and respect the opinion of another with whom he or she shares the status of friend. The various status pairs of a society form a pattern of predictable expectations that guide their interactions and simplify social relationships. When team members accept another’s status as team captain, they know that during a game their appropriate relationship to the leader is that of followers. Without such role agreements, ball games—and social life— would be somewhat chaotic.

Master Statuses The usual pattern in which the setting determines which roles a person may play is altered when he or she holds a master status. A master status is one that is so strongly imbued with importance in the minds of people that it cannot be ignored. For instance, if the chief

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 Organizational Patterns

justice of the United States or a well-known actor were to appear in a college classroom on parents’ visiting day, this visitor would not be treated as just another parent. More likely, instead of the situation defining the status of the visitor, the situation itself would be redefined to fit the visitor’s master status. Unlike an ordinary parent, such a visitor would likely be introduced to the class, and the regular lecture might even be preempted by remarks from the guest.

Master statuses may have low rank as well as high. Having a low-ranked master status can overshadow the other statuses a person may hold, even those usually held in high esteem by others. For instance, an alcoholic physician may find it difficult to acquire patients or to obtain referrals from other doctors. Further, having a low-ranked master status at one time in one’s life can bar one from attaining more respected statuses later.

Master statuses of low social rank are sometimes given the special designation of minori- ties. Minorities in North America include many groups defined by similar characteristics such as ethnic background, religion, race, and gender. Religious minorities, such as Mus- lims, Buddhists, Rastafari, Amish, Hutterites, and Mormons, also exemplify groups that have not received total acceptance as members of the U.S. or Canadian mainstream.

The definition of minorities is not necessarily a matter of numbers. In the United States, for instance, females make up slightly more than 50% of the population, and Blacks con- stitute large numerical majorities in many cities and counties. Yet birth into either of these statuses may impede acquisition and successful use of highly ranked social statuses. Thus, U.S. women currently hold only about 15% of elective offices in a society in which they comprise over half of the total population, and adult Black males in the United States suf- fer from an unemployment rate that is twice that of the adult male workforce as a whole.

A recent example, which captured the attention of the U.S. news media and President Obama, illustrates how one’s minority status can overshadow one’s other statuses, such as professional status. In 2009, Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who is African American, returned home from a research trip to China to find his front door stuck shut. As he and his driver struggled to pry the door open, a neighbor, believing that the men were burglars, called the police. When the police arrived, they questioned Gates, who grew angry with what he interpreted as racial profiling. Eventually, Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Although the charges were dropped, a national discussion ensued about racial profiling and police responses. For supporters of Gates, the incident illustrated how, in the United States, one’s racial status continues to be prioritized over other statuses of an individual, such that a distinguished professor who works at a prestigious university may be arrested for “misconduct.”

Division of Labor The day-to-day work that must be done in any society is allocated to people through their statuses. This makes it possible for the members of society to be organized efficiently into a clear-cut, well-known, and effective division of labor by which all the tasks of life are accomplished.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 Organizational Patterns

Even in those human social systems where few specialists exist, there is some division of labor. In foraging societies, for example, age and gender are the primary bases for assign- ing jobs. Even though tasks may overlap and distinctions may not be strictly enforced, males and females in all societies are generally expected to specialize in somewhat differ- ent economic activities, as are the members of different age groups. Typically, in the forag- ing societies men are assigned the status of hunters, while women specialize as gatherers of wild plants. Children may provide some help around the campsite, fetching water or gathering branches for the fire. Older members of the group may be relied on for their experience in interpersonal and intergroup relations to mediate disputes, negotiate with strangers, or arrange marriages. In societies in which people grow their own food, other forms of specialization develop, and the division of labor may become much more intri- cate. For instance, individuals or entire villages may specialize in the growing of a particu- lar crop or the manufacture of woven goods or pottery. These are traded to other people or villages in return for their specialties. In industrialized societies, there are many spe- cialized occupations in which money is exchanged for labor such that labor itself is trans- formed from a service into a commodity, like any other good that can be bought and sold.

Rank Some kinds of work are valued more highly valued than others. Rank is a measure of the relative importance accorded to groups and statuses and the work that they do. Holders of highly ranked statuses and members of highly ranked groups generally have more ready access to whatever is valued in their culture than do other members of their society.

Rank has more than one component. According to Kemper (1978), the two characteristics of a status that determine its social rank are the amount of social power and honor associ- ated with it. Power and honor are measures of one’s ability to influence others success- fully. Power is the ability to exercise coercion in obtaining what is sought and to punish the failure of others to comply. Honor is the esteem that some statuses confer on those who hold them. The respect that comes to persons such as Supreme Court justices, min- isters, or movie stars whose statuses are honored makes it easier for them to accomplish goals and influence others without coercion.

Importantly, rank has both material and emotional effects: Higher-ranking individuals (or those that gain in rank) generally have access to more material resources and experi- ence more positive affect (e.g., satisfaction, confidence, etc.) compared to lower-ranking individuals (or those who lose in rank) who have less access to resources and experience negative affect (e.g., fear or anxiety) (Kemper, 2006).

Groups, too, may be ranked differently in terms of their degrees of power versus of honor. For instance, secret societies and vigilante groups are often characterized by high access to power, but their level of honor may be judged low by others. Service associations such as the Kiwanis Club or a charity fundraising group may have little power to coerce others to contribute to their cause, but they may be highly respected enough to receive volun- tary contributions. Likewise, individual statuses may be ranked. In the United States, the occupational statuses of doctor and senator are prestigious and are each given more social power and a greater income than the lower-ranked occupations such as sales clerk, mail carrier, and carpenter.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Types of Social Organization

Societies differ in which statuses are most highly ranked. For instance, in industrialized nations, where many important relationships are based on jobs, occupational status is a major determinant of the rank most people hold. In these societies, the loss of income that comes with retirement is often accompanied by a loss of rank. In societies where kinship relationships determine the most important roles, it is common for rank to increase with age and experience.

6.2 Types of Social Organization

The oldest and simplest of human societies are sometimes referred to as egalitarian societies because their social organizations make little use of rank beyond rank-ing based on age and gender. In these societies, individual differences in achieve- ment may result in different amounts of respect being given to one person over another, but there is no large-scale social distinction between groups that command more or less amounts of authority or honor based simply on group membership.

Egalitarian Societies Egalitarian societies have economies based on foraging, the gathering wild foods and plant foods, hunting wild animals, and fishing. Their com- munities tend to be small, uniting only a small number of different fam- ilies in ties of mutual support. The economic life of egalitarian commu- nities is based on individuals shar- ing surplus resources, such as food, which is in everyone’s long-term interest, as even the most efficient, skilled, or hard-working food collec- tor experiences nonproductive days, and those who share when they are able are likely to be shared with dur- ing those lean periods by those they have helped previously. Thus shar- ing and gift giving is not limited to one’s own relatives in the community; it cross-cuts family ties. The effect, in the long run, is that families tend not to differ from one another in wealth. Characteristically, egalitarian societies also tend to be rather mobile within the territory they consider their homeland, which makes it more difficult (and less desirable) to amass goods. Since local groups can remain in one location only so long as they can find sufficient wild foods to sustain them- selves, foragers tend to break camp and move to new foraging sites within their territories quite regularly throughout the year. Although there may be common patterns of move- ment with the seasons because of the shifting locales where different food resources are found, the pattern of wandering may vary from year to year.

George Steinmetz/National Geographic Stock Foraging societies, comprised of small, nomadic populations, depend on nature for survival. These Pygmy hunters are preparing to hunt duikers.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Types of Social Organization

Ranked Societies Some environments are lush enough that some societies based on foraging develop sed- entary communities that are relatively large and produce sufficient surpluses to develop permanent differences in wealth, social power, and public honor. The origin of food domestication, both simple gardening (which began almost 12,000 years ago) and animal husbandry (which began during the ensuing millennium), had the effect of producing nonegalitarian social organizations in many environments. These societies, called ranked societies, are ones in which ranking of individuals is not simply based on age, gender, and individual differences. Rather, ranked societies also have statuses that differ in power and influence as well as differences in the wealth and power of families. In fact, in these societies, one’s position (or title) is often inherited based on the status of one’s family. Posi- tions of importance such as the chiefs (see Chapter 8) who exercise political authority in communities tend to be passed down from father to son. The result is that the most pres- tigious and powerful positions are held by members of the most important and powerful kin groups.

Stratified Societies Societies that produce food using highly productive techniques, such as agriculture, tend to have the largest communities and the most inequalities of wealth, honor, and power within communities. Such stratified societies typically have a great deal of specialization within the division of labor and in which ranking of individuals and families arise from different access to needed resources, such as ownership of productive land. The large populations of these societies are typically divided into social classes or castes in which inheritance of wealth, power, and honor keeps the same families within the same classes or castes over generations.

