Marriage,Kinship Week 4

What is the only universal cross-cultural generalization we can make about marriage, according to Chapter 6?

Marriage always involves a relationship between spouses and creates in-laws, but other traditions vary across cultures.

According to evolutionary theorists Robin Fox and Bernard Chapais (2008), how did human marriage and pair bonding originate?

Men came to exchange women. Because females contribute greater reproductive effort, they are scarcer, more valuable resources

men traded their female kinswomen to build political alliances with other groups

What counter-argument does Bernard Chapais (2013) offer regarding women's power in the evolution of kinship?

Pair bonding and women moving between groups strengthened male family lines while giving women more power to choose partners and resist male control.

What are the three primary types of marital unions found across human societies?

• Monogamy: Marriage between two people.

• Polygyny: One man with multiple wives.

• Polyandry: One woman with multiple husbands.

How do motivations and perceptions of polygyny differ between the Nuer and the Nepalese Brahmans?

• Nuer: Polygyny shows wealth and status and allows men to have more children.

• Nepalese Brahmans: Polygyny is rare, usually happens if the first wife cannot have children, and is viewed negatively by women.

What are four key structural differences between traditional global polygyny and FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints) polygyny in the U.S.?

Men have 10–50+ wives for religious reasons, women face isolation, and young men are banished to reduce competition for wives.

What is "father glorification" in FLDS communities, as described by William Jankowiak?

Co-wives compete for their husband's attention by having their children praise him, reinforcing male authority in the family.

What primary demographic effect does fraternal polyandry have, and why is it practiced in places like high-altitude Tibet/Nepal?

It results in fewer children and keeps ancestral land from being divided among multiple families when resources are scarce.

Why did early male observers struggle to study polyandry objectively, according to Nancy Levine?

Western researchers assumed co-husbands must feel jealousy because of their own cultural beliefs, misinterpreting the lack of jealousy as repression.

What is the corporate household (trongba) among the polyandrous Nyinba of Nepal?

A family household where brothers share land, homes, animals, and a shrine, passing their property down to their sons.

How do Nyinba wives manage sexual equity and avoid jealousy among co-husbands?

Each wife spends equal nights with each husband, using informal schedules or family assignments, with returning traders getting priority.

What is the jural separation of a woman's sexual and procreative attributes in polyandrous and certain African societies (like the Nuer)?

A woman's sexuality is given relative freedom (allowing multiple partners or extramarital affairs), but every child born must be strictly allocated to a specific legal father to secure inheritance and descent

What are parallel cousins versus cross-cousins?

Parallel Cousins: Children of same-sex siblings (MZS/MZD or FBS/FBD). In unilineal systems, they belong to Ego's descent group and are usually forbidden by incest taboos. Cross-Cousins: Children of opposite-sex siblings (FZS/FZD or MBS/MBD). They fall outside Ego's descent group and are preferred alliance/marriage partners

What is Claude Lévi-Strauss's distinction between "complex" and "elementary" marriage systems?

Complex Systems: Have only negative rules specifying whom one cannot marry. Elementary Systems: Have positive rules specifying exact groups or cross-cousins one should marry to systematically exchange women and build enduring alliances

What role does a Nyinba woman's right of "paternity designation" give her within the household?

Because multiple brothers share a wife, wives track cycles and assign biological paternity based on physical resemblance. Women use this right strategically for household politics and to secure influence with preferred husbands