Class Ranking of diverse statuses is more common in societies that have large populations and many differentiated, highly specialized statuses or jobs. These societies are organized into a hierarchical structure that sometimes is subdivided formally into ranked classes. A class is a broad stratum that cuts across society and is made up of different families that have more or less equal access to income and prestige. Social classes need not be a named category in a culture for them to exist and function. British Victorians were very class conscious and had formal rules of etiquette that governed the interaction of members of different social classes. But classes are no less real in societies such as the United States in which class boundaries seem rather vaguely defined with no broadly shared consensus about how many social classes exist or what distinguishes one from the other. Even when they are not formally recognized as a cultural category, social classes are an important influence on how society functions because of the shared goals, opportunities, and inter- ests, as well as different access to social influence that exists among the members of each class. For instance in industrialized societies, although they may never come together as a single group, physicians, college professors, and other professional people may share many of the same political and economic values because they are affected in similar ways

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Types of Social Organization

by political and economic changes. Even though they may think of their stances on issues of politics or economics as personal choices, there is enough agreement in values among those with similar professional occupations that the combined effect plays a distinctive role within the political process. Similarly, corporate executive officers of large corpora- tions, major stockholders, “old money” families, and U.S. Senators share class values that are influenced by their positions of wealth and high social standing—values that function to coordinate many of their decisions as members of an elite social class.

Social class is a powerful conditioner of many social processes. Members of the same social class tend to share a set of similar attitudes and values as well as similarities in lifestyle. For instance, members of the different social classes tend to live in different areas within the same community in homes of different costs and sizes. They often differ in the religious denominations with which they are most likely affiliated, participate in different forms of recreation and entertainment, and express different aesthetic tastes. There are no formal rules in the United States about who may participate in what form of recreation, yet informal influences such as income differences still make it likely that members of working-class families or upper-class elites spend time with others of their own set watch- ing Saturday night football on television or power boating on the lake. People spend more time with members of their own class and may interact with members of other social classes primarily when members of one class perform economic services for members of another.

Etiquette as Customary Respect for Rank Etiquette has a great deal to do with class differences, since rules of etiquette tend to reflect the values and preferences of the higher social classes. Some rules of etiquette are specifically intended to show deference to the higher rank of others. For instance, in the United States, high-status persons such as physicians are likely to be addressed by the title “Dr.” and their last names, while they, in turn, may be permitted to address their patients, even patients who are older than they are, by their first names. In countries where people use languages that include pronouns for “you” that distinguish between formal versus familiar forms (e.g., Sie versus du in German or usted versus tú in Spanish), younger per- sons may be expected to use the formal, more respectful, form when addressing older persons, while the latter may be permitted to adopt the familiar form when speaking to younger persons.

Donald Brown (1991) recounts an experience during his fieldwork in Brunei that illus- trates how etiquette may require respect for the rank of others. He had been sitting on a bench for a while, when he was joined by three young men. Two of the new arrivals joined him on the bench and the third took a seat nearby at the same height on a ladder. When he became tired of sitting there, Brown moved down to sit on the walkway. Immediately the three young men did the same. Because Brown had been seated for some time before the young men had joined him, he recognized that they had not moved themselves to the lower position simply because they too had tired of sitting there, but because in Brunei it was considered to be impolite to seat oneself higher than another person unless one had

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Types of Social Organization

a considerably higher social rank. When Brown tried to get them to remain seated where they had been, all three refused to do so. They explained that it simply would not look nice for them to do so. When Brown suggested that there was no one else around to see, they pointed out that there were people a quarter mile away across the river from them. Custom took precedence over the fact that Brown had said he would not be offended personally (Brown, 1991).

Caste Sometimes group membership is determined by birth, and the statuses that individuals may hold during their lifetimes are limited to those of the group into which they are born. In such a case, when people are not permitted to move from one formally demarcated group to another by acquir- ing a new status, the groups are called castes. iStockphoto/Thinkstock

The caste system in India, though economic in nature, is supported by a religious ideology.

Caste in India

Caste in India, where castes are called varnas, has been described by many anthropologists, as in classic studies by Beals (1974, 1980), Dumont (1970), Kolanda (1978), and Mandelbaum (1972); and more recent studies by Bayly (2001), Dirks (2001), and Gupta (2000). The system of organizing people socially by grouping them into castes is an ancient practice that is couched in religious concepts and differs somewhat in various parts of India. At the same time, this practice is not simply “ancient”: Under British colonial rule, the caste system changed, becoming a political tool for organizing and controlling India’s many different social groups in ways that benefited the British (Dirks, 2001).

In simplified terms, there are four major kinds of castes. The first of these, the Brahmin, is ranked highest in ritual purity and closeness to God. Members of this caste are priests in theory, although most practice other high-status occupations. Socially, members of the Brahmin caste are accorded greater honor than are those of the lower castes even though they may have less power and wealth than members of other castes. The Kshatriya—warrior-rulers, nobles, and landowners—are next in honor. They are thought to be less ritually pure than the Brahmins and are subject to fewer dietary and ritual restrictions than the priestly class. Next come the Vaisya, the commoners, and, finally, the Sudra, who are the farm artisans, servants, farmers, and laborers. Below all these are the people of no caste, the so-called Untouchables, who perform the polluted tasks of life such as removing dead cattle from the village, tanning hides, working leather, and removing human waste.

(continued)

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Types of Social Organization

Caste in India (continued)

Although Indian society accords greater honor to the higher castes, it does not link freedom with this honor. Members of the higher castes must follow various restrictions, most notably dietary restric- tions. The Brahmins and Vaisya are expected to be strict vegetarians, although the Kshatriya may eat goat, considered a relatively clean animal, and may drink liquor. The Sudra may eat chicken (a less pure animal) as well as goat, and the Untouchables may eat any meat, including beef and pork. To varying degrees, the members of higher castes also are expected to avoid physical contact with the members of lower castes.

Within each caste there are many occupational subcastes or jatis that are also ranked by ritual purity. Members of each jati have rights over and responsibilities to the members of other jatis. For instance, potters of the artisan class are expected to make pottery for the farmers, while the farmer is expected to present the potter with a traditional portion of his harvest. The relationships between the jatis are most noticeable when a ritual is performed. For instance, Brahmins must officiate using bowls made by the Potter jati and wearing clothes provided by the Weaver jati and washed by the Washer jati. Such rituals portray the interdependence of the various jatis and reassert the rights of each to belong to the community, as all public rituals require the cooperation of all jatis. In every- day economic life, few people in modern India actually make their living on the basis of their jati occupation. Many people may provide services for a fee or follow an occupation different from their traditional jati occupation because most jatis have more members than are necessary for performing the service. Thus, jati occupations represent more a system of ritual than of real economic ranking.

With the passage of time, the traditional reciprocal economic roles of jati occupations are being undermined as imported products enter the local economies of rural India. Increasingly Indians are replacing their reliance on the services performed by members of other jatis with the use of these new imports. For instance, the use of imported dishware can reduce the need for potters, buying razor blades can take the place of visiting barbers, and gasoline-driven equipment can replace work previously done by agricultural laborers.

Even amid these changes, however, caste remains an important social reality in contemporary India (Gargan, 1992), especially in rural areas (in urban areas there is an emerging middle “class”). At the same time, discrimination based on either caste or “untouchability” has been technically illegal since 1950. In particular, people who used to be considered Untouchables became referred to as “scheduled castes,” and the government has tried and continues to try to protect them and improve their oftentimes low socio-economic positions. Although there have been some improvements, vast social and economic disparities remain among the castes, and the system is sometimes criticized both within the country and among foreign observers.

Despite critiques of the caste system and occasional hostilities that emerge among the castes, Hindu religious ideology helps to minimize these conflicts by asserting that individuals who con- form well to the rules that govern their position in life will be rewarded by future rebirth into a higher caste. By accepting the caste system and following its rules, one may eventually attain a sufficient spiritual development to avoid being reborn into the world and its misery. Those who rebel against the rules of caste will be reborn at a lower position, thereby prolonging the cycles of reincarnation and human suffering.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.3 Kinship

6.3 Kinship

Kinship is a very human concept, integral to self-identity and familial group belong-ing. Although its role has been somewhat diminished among people in industrial-ized societies, it has been a fundamentally important part of the social organiza- tions of most nonindustrialized societies that anthropologists have studied. It is the way we keep track of our relationships to our kin, those who are connected to us by some combination of descent and marriage. Kin who are related to us by descent (that is, by the connections between parents and their offspring) are our consanguines. You are one of my consanguinal kin if we can find a chain of connected parent–child ties that stretches from you to me. For instance, my children are linked to me, their common parent, by a chain one link long. My only niece is my mother’s eldest daughter’s daughter: She is three parent–child links away from me among my consanguinal kin. Kin who are related through marriage link are known as affines. My affinal relatives include my spouse, the consanguinal kin of my spouse, and the spouses of any of my consanguinals. They are, in other words, my in-laws.

In any human community, some people are thought of as “kin” and others as “not kin.” A particular society’s way of defining who are kin may not give equal weight to all connec- tions between parents and their offspring. As we shall see, for instance, in many societies, children may be thought of as kin to only one of their parents. Thus, more formally, kin- ship is a system for classifying people who are deemed to be related through culturally defined parent–child ties or marriage ties.

In stratified societies such as our own, government, class differences, and the economics of employment have taken over many of the functions of kinship in guiding our relation- ships with others. In many egalitarian and ranked societies, kinship can be an extremely important system for determining such things as marriage rules, inheritance customs, division of labor, and even economic and political relationships among individuals. Where this is true, kinship systems can be much more complex than they are for us. See Figure 6.1 for more on descent.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.3 Kinship

Figure 6.1: Kinship chart showing bilineal descent

Can you create a kinship chart like this for your own family?

In the United States, the kinship system is one in which children are considered to be equally descendants of both their mothers and fathers and equally related to the families of both of their parents. This creates a lot of relatives, as they are found on both sides of the family, which can be useful in a society in which individuals leave their natal fami- lies to establish a new household when they marry. However, despite the large number of relatives each person may have, those who practice bilateral descent reckoning (i.e., defining kin through both mothers and fathers) have rather few terms for different kind of relatives. For instance, in the United States, there are specific kin terms for members of the nuclear family, in which our basic socialization occurs. Thus, we have discrete terms for mother, father, daughter, son, brother, and sister; but outside this set of intimate family relationships we simply lump all of our other relatives on both sides of our families into two large groups. Siblings of our parents are only distinguished by their sex as “aunts” or “uncles” or viewed in the other direction, our siblings’ children are simply “nephews” and “nieces.” Children of our parents’ siblings are all called “cousins,” indicating that there are no major social differences in our social relationships with them that influence how we relate to them. One result of this simple approach to kinship is that even broth- ers and sisters may have a different list of people they have come to know as “relatives,” and cousins on different sides of our families almost inevitably share only some persons among those they have come to know as relatives. Anthropologists call such a personal- centered group of relatives, the kindred of an individual.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.3 Kinship

However, most egalitarian and ranked societies, kinship is not just a group of self-iden- tified kindred, but an actual corporate group: That is, a group of kin that existed before a new member is born into it and continues to exist even after individual members die. This most often takes the form of thinking of children as the kin of just one of their parents and the other parent as merely an in-law. Kin groups that are united through parents of just one sex are called, appropriately, unilineal descent groups. There are two common forms of unilineal descent groups: matrilineal descent groups, in which membership depends on one’s ability to trace ancestry back to the female founder of the group through a line of mothers, and patrilineal descent groups, in which ancestry is traced only through father- to-child connections. When either of these is the way kin relationships are determined, then all living descendants of the common ancestor are not just a kindred. Rather, a person will be related to anyone else who is a descendant of the founding ancestor of the unilineal descent group, whether or not they know one another personally.

Patrilineal descent has been the practice in about 44% of the societies that anthropologists have studied. It has been particularly common in societies in frontier areas, where warfare with nearby neighbors was common, and where heavy labor united brothers together in the common work of providing food for their families. Fewer social situations have made tracing ancestry through mothers useful, and only about 15% of human societies practiced matrilineal kinship reckoning. This form was especially common where men were often required to be away from home (e.g., to fight remote wars or carry out long-distance trade for nonlocal goods) and where food production was carried out largely by the women of local communities (i.e., in simple gardening communities where heavy labor such as building canals was not necessary).

Since matrilineal and patrilineal descent groups continue to exist beyond the life of their individual members, they can own property and control inheritance rights to that prop- erty, determine their members’ political loyalties (for instance, when some members are involved in warfare with nonkin), and control whom one may or may not marry. When unilineal descent groups are made up of persons with a common ancestor who lived recently enough in the past that any two descendants remember his or her name and can trace their genealogical connections back to that person by memory, they are called lineages. Lineages may be as small as 30 to 50 persons who are only separated from the founder by 3 or 4 generations, or they may grow over many more generations and include several thousand descendants.

When the ancestor of a unilineal descent group lived far enough in the past that the spe- cific genealogical ties may no longer be recalled, the mere claim to be a descendant of that ancestor may continue to be the basis of membership in the group. Such a group is called a clan, and clans are typically made up of a number of distinct lineages, each of which main- tains its connection to the others on the basis of their common descent from the original founder. In especially large clans, even the name of the original ancestor may no longer be known, but clan identity can be maintained simply by having a name for that body. For instance, the Navajo have clans with names such as the “Salt Clan” and the “Water Clan,” and Aboriginal Australians are divided into clans that are typically named for particular food animals that are economically important to their clan members.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

The choice between tracing ancestry through just mothers or just fathers is not an arbi- trary one. Rather, the two practices tend to develop in circumstances in which one or the other form has particular economic or political benefits. For instance, patrilineal descent systems are often the preferred system in societies on frontiers and in societies in which warfare with nonkin is common because of the need to protect the kin group’s means of livelihood (e.g., their gardening and farming land or their animal herds). In contrast, matrilineal descent is most common in societies in which the men of the local group are frequently absent from home due either to warfare or trading voyages.

6.4 Lifecycle

Some of a person’s statuses within their society’s particular social organization vary at different stages of life. The changes in social statuses that are typically experienced by members of society make up their lifecycle. Rites of Passage Arnold Van Gennep (1908/1960) has pointed out that as we move from one status to another within the lifecycle, the life events and status changes that are typically experienced by individuals are commonly proclaimed to other members of soci- ety by formal rituals known as life crisis rites or rites of passage.

Ceremonies such as christenings, puberty rituals, marriages, and funerals, which we hold when- ever a member of society undergoes an important change in status within the lifecycle of the group, are considered rites of passage. They symboli- cally dramatize how important status changes are in the eyes of society and help to maintain stability and order while society adjusts to cul- turally significant changes in people’s lives. The acquisition of a new status calls for the successful adoption of a new set of roles by the person who is moving into the new phase of life. The formal dramatization of these changes in a ritual of sta- tus change may be psychologically beneficial to those who are beginning roles that they have not practiced before, and to other members of society who must also adopt new ways of relating to them. Four public symbolic rituals are com- monly celebrated throughout the world: naming ceremonies, which confer human status on the new member of society and proclaim the parenthood of its caretakers; puberty cel- ebrations, which confer adult status; marriages, which legitimize new sexual, economic, and childrearing obligations; and funerals, which proclaim the loss of human status by the deceased and restructure the ongoing social order.

Martha Cooper/National Geographic Stock All cultures divide the lifecycle into various stages. Here, a young Apache girl is making the transition to adulthood.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Naming The first lifecycle change is associated with birth. Yet even before that obviously major event, our parents are experiencing the status changes of pregnancy. The biological facts of conception, pregnancy, and the birth process are interpreted differently among various cultures. After birth, each society also has its specific ways of raising children.

Pregnancy People in most societies believe that pregnancy is a result of sexual intercourse, but con- ception itself is explained in a variety of ways. Often the child is thought of as develop- ing from semen, menstrual blood, or both. In many societies, both the mother and the father are believed to contribute during intercourse to the conception and sometimes to the growth of the child. Sometimes, however, the role of one parent is more important in explaining the origin of the child. For instance, in ancient Greece, the father was thought to plant the child in the mother as one might plant a seed in the field. The mother merely carried the father’s child as it grew. Such a metaphor was not uncommon in horticul- tural societies in which men were dominant. In other societies, where men and women had equal status, the symbols of procreation might emphasize the role of both father and mother in conception. In a few cases, women were thought to become pregnant without the aid of a man.

On the surface, some societies appear to be unaware of the link between intercourse and conception. Walter E. Roth claimed that the indigenous people of the Tully River of North Queensland, Australia, were ignorant of the role of sex in pregnancy. In their view, a woman becomes pregnant from sitting over a fire on which she had roasted a black bream that had been given to her by the man who would be the father of the child because she had hunted a particular kind of bullfrog, because some men had told her to be pregnant, or because she dreamed that the child had been put into her (Roth, 1963).

On the other hand, Tully River people were aware that copulation causes pregnancy in animals. It is unlikely, therefore, that they were unaware that sex caused pregnancy in humans in a purely physiological sense. However, in any culture, people’s ideas about humans are never straightforward descriptions of observed fact, uninfluenced by their values. In this case, the Tully River people’s denial of the role of sex in human pregnancy was not simple ignorance; it was a symbolic affirmation of their ideologically important values. According to Leach (1969), the pregnancy beliefs of the people of Tully River are ways of affirming that “the relationship between the woman’s child and the clansmen of the woman’s husband stems from public recognition of the bonds of marriage, rather than from the facts of cohabitation” (p. 87). In other words, the people of Tully River believe that pregnancy is “caused” by a woman’s catching the right kind of bullfrog in the same sense that Christians believe that a wife’s fertility is “caused” by the rice thrown at her at the end of her wedding ceremony.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Pregnancy Rituals Pregnancy is a time of potential anxiety, as it is fraught with possible negative outcomes such as miscarriage, physical defects in the baby, or death in childbirth for either the infant or the mother. Such anxieties cause people to turn to symbolic pregnancy rituals to protect the child and pregnant woman and to aid in a successful birth. These rituals are frequently expected to apply to the husband as well as the pregnant woman. They generally take the form of taboos against doing things that have some similarity to the feared outcomes. For instance, the Great Basin Shoshone forbid a pregnant woman or her husband to eat either the mud hen, which they call the “fool’s hen,” or the trout, which flops about when one catches it, since the former might result in the child’s being stupid and the latter in its becoming entangled in the umbilical cord during labor.

Among the Aztecs of Mexico, pregnant women were forbidden to look at an eclipse of the sun, which they called Tonaltiu qualo, meaning “The sun is being eaten,” as to see this phe- nomenon might result in a lip defect, such as harelip, in the unborn child. As a prophylac- tic against the effects of accidentally seeing an eclipse, the Aztec mother-to-be might wear an obsidian blade over her breast to protect the child.

On the other hand, some pregnancy rules require behaviors that are similar to the char- acteristics of a good birth. The Shoshone father was encouraged to hunt the otter because this animal is known for its enjoyment of sliding down slippery riverbanks, much as the child was hoped to pass easily through the birth canal. Like many other cultures, U.S. culture includes several traditional pregnancy taboos and admonitions. One of these is based on the idea of marking. According to this belief, children may be influenced by things that are done by or that happen to their mothers during pregnancy. For instance, birthmarks might be attributed to the mother’s having eaten too many strawberries, rasp- berries, or other red foods. The most common expression of the concept of marking in the United States today is in admonitions to do things believed to influence the child in posi- tive ways. For instance, a pregnant woman may hear that by spending time listening to classical music, reading good literature, and immersing herself in art she may predispose her child to similar pursuits. The concept of the marking of an unborn child by its mother parallels the idea that, after birth, mothers have the principal psychological influence on the development of the child and therefore usually receive greater credit or blame than others for what the child becomes.

Birth In most societies, when the woman enters labor she is attended by one or more women who have already experienced childbirth themselves and who help her through the pro- cess. Most commonly, birth occurs with the woman assuming a kneeling or squatting position, a posture that facilitates the birth process more than the reclining position tra- ditionally used in many Western hospitals. These upright birthing positions have a ben- eficial effect on the angle of the birth canal and take advantage of gravity in aiding the passage of the infant.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

It is only in recent years that Western medicine has begun to abandon its customary treat- ment of women in labor as if they were ill patients undergoing a surgical procedure. With pressure from women’s groups, the role of the woman in her labor has been redefined as an active partner with others involved in the birthing process, and changes have begun to be made in the woman’s posture during childbirth that facilitate her role and not simply that of the medical personnel.

For most Americans and Canadians, the preferred place for the delivery still is a hos- pital in the presence of the physician and one or more nurses. North Americans gener- ally regard it as desirable for a woman to seek the services of a physician starting about 2 months into her pregnancy. This doctor will evaluate the health of the woman, check the progress of the pregnancy, and deliver the baby if it is carried to term. However, particularly in the United States, this ideal is not always possible for those with low incomes, due to the high costs of medical treatment and hospital care. Thus, there is an increasing return to the less expensive system of delivery at home with the aid of a nurse-midwife who, at the same time, offers more personalized care than does the hos- pital system. Many hospitals, in turn, are beginning to shift from the use of specialized labor and delivery rooms to the use of birthing rooms, which can save as much as half the hospital costs for a normal delivery.

Naming The next important symbolic act in the life of a newborn baby is its naming ceremony. In this ritual the baby is officially received into the community of human beings and sym- bolically given human status by acquiring a human name. In either the birth or naming ritual, the infant is commonly brought into contact with those aspects of life that are of central concern to the members of the society into which it is being received. Thus, among the Samoans of Polynesia and the Yahgan of southernmost Argentina (Cooper, 1946; Mur- dock, 1934; Service, 1978a), both of whom relied heavily on sea products as their main source of food, the newborn child was bathed in the sea shortly after birth. The Mbuti Pygmy of the Ituri Forest of Africa (Gibbs, 1965) grow no food but obtain all their basic needs from the uncultivated resources of the forest; they therefore speak of the forest as their parent and their provider. They initiate their children into the human group in a ritual in which vines from the forest are tied around the children’s ankles, wrists, and waists, thereby bringing them into contact with their future livelihood.

In the United States, most parents begin selecting a name for the child months before the birth. Most families have no formal customary rules for selecting the name, such as a requirement to name the child after a particular relative, but many choose to do so. Because the selection of the name is largely an aesthetic issue, the popularity of differ- ent names rises and falls over the generations much as do fashions in dress. Names are officially given without ceremony right after birth when the attending physician fills out a birth certificate to be filed in the county records. In some cases, a religious naming cer- emony may be conducted for the child a few weeks later.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Enculturation, Childhood, and Adolescence From birth through adolescence, we humans are raised in some kind of family setting according to the dic- tates of our culture. Our upbringing usually includes some restrictions on free expression of our sexuality, including taboos against intercourse with certain family members. In many societies, attaining sexual maturity is marked by special puberty rites hon- oring the passage into adulthood.

Childhood and Adolescent Sexual Socialization Before we are able to play the role of adults with complete success, we

must acquire knowledge of the sexual customs of our society. Looking cross-culturally, we see enormous cultural variation in these customs. For example, the average age at which people first have sexual intercourse tends to be earlier in Africa, Europe, and North America than in Asia and Latin America. The average age that women first have sex is at about 15 years old in Chad versus 20 years old in Cambodia (Demographic and Health Survey, 2005). Research also shows that, across cultures, teen girls are oftentimes coerced into having sex (MacKay, 2001). In addition to the age of first sex, the degree to which societies are permissive or open about sex varies greatly. As Margaret Mead’s (1928) clas- sic study showed, Samoan society (at the time of her fieldwork in the 1920s) was highly tolerant of young people having sex and did not hide practices surrounding sex, birth, or death from children.

Sexual practices, however, change over time. In the United States, in 1995, about 19% of women between 15 and 19 years old, and 21% of men of the same age range had had sex before age 15; in 2006–2008, 11% of women ages 15–19 and 14% of men of the same age range had had sex before age 15 (Abma, 2010). More generally, U.S. adolescents explore their identities as social beings during the teenage period as they practice the skills neces- sary to achieve an independent adult status. Acceptance by their peers becomes extremely important, and adolescents begin to create a sense of independent functioning by adopt- ing new values that are in harmony with their peer group and with the social milieu out- side their family. In this period of dating, adolescents begin to learn the skills of courtship and lay the foundations for their adult sexual identities. Although ideals historically have required that both sex and pregnancy be delayed until after the marriage ceremony, this is no longer the case in practice.

Comstock/Thinkstock The transition to adulthood is an important stage in a young person’s life. Here, a Jewish teenager completes his Bar Mitzvah ritual to become an adult in his religious community.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Puberty Rituals Near the time individuals reach biological maturity, it is common for a puberty ritual or adulthood ritual to be held. This ritual signals the transition from childhood to adulthood and impresses on both the child and his or her community that the old roles of childhood are to be set aside and that she or he should be treated as an adult. During the period of transition from childhood to adulthood, initiates may be expected to demonstrate that they have acquired valued adult skills. They may go through a period of seclusion before the ceremony in which they are reintroduced into society as new adults. During this period, they may be taught special flirting techniques or dances that they will be expected to perform at the ceremony. Sometimes they don special clothing and ornaments or wear special hairstyles to indicate their new status. Large, public puberty rituals—which often involve groups of young persons who are initiated into adulthood together—help those youngsters make the transition into the expected adult pattern. They also build solidarity among members of the group who go through the ceremony together.

In the dominant North American culture, some of the traditional rites of passage are rela- tively weak or sometimes lacking. For instance, few people in the United States experi- ence any form of true puberty ritual as they near adulthood. Instead we have several less significant transitions, each of which confers some of the rights of adulthood: obtaining a driver’s license during the teenage years, graduating from high school, gaining the right to vote at the age of 18, and becoming old enough to drink alcoholic beverages legally at the age of 21. This lack of a clear puberty ritual often creates confusion about the roles we are expected to play and leaves individuals to wrestle alone with what in the U.S. culture is commonly called an “identity crisis.” The existence of this expression in everyday lan- guage is evidence of how extensive role confusion is in this society. It suggests the ben- efits that rites of passage may provide to a society’s members by helping them maintain a greater sense of self-confidence as they undergo the normal changes experienced by members of their group.

Not all societies practice puberty rituals, but they are relatively common. Based on their study of 186 “traditional” cultures, Schlegel and Barry (1991) found that most had puberty rituals for adolescents: primarily for girls (79%) but also for boys (68%). For girls, men- arche is often the key motivator for the puberty ritual, particularly because many cultures exhibit ambivalence about menstruation, which may be seen as both a polluting event and a positive sign of fertility. For boys, there tends not to be physical event that initiates the puberty ritual. Puberty rituals for boys focus instead on transitioning boys into manhood by having them display strength or courage, or withstand pain (Gilmore, 1990).

Social circumstances that foster interdependent role playing can lock people into their current roles and make change difficult without the aid of a mechanism for transforma- tion from one status to another. The puberty ceremony symbolically redefines the child as an adult in a dramatic, public fashion that is difficult for those involved to ignore. The ritual proclaims the changes in rights and responsibilities that everyone in the group must recognize. Participation in large public, group puberty rituals not only helps transform youngsters into adults; it also builds solidarity among the entire group that goes through the ritual together.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Puberty Rites for Males For boys, puberty rituals seem to be most dramatic when the transition from boyhood to manhood is potentially difficult. Under such circumstances, male puberty rituals are often severe and painful ordeals, involving ceremonies such as circumcision (the surgi- cal removal of the foreskin), scarification of the body (decorating the body with a pattern made of scars), tattooing, and the filing or knocking out of front teeth as indicators of adult status.

Whiting, Kluckhohn, and Anthony (1958) found that circumcision of males as a part of initiation rituals is especially associated with three social customs: a taboo on sex between husband and wife for a year or more after the birth of a child, the sharing of sleeping quar- ters by mother and child with the father’s quarters elsewhere, and the establishment of residence by a married couple near the husband’s relatives. The first two of these customs make it more difficult for a male child to identify with the male role, as the most available adult role model is the mother. The third, residence of couples near the husband’s rela- tives, is common where male solidarity is important among adults. The conflict between the need to identify with the male group as an adult and the relatively weak childhood tie between father and son makes the transition from childhood to adulthood a stressful one. Hence the dramatic ritualizing of the status change through which a boy proves to the adult male community that he is capable of adopting the adult male role.

Puberty Rites for Females For girls, puberty rites are more likely to occur in societies where the residences of newly married couples are established near the wife’s relatives than in societies where daughters leave home when they marry. The puberty ritual emphasizes the young woman’s new role. The more important a woman’s labor is to the family food supply, the more likely it is that female puberty rituals will be practiced. As with male initiation rituals, painful ceremonies that include such things as scarification or female circumcision are most likely in societies where the transition from childhood to adult roles is most difficult. For girls, this occurs in those societies where mothers and daughters share sleeping quarters while the father sleeps elsewhere. In the United States, female puberty rites generally declined as the family was replaced as the primary group that carried out the work of produc- ing income. However, there are still “coming out” parties or “debutante balls,” which function to introduce marriageable females to males of the same social class, and ethnic equivalents such as the Hispanic quinceañeras, which introduce 15-year-old daughters to the families of friends of her parents.

Courtship and Marriage Following the puberty or adulthood ritual, the next common rite of passage is marriage. Cultures handle courtship and mate selection in many different ways. In many societies, parents select marital partners. In others, especially those in which children will establish their own households that are economically independent of their parents, courtship and choice of spouse is a responsibility of the young adults themselves.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Nonmarital Sex Following puberty, the majority of societies are quite tolerant of sexual experimentation before marriage. Frayser (1985) found that 64% of her cross-cultural sample of 61 societ- ies had little or no restriction on premarital sexual relations. According to Ford and Beach (1952), the least permissive societies are, as might be expected, those in which wealth and class differences cause parents to have the greatest interest in controlling the marital choices of their children, and societies in which the economic and political position of families is based on male solidarity.

Marriage Ritual Once an agreement for marriage partners has been achieved between the families, the actual ritual of marriage may occur. Marriage rituals vary tremendously from society to society. They may involve elaborate symbolism and drama or they may be as simple as a public announcement by a couple that they consider themselves married. Where for- mal rituals of marriage are customary, the symbolism often emphasizes the union being created between the two families. It may also portray the relations, especially those of a stressful nature, that are expected to exist between the couple and their respective in- laws. For instance, among the Aztecs of Mexico the bride was carried, like a burden, on the back of the old woman who had acted as her matchmaker to the place of the marriage. After lectures by the elders of both families about their new responsibilities as married persons, the capes of the couple were tied together into a knot by which they were joined in marriage.

G. W. Stow (1905) described a South African !Kung San marriage ritual (which is no longer practiced) in which the bride was captured by the bridegroom and his family or friends from her defending relatives. During the wedding feast the groom was expected to seize hold of the bride. Then the two families began to fight while the bride’s family focused their attention on beating the groom with their digging sticks. The groom had to succeed in holding onto his bride during this beating for the marriage ritual to be complete. Had he failed, he would have lost his bride.

In Western societies the idea that the government had authority to regulate marriages did not exist before the Middle Ages. Instead, as has been common in many non-Western societies throughout the world, marriages were created by the negotiation of a contract between the couple or between their respective families. No religious or governmental ceremonies were required because marriage was simply a matter of family law. Between the 8th century and the year 1000, the ceremonies that created marriages continued to be organized by families or individuals, but sometimes important, upper-class members of society were honored with a ritual blessing of the unions in church ceremonies that gener- ally preceded the actual wedding ceremony, which was still performed according to the secular customs of family law. Gradually, nonfamily authorities became more involved in the regulation of marriages. Landowners, for instance, began to require the peasants who worked their land to obtain their permission to marry and establish new households, as marriages among the peasants could involve the movement of workers from the proper- ties of one landowner to those of another. Governments encouraged the local religious leaders to take responsibility for keeping records of marriages as religious marriage ritu- als became more common. In Western European countries, it was not until the year 1215 that religious wedding ceremonies were required by church authorities for a marriage

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

to be legitimate. The governmental regulation of marriage through the requirement that couples apply to the state for a license to marry did not become a part of the Western con- cept of legitimate marriage until even more recently. The beginning of formal government regulation of marriage occurred in 1636 when England passed legislation that required parishes to record marriages. However, it was not until Napoleonic times that France began requiring citizens to register their marriages with the government, such that there were penalties for failing to register marriages civilly (instead of merely recording them in a parish record). England and Wales followed suit by requiring civil registration of mar- riages in 1837, but only imposed penalties for the failure to register in 1872. Eventually, in 1929, England became the first country to legislate a minimum age for marriage, which was 16 years old for women and men.

Types of Marriage Marriages take several forms. Four basic types seem to exist: monogamous, polygynous, polyandrous, and group marriages. These four types differ in the number of persons of one or both sexes who form the marriage relationship and in the circumstances under which each tends to be the idealized form of marriage.

In monogamous marriages two persons are joined as spouses. Monogamous marriages are the most common form of marital unit in all societies, even where other forms may be idealized as more desirable. Yet the Cultural Diversity Database indicates that only 14% of a sample of 180 societies restrict marriage to the monogamous form and that another 19% prefer monogamy without forbidding other marriage forms (White and Douglas, 1987, p. 22). Even in those societies in which monogamy is the norm, individuals may be involved in more than one marriage during their lifetimes. For instance, despite the ideal of mar- riage as a long-term commitment, divorce is quite common in many societies, especially before the birth of a first child. In societies such as the United States in which monogamy is the accepted form of marriage, a high rate of divorce (nearly half of marriages end in divorce) and subsequent remarriage creates a particular pattern called serial monogamy, in which individuals have more than one spouse, but at different times.

If men or women are permitted to marry more than one spouse at the same time instead of serially, the form of marriage is referred to as polygamy. Polygamous marriages may involve one husband and sev- eral wives or one wife and several husbands. The form of polygamy in which one woman is married to more than one man at a time is technically referred to as polyan- dry. That form is less common than the form of polygamy in which one man is married to more than one woman at a time, which is referred to as polygyny. Polygyny exists, in some form and to varying degrees,

Everett Collection/SuperStock Polygamy is illegal in the United States. In 1953, hundreds of fundamentalist Mormons were arrested in Short Creek, Arizona, for practicing polygamy.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

in approximately 80% of societies or an estimated 850 societies (including the United States) (Ember et al., 2007; Murdock, 1981). It is particularly practiced in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia (Ember et al., 2007). Among them, Mali has one of the highest rates of polygyny, with 45% of married women being involved in polygynous unions (Madhavan, 2002).

More generally, the highest frequency of polygynous families is found in societies in fron- tier areas; in societies where warfare in common; in societies in which the ratio of adult women to men is high (a condition that is common in either of the two preceding circum- stances); in groups where rapid growth of families is beneficial to family survival; and in highly patriarchal societies. Since the ratio of male to female children is about equal in all societies, relatively few men actually are able to practice polygyny even in societ- ies where it is the preferred marital form. Most commonly, it is practiced by individuals of high social standing, while most men of lower social standing remain monogamous. Because it generally takes some time and effort to achieve the social standing that makes it possible for a man to have more than one wife, polygyny often involves an age differ- ence between spouses, with older men taking much younger wives. White (1988a, 1988b) has demonstrated that polygyny is organized into two basic patterns: sororal polygyny and male-stratified polygyny. In sororal polygyny a man marries two or more closely related women, often sisters. Typically, the wives share a common residence with their husband. As close relatives, the co-wives are less likely to experience jealousy than might nonrelated co-wives. In societies that practice this form of polygyny, social ranking is pri- marily a matter of individual achievement. Each additional wife and her children increase the demands on the husband’s efforts to provision his family. Thus, only a small number of men, such as outstanding hunters, warriors, or shamans, are able to demonstrate their success by marrying a second or third wife. Because the inheritance of wealth and/or high status is normally absent, inheritance rights of children are not a cause of rivalry between co-wives.

Male-stratified polygyny is more common in societies in which there are hereditary classes. In this form of polygamy, a small number of men who hold positions of rank and authority (often older men of wealthy families) marry a larger number of wives, perhaps 20 or 30. In these societies, the labor of women is often economically valuable, and each new wife increases the wealth of the family and its social prominence. The greater wealth and improved social standing make it easier for the husband to acquire yet another wife. In contrast to sororal polygyny, where the wives and their husbands often reside together, these wives often have their own residences so that their economic activities can be car- ried out with a minimum of direct competition between co-wives.

It is rare for a woman to have several husbands, as in a polyandrous marriage. This is the idealized family type in probably less than 0.5% of the world’s societies. The most common form of polyandrous union is one in which a woman is simultaneously mar- ried to several brothers, a form known as fraternal polyandry. It is advantageous where resources are extremely limited. Polyandrous unions have been reported among southern Indian and Tibetan peoples where land is at a premium and cannot easily be further sub- divided from one generation to the next. A form of temporary polyandry that is some- times called anticipatory levirate was also practiced by the Shoshone of the Great Basin and the Comanche of the Plains. In this form, a man might temporarily share his wife with a younger brother until he was old enough to make his own way as an independent hunter with his own family. In the event of the older brother’s death, the younger might

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

continue to live as the husband of the polyandrous wife. Just as polygyny is only practiced by a minority of men (even in societies that prefer this marital form), only a minority of women are actually able to practice polyandry in societies where it is the preferred form of marriage. Further, because each polyandrous marriage requires more than one hus- band, many women are never able to marry. In polyandrous societies where the wealth of a family is based on the husbands’ cooperative agricultural labor, unmarried women are economically disadvantaged and may have to enter low-ranked occupations to survive. The importance of male labor in these societies also makes it likely that female infanticide will be practiced.

It should be noted that polyandry is not a “mirror image” of polygyny. In polygynous societies, men are permitted to have more than one wife, but women may have only one husband. In polyandrous societies, men are not generally forbidden to have more than one wife. Also, polyandry is not associated with female dominance. Rather, fraternal poly- andry is a means of keeping brothers together so that their means of livelihood need not be divided. Thus, the husbands in polyandrous families typically control their families’ means of livelihood. In fact, the continuity of the male line of inheritance in polyandrous societies may result in descent being patrilineal (see Section 6.3: Kinship), fatherhood being determined by a social convention other than the idea of biological ancestry. For instance, each of the co-husbands may assume fatherhood of children born during a particular period. Because of the centrality of the economic role of husbands, polyandry, like polyg- yny, is often associated with the subordination of women rather than higher status for women or gender equality.

When several males are simultaneously married to several females, their union is called group marriage. Group marriage and polyandry typically occur together, but group mar- riage and polygyny do not. Women in polyandrous families in some ways have higher status than those in polygynous families. For instance, the sexuality of plural wives in polygynous families is often jealously guarded by their husbands, but not in a polyan- drous society in which married women will have plural mates as a matter of course. On the other hand, no such contrast exists for husbands in these two family types. Poly- androus societies typically have no rules against husbands sometimes marrying plural wives, something that wives in polygynous societies are not likely to be permitted to do. When one of a woman’s husbands in a polyandrous society marries another woman— often a sister of the original wife—the new bride also becomes the wife of co-husbands in the original marriage as well. Such simultaneously polyandrous and polygynous families are also considered group marriages.

Fixed-term marriages are marriages that are contracted as temporary relationships. These marriages legitimize a sexual relationship in which the usual marriage characteristics, such as economic obligations or the expectation of childrearing, may be minimized. In fixed-term marriages, the length of time of the marriage is agreed upon before it begins, so that it will come to an end after a specified period of time or whenever the activities that make it convenient for the couple to remain together have run their course. For instance, fixed-term marriages came into existence in Islam in order for soldiers to have legitimate sexual partners while they were fighting in foreign wars for long periods. At the end of the husband’s military duty, his temporary marriage was dissolved, and he was free to return home with no further obligation to the divorced wife. Fixed-term marriages are legally recognized in several Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran and Kuwait.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

A marriage can exist legally without a family being established in order to allow one or both partners to obtain social benefits that would be unavailable otherwise. Such a mar- riage is called a fictive marriage. For instance, immigration and naturalization quotas in the United States have resulted in the practice of marriages between U.S. citizens and potential immigrants or resident aliens for no purpose other than to facilitate the immigra- tion or acquisition of citizenship by the noncitizen partner. In such a case, the parties to the marriage may not establish a common domicile or sexual relationship; indeed, they need not be acquainted before the marriage nor see each other again afterward. This particular example of fictive marriage is one that is legally rejected by U.S. immigration authorities and punishable by law, but analogous fictive marriages do exist in societies where they are openly accepted as valid means to an end. For instance, among the Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast it is possible for a man to marry the male heir of a chief as a means of inheriting certain privileges from the father-in-law. When there is no heir to marry, a man may marry the chief’s arm or leg as a legally valid way of becoming an inheritor.

Ghost Marriage Among the Nuer of the Sudan

Evans-Pritchard (1951) described an interesting form of fictive marriage practiced by the Nuer, a cattle-herding people who live in the savanna region of the Upper Nile in the Sudan. Ghost mar- riages occur when the close, married or unmarried, male kinsman of a man or boy who died before he had any legal heirs, marries a woman in the name of the deceased relative. The living vicarious husband gives the family of the bride a number of cattle, as the deceased man would have done had he married the woman while he was still alive. Legally, the woman will be the ghost’s bride, and all of the children she bears will be his. However, the vicarious husband will be treated in all other respects as if he were the woman’s real husband, something that is not true in the case of the levi- rate. As with the levirate, the purpose of a ghost marriage is to bear children who will be heirs to the deceased husband. However, ghost marriage differs from the levirate in several important ways. A leviratic marriage unites a widow with a surrogate for her deceased husband. The wife in a ghost marriage is not the widow of the deceased, but she becomes his wife through a marriage ritual with a living surrogate after the death of the ghost husband, whom she, in most cases, might never have known while he was alive.

Ghost marriages among the Nuer are almost as common as simple marriages between a man and woman, partly because each ghost marriage tends to create anew the circumstance which requires ghost marriages in the first place: a man who enters a ghost marriage as the vicarious husband obtains no descendants through that marriage; he may well die before he is able to found a lineage of his own; and it will be up to one of his brothers or nephews to enter a ghost marriage in his behalf. Thus the Nuer “solution” to the “problem” of men who die without children perpetuates the very situation it is intended to eliminate. Such a situation suggests that some pragmatic benefits may accrue to Nuer families who practice ghost marriage.

How might Nuer ghost marriage benefit the living? An answer to this question is suggested by other customs related to ghost marriage. The Nuer not only assert that a dead man may be the legal father of children born long after his death, but also that a ghost may continue to own property. When a man dies without heirs, any cattle he may have owned do not revert to the larger family herd, but remain ghok jookni, “cattle of the ghost.” Such cattle are sacred and may not properly be used for any

(continued)

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Probably the most widespread forms of fictive marriage are the levirate and the sororate. The levirate is the obligation of a dead man’s next of kin, usually one of his brothers, to marry the dead man’s widow. Commonly, at least the first child of this union is consid- ered to be the offspring of the first husband. This custom is especially important in societ- ies that stress the importance of the line of descent through males, as it provides a way for men who die without heirs to have descendants. It also cements anew the marriage alliance between the two families whose children were originally united in marriage. At the same time, it provides the widow with someone who will continue to perform the duties of a husband. The sororate is a similar custom in which a widower, or sometimes the husband of a barren woman, marries his first wife’s sister. Again, at least some of the children born to this second marriage are considered children of the first wife, a particular benefit in societies where ancestry is traced primarily through women. Like the levirate, the sororate ensures that the marriage tie between the two in-law families will not be dis- solved by the death of one partner and that the survivor will continue to have a mate.

Just as legitimate marriages may exist without a sexual component, nonreproductive marriages may still fulfill the other functions of marriage and be socially accepted. Mar- riages of this type include those by persons past their reproductive years and same-sex marriages, both of which are legitimate in a large number of human societies. Same-sex marriages consist of both male–male and female–female relationships. Cross-culturally, same-sex relationships that are regarded as marriages seem to fall into two different patterns: those that involve partners of more-or-less the same age and those where there is a customary age difference between the partners. The first marriage form has been referred to as pathic marriages (Gregerson, 1983) or intragenerational marriages (Adam, 1986), while the second have been called mentorships (Herdt, 1981) or intergenerational marriage (Adam, 1986).

Marriage in the United States Couples in the United States today are marrying later than they were a generation ago. The median age of males marrying for the first time is nearly 26 years, and for females it is slightly over 23 years. The ideal of romantic love as a basis for marriage is perhaps nowhere else in the world so strongly supported as it is in the United States.

Ghost Marriage Among the Nuer of the Sudan (continued)

purpose other than as payment to a bride’s family for her bearing of children in the name of the ghost. This restriction has further implications: according to Evans-Pritchard (1956), “When Nuer raid a herd to seize cattle in compensation for some injury they will not take cattle reserved for the marriage of a ghost” (p. 111). So the idea that uninherited cattle remain the property of the dead benefits the survivors because such property is still under their control and can be used for several purposes. The cows may be milked while they are held in trust for the deceased owner, they may be used to obtain a wife for one of their living sons (so long as he enters a fictive marriage in behalf of the dead owner of the cattle that pays for the marriage), and they cannot be taken from the family in payment of debts as their other cattle can. Thus ghost marriage is, in reality, part of a larger web of cultural concepts that includes some economic benefits similar to those of family trusts in the United States.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Why is romantic love such an important ideal in the U.S. courtship and marriage sys- tem? One factor, certainly, is the economic unimportance of the nuclear family as a unit of production in the country. As industrialization undermined the economic role of the extended family, the marital choices of children grew increasingly independent of parental authority. As parental decision making in the choice of mates declined, emotional attrac- tion became central to the process of mate selection. Another factor in the maintenance of the ideal of romantic love appears to be the dependent economic status of women. The romantic ideal stresses the role of women as objects of love, valued for their emotional, aesthetic, nurturing, and moral contributions to society rather than for their economic productivity and practical contributions outside the domestic sphere. This romanticizing of women as economically dependent love objects contrasts with actual current marriage practices in which over half of married women are employed outside the home.

Just how does mate selection actually proceed? Several researchers suggest a model that involves a sequence of stages. First, proximity is an important factor. People are most likely to get together with those whom they are likely to encounter. Thus, in spite of their mobility, most people in the United States actually marry a partner who lives within a few miles of them. Ineichen (1979) found that almost 65% of a sample of 232 married couples lived in the same city before they married, most of them coming from the same area or adjacent areas of the city. Today, technologies such as the Internet are influencing how couples meet, but according to the Pew Internet and American Life polls, as of 2006, only 3% of married couples met on the Internet (Madden & Lenhart, 2006).

Initial attraction is likely to be based on easily observable characteristics such as physi- cal attractiveness, dress, and evidence of social power and prestige. After meeting one another, couples’ compatibility of values and attitudes is especially important. Agree- ment on religious, sexual, familial, and political values is a good predictor of the develop- ment of a stable relationship (Kerkhoff & Davis, 1962). Burgess and Wallin (1953) found that engaged couples were remarkably similar in their physical attractiveness, physical health, mental health, social popularity, race, religion, parents’ educational levels, par- ents’ incomes, and the quality of their parents’ marriages. Thus, similarity seems to be an important element in the attraction that leads to relationships. Current research continues to confirm these findings.

Parenthood With marriage may come children, turning the social unit into a family. The relationship between spouses generally changes at the birth of the first child. It creates new obligations for the husband and wife and new demands on their time and energy. Their domestic roles must be adjusted to accommodate their new status as parents. No longer will they have as much exclusive time for each other.

In societies in which the family organization is important economically and politically, entry into parenthood may be formally indicated by a change in the parents’ names. Using this custom, called teknonymy, a parent might be called Father of Lynn or Mother of Kay. Teknonymy is most often practiced by men in societies in which the couple takes up resi- dence with or near the wife’s family. Women may practice it as well but in fewer societies. In either case, it reflects an elevation in the social rank of the individual, as, because of the birth of the child, he or she is no longer considered an outsider to the family with which

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

the couple resides. The name change calls attention to the greater bond that now exists between the new parent and the in-laws.

Divorce Not all marriages last until the death of a spouse. In the United States, for instance, between 40% and 50% of marriages are likely to end in divorce, the termination of a marriage rela- tionship. Around the world, there are societies with higher and lower rates of divorce. Reasons for divorce vary, but impotence, infertility, infidelity, laziness, and simple incom- patibility are common justifications. In three quarters of the nonindustrialized societies that have been studied by anthropologists, women and men have been more or less equal in their right to divorce (Murdock, 1957). In the United States, the divorce rate grew progres- sively from the 1800s until about 1980. Since that time, the rate has been declining. How- ever, for decades, women have been more likely than men to initiate a divorce. According to a recent study, two thirds of divorces are filed by women (Brinig & Allan, 2000).

Cross-cultural variations in divorce rates make it possible to discover some of the factors that make divorce less likely. The payment of a marriage gift to the bride’s family gives her family a vested interest in the stability of the marriage because the groom’s family is likely to demand return of the payment if the marriage is dissolved. The dowry, a trans- fer of wealth from the bride’s family to the husband, has a similar effect of stabilizing marriage ties. When the couple lives in an extended family, relatives are also likely to have a stabilizing effect on their marriage. Matrilocality, the establishment of residence by a married couple with or near the family of the wife, is associated with a low divorce rate. Perhaps this is because this form of residence gives the women more control over property, which is associated with greater-than-usual social power and honor for women

and less familial authority for the husband, who resides with his in-laws. Under these conditions, the frequency of abusive behavior by the hus- band is oftentimes relatively low.

Old Age Many of us want to grow older, but we do not want to grow old. The negative feelings we have about aging are partly related to our cultural perceptions of the loss of health and strength that accompany the aging process, as well as the potential loss of social rank. What are the factors that contribute to the loss of social power and honor that old age brings in societies such as our own? Cross-cultural research sheds some light on this question.

Respect or lack of respect for the aged is condi- tioned by circumstances that support one or the other attitude. For instance, in nonliterate soci- eties, older people who are no longer economi- cally as productive as they once were may still be

©Getty Images/Photos.com/Thinkstock In many cultures, the elderly are viewed as a repository of experience and wisdom, and they continue to be active contributing members of society.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

valued as repositories of knowledge that is important to others. Similarly, in societies in which witchcraft and sorcery beliefs are prominent, people who have lived a long while are likely to be considered powerful, their age being considered evidence of their having been able to negotiate an otherwise dangerous existence successfully. Probably the most powerful general predictors of attitudes toward older people are customs that govern where newly married persons take up residence and the economic roles of older people. When postmarital residence rules require a couple to live near one spouse’s parents, it is easier for the parents to continue their roles as family heads into their old age. In societies in which the family is a cooperating economic or political group, an older person’s status as family head can be a major determinant of his or her rank in life. According to a study of nonindustrialized societies by Lee and Kezis (1979), nuclear families lack a structure in which parents can maintain their role of family heads into old age. Older people are more likely to have high-ranked statuses in societies in which they live with related married couples and in societies in which descent is traced through only one of the parents (patri- lineal or matrilineal societies) rather than through both. However, if an extended family is too large to be easily led by a single family head or couple, decisions may be made by smaller groups within the extended family. When the political power or wealth of a fam- ily is not consistently related to a particular lineage, parents’ rank is less likely to rise with age compared to societies in which familial power or wealth is strongly related to one’s lineage.

In all societies, the elderly are accorded more respect if they are socially and/or economi- cally productive. Thus, in industrialized societies where rank is associated closely with wealth and income, the social rank of the elderly tends to decline markedly at retirement.

Death Simple and obvious criteria such as the absence of breathing, heartbeat, or reaction to pain have been used in societies throughout the world to determine when biological death has occurred. With the development of a technology to mea- sure brain functioning directly, in the United States and other industrialized societies, more emphasis seems to be directed toward defining death as the cessation of activity in the cerebral cortex of the brain, the center of intellectual and conscious processes. However, these criteria may not always agree with one another. For instance, the cerebral cortex may no longer be active, while the heart and lungs continue to operate, or a person may be comatose and unresponsive to pain, yet later report having been fully aware of the surroundings. Life-support systems used to maintain the vital functions of comatose patients whose heart and lungs have stopped functioning further complicate the process of determining biological death.

Ingram Publishing/Thinkstock One of the most difficult transitions for a group is perhaps the death of a member. In Bali, the traditional funeral custom is cremation.

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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Lifecycle

Psychological death refers to the process by which people prepare themselves subjec- tively for their impending biological death. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1969), who studied dying patients’ responses to their circumstances in U.S. hospitals, identified five coping patterns that patients exhibit as distinct stages in the process of coming to terms with their impending deaths. The first reaction described by Kübler-Ross is denial. Patients refuse to accept the correctness of the diagnosis, insisting that some error has been made or that their records have been confused with those of someone else. Their basic attitude might be summed up as, “There must be some mistake; this cannot be happening to me!” The second response of patients to learning that they are dying is anger, which is characterized by rage, envy, and resentment. In this reaction, the dominant question is, “Why me, why not someone else?” The anger may be directed at anyone at hand—other patients, doctors, nurses, even family members who come to visit and comfort the person. The third reaction is one of bargaining for more time. In this coping strategy, patients seek a slight extension of their deadline—to allow doing something “for one last time” or some similar request, in return for which they vow to live a better life. Depression is the fourth response, in which the dying person mourns because of the approaching loss of people and things that have been meaningful in his or her life. Finally, some patients respond with acceptance, a kind of quiet expectation. Acceptance is not a state of happiness but one of rest in which there are almost no strong feelings, and the patient’s interests narrow as he or she gradually withdraws from everyday life in preparation for what is about to happen. This may be a time of great distress for the patient’s family, as they may feel rejected by the patient’s withdrawal and lack of interest in their visits. While Kübler-Ross emphasized these five coping patterns, others (Corr, 1993) have suggested that these reactions do not necessar- ily occur in any specific sequence and that some individuals may not experience all five.

Socially, death brings about the final change of status in the human lifecycle—the change from a human status to a nonhuman one. Social death is the point at which other people begin to relate to a dying person with behaviors and actions that are appropriate toward someone already biologically dead. Like psychological death, social death may occur before biological death. W. H. Rivers (1926) reported that among the Melanesians, the word mate, which means “dead person,” was applied not only to the biologically dead but also to individuals who were gravely ill, close to death, and to the very old who were likely to die soon. The Melanesians, of course, distinguished between biological mate and social mate. The purpose of referring to those who were close to death as mate was that they were treated socially as if they were dead. Such persons might be buried alive so that they could proceed to a more pleasant afterlife rather than linger among the living under the unpleasant circumstances of extreme age or terminal illness. Among the Inuit of the Arctic, the survival of hunting families would be endangered if they slowed their wander- ings through arctic wastes in search of food to allow the aged or infirm to keep up. Even- tually, at the urging of the afflicted party, the Inuit might hold a funeral ceremony and say goodbye to the one who had to be left behind to die so that others might live.

Since all societies must restructure their social relations so that the work of the world may be continued after the death of a member, ceremonies that mark the death of persons are found in each society. The most dramatic aspect of this social custom is manifest in funeral rituals. Funeral rituals provide a mechanism for dealing with and disposing of the body of the deceased and, at the same time, provide a setting in which the survivors can be encouraged to adjust themselves to the person’s now permanent absence. As a part of this second role of funeral rituals, issues of inheritance of property rights and of passing

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CHAPTER 6Discussion Questions

on the statuses of the deceased to new persons are dealt with in many societies during or immediately following the funeral.

Death in the United States has been largely removed from the familial context by other social institutions that have taken over the management of the dying and the dead. Hos- pitals and nursing homes care for the terminally ill (who often die in such facilities) and insulate the surviving family members from much of the dying process. Traditionally, doctors and nurses have tended to avoid telling terminal patients that they were dying. A specialized funeral industry exists to take care of the practical necessities preparatory to burial, and to usher the survivors through the funeral and mourning process.

Chapter Summary 1. The ways in which we are expected to relate to others is influenced by which

groups we belong to, the statuses we hold, and how these are ranked. 2. Our social rank depends on how much respect we are expected to be given by

others and how much power we may legitimately exercise over others. 3. Societies are sometimes egalitarian, have ranked families, or are based on social

class differences. 4. Kinship is an important institution in small-scale societies that do not have spe-

cialized institutions to govern politics, economic life, and education. 5. The major stages that involve changes in human status are birth, socialization

during childhood, marriage, family formation, old age, and death. 6. Lifecycle changes may be marked by customs such as pregnancy taboos, naming

ceremonies, puberty rituals, marriage negotiations, marriage rituals, establish- ment of residence, divorce, and funeral rites, each of which has specific cultural meanings and purposes.

Discussion Questions 1. Why do statuses always come in pairs? 2. Give three examples of ascribed statuses and three examples of achieved

statuses. 3. What are the two basic components of social rank? 4. What are the basic types of kinship groups? 5. What rites of passage are most often publicly celebrated as important changes

during the lifecycle in societies throughout the world? 6. What are pregnancy rituals? Give an example from your own culture. 7. Under what circumstances are societies most restrictive regarding sexual experi-

mentation before adulthood? 8. What social conditions increase the likelihood of puberty rituals for males and

for females? 9. Under what conditions is old age likely to be associated with high social rank?

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CHAPTER 6Key Terms

achieved statuses Statuses that are acquired during our lifetime and that may change as our position in life changes.

adulthood ritual See puberty ritual.

affines Relatives such as in-laws to whom we can trace our connection through mar- riage ties.

anticipatory levirate A form of polyan- dry in which a man shares his wife with a younger brother until that brother is old enough to make his own way in life.

ascribed statuses Statuses that we have no choice of having but that belong to us by virtue of such things as our sex, family membership, or race.

bilateral descent A descent system in which children are considered to be equally descendants of both their mothers and their fathers.

biological death Death defined in terms of such biological things as the cessation of breathing, heartbeat, reactions to pain, or brainwaves.

Brahmin The Hindu cast that has the highest rank in terms of ritual purity and closeness to God, traditionally made up of priests.

castes Social classes in which membership is determined by birth; the statuses that individuals may hold during their life- times are limited to those of the class into which they were born.

circumcision The surgical removal of the foreskin.

clan Unilineal descent groups in which the common ancestor lived far enough in the past that the specific genealogical ties may no longer be recalled, but one’s claim to be a descendant of that ancestor contin- ues to be the basis of group membership.

class A broad stratum that cuts across society and is made up of different fami- lies that have more or less equal access to income and prestige.

complementary statuses Status pairs in which both parties are expected to behave in different but compatible ways.

consanguines Kin such as parents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and cousins who are related to us by connections that can be made through parents and their children.

division of labor Rules that define the dif- ferent work to be done by those who hold various statuses.

divorce The termination of a marriage.

egalitarian societies The oldest and sim- plest of human societies that have social organizations that make little use of rank beyond ranking based on age and gender and individual differences in achievement.

fictive marriage A marriage that exists to fulfill some function, such as entitlement to the legal or economic benefits of mar- riage, even though no family relationship is established between the spouses.

fixed-term marriages Marriages that are contracted as temporary relationships that end at a predetermined time.

Key Terms

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CHAPTER 6Key Terms

foraging The collecting of wild food, including gathering plant foods, hunting wild animals, and fishing.

fraternal polyandry The most common form of polyandrous union is one in which a woman is simultaneously married to several brothers.

funeral rituals Ceremonies that mark the death of persons.

group A body of people who come together for a common purpose.

group marriage A form of marriage in which several males are simultaneously married to several females.

honor The esteem or respect that some statuses confer on those who hold them.

jatis Occupational subcastes.

kindred In a bilateral descent system, a kinship group that consists of the known relatives of a living individual.

Kshatriya The second highest Hindu caste, traditionally consisting of warrior- rulers, nobles, and landowners.

levirate The obligation of a dead man’s next of kin, usually one of his brothers, to marry the dead man’s widow.

lifecycle The life events and status changes that are typically experienced by individuals are commonly proclaimed to other members of society by formal rituals known as life crisis rites or rites of passage.

lineages Unilineal descent groups made up of persons with a common ancestor who lived recently enough that any two descendants can trace their genealogical connections back to that person.

male-stratified polygyny The form of polygamy in which a small number of men who hold positions of rank and authority, often older men of wealthy families, marry a larger number of wives.

marking The idea that children may be influenced by things that are done by or that happen to their mothers during pregnancy.

master status A status that is so strongly imbued with importance in the minds of people that it cannot be ignored in any situation.

matrilineal descent groups Kin groups in which membership depends on one’s abil- ity to trace ancestry through mother–child connections back to the female founder of the group.

matrilocality The establishment of resi- dence by a married couple with or near the family of the wife.

minorities Low ranked master statuses.

monogamous marriages Union composed two persons are joined as spouses.

naming ceremony The ritual in which a baby is officially received into the com- munity of human beings and symbolically given human status by acquiring a human name.

patrilineal descent groups Kin groups in which membership depends on one’s abil- ity to trace ancestry through father–child connections back to the male founder of the group.

polyandry Marriage between a woman and two or more husbands.

polygyny The form of polygamy in which one man is married to more than one woman at a time.

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CHAPTER 6Key Terms

power The ability to exercise coercion in obtaining what is sought and to punish the failure of others to comply.

pregnancy rituals Rituals intended to protect the child and pregnant woman and to aid in a successful birth.

psychological death The process by which one subjectively prepares for impending biological death.

puberty ritual Ceremonies that are held to proclaim the fact that a former child has now learned the skills necessary to be considered an adult and to marry.

rank A measure of the relative importance accorded to groups and statuses and the work that they do.

ranked societies Societies in which the ranking of individuals is not simply based on age, gender, and individual differences.

rites of passage Ceremonies such as christenings, puberty rituals, marriages, and funerals, which we hold whenever a member of society undergoes an important change in status within the lifecycle of the group.

roles The ways in which the holder of a status is expected to behave.

same-sex marriages Unions between per- sons of the same sex that are regarded as marriages in the society in which they are practiced.

scarification Decorating the body with a pattern made of scars.

self-fulfilling prophecy A situation in which a group’s shared beliefs cause peo- ple to behave so that an expected outcome occurs. In this case, playing the learned role seems to prove the culture’s associa- tion of the behaviors with biology.

serial monogamy Marriage in which indi- viduals have more than one spouse but at different times.

social death The point at which other peo- ple begin to relate to a dying person with behaviors and actions that are appropriate toward someone already biologically dead.

social organization The relationships within society among its groups, division of labor, and the rank of each group and status.

sororal polygyny The form of polygyny in which a man marries two or more closely related women, often sisters.

sororate The custom in which a widower, or sometimes the husband of a barren woman, marries his first wife’s sister.

status pairs Two statuses, such as doctor and patient, that are the basis of their hold- ers’ interaction.

statuses The kinds of relationships that exist among individuals.

stratified societies Societies that have a great deal of specialization within the division of labor and ranking of individu- als and families and in which ranking of individuals and families are based on their access to needed resources.

Sudra The Hindu caste of farm artisans, servants, farmers, and laborers.

symmetrical statuses A pair of statuses, each of which has the same roles to play with respect to the other.

teknonymy The custom of referring a to a person by a designation such as “Father of John” or “Mother of Mary” once they have become parents.

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CHAPTER 6Key Terms

unilineal descent groups Groups of kin who trace their connection to a common ancestor through parents of just one sex.

Untouchables Those who have no caste and who perform such tasks as removing dead cattle from villages, tanning hides, working leather, and removing human waste.

Vaisya The Hindu caste that is made up of commoners.

varnas The Hindu term for castes.

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