The nuclear family consists of parents and their children.
Most people belong to at least two nuclear families at different
times in their lives: a family of orientation and a family of procreation.
Family of orientation is the family in which one is born
and grows up.
A family of procreation is formed when one marries and has
children.
Nuclear family organization is widespread but not universal.
In certain societies, the nuclear family is rare or nonexistent
or has no special role in social life.
In some societies, social units such as extended families and
descent groups assume most or all of the functions otherwise associated
with the nuclear family.
Among the Muslims of western Bosnia, nuclear families were
embedded within large extended families called zadrugas, each
headed by a male household head and his wife.
The Nayars of southern India lived in matrilineal extended
family compounds called tarawads, each headed by a senior woman.
Industrialism and Family Organization
For many North Americans, the nuclear family is the only well
defined kin group.
The most prevalent residence pattern among middle-class North
Americans is neolocality—married couples are expected to establish
a new place of residence.
Expanded family households (those that include nonnuclear relatives)
are more common among lower-class North Americans.
An extended family household includes three or more generations.
A collateral household includes siblings and their spouses
and children.
The greater frequency of expanded family households among
poorer Americans is an adaptation to poverty that enables relatives
to pool their resources.
Changes in North American Kinship
Although the nuclear family remains a cultural ideal for many
Americans, other domestic arrangements now outnumber the "traditional"
American household more than three to one.
With more women joining the workforce, the age of first marriage
has increased.
The divorce rate has also risen dramatically (three times faster
than the population growth rate between 1970 and 2003), as has the
number of single-parent families.
The percentage of adults who are married has decreased.
The trend toward smaller families and living units in the United
States is also detectable in western Europe and other industrial nations.
The Family among Foragers
The two basic social units of traditional foraging societies
are the nuclear family and the band.
Although nuclear families are as impermanent among foragers as
they are in any other society, they are usually more stable than bands
are.
Typically, the band exists only seasonally, breaking up into
nuclear families when resources become scarce.
Mobility and the emphasis on small, economically self-sufficient
family units promote the nuclear family as a basic kin group in both
industrial and foraging societies.
Descent
Descent Groups
A descent group is a permanent social unit whose members claim
common ancestry.
There are two types of unilineal descent: patrilineal and matrilineal.
With patrilineal descent, people automatically have lifetime
membership in their father's group; the children of the group's
men join the group, but the children of the group's women are
excluded.
With matrilineal descent, people join the mother's group
automatically at birth and stay members throughout life; matrilineal
descent groups include only the children of the group's women.
Patrilineal descent is much more common than matrilineal
descent is.
Descent groups may be lineages or clans.
A lineage is a descent group whose members can demonstrate their
common descent from an apical ancestor (demonstrated descent).
A clan is a descent group whose members claim common descent
from an apical ancestor but cannot demonstrate it (stipulated descent).
When a clan's apical ancestor is nonhuman (an animal or a plant),
it is called a totem.
Descent groups usually have branches (local descent groups) that
live in different villages.
Lineages, Clans, and Residence
Descent groups are permanent and enduring units whose members
have access to lineage estates.
Patrilineal and matrilineal descent, and the post-marital residence
rules that usually accompany them, ensure that about half the people
born in each generation will spend their lives on the ancestral estate.
There are two different unilocal rules of post-marital residence:
patrilocality and matrilocality.
Patrilocality—the rule that when a couple marries,
it moves to the husband's community, so that their children will
grow up in their father's village—is associated with patrilineal
descent.
Matrilocality—the rule stipulating that married couples
live in the wife's community, so that their children grow up in
their mother's village—is less common and associated with
matrilineal descent.
Marriage
There is no single definition of marriage that is adequate to account
for all of the diversity found in marriages cross-culturally.
Incest and Exogamy
Exogamy is the practice of seeking a spouse outside one's own
group.
This practice forces people to create and maintain a wide
social network.
This wider social network nurtures, helps, and protects one's
group during times of need.
Incest refers to sexual relations with a close relative.
The incest taboo is a cultural universal.
What constitutes incest varies widely from culture to culture.
Endogamy
Endogamy rules dictate mating or marriage within a group to which
one belongs.
Most cultures are endogamous units (although they usually do
not have formal endogamy rules), while classes and ethnic groups within
a society may also be quasi-endogamous.
Caste
India's caste system is an extreme example of endogamy.
Castes are stratified groups in which membership is ascribed
at birth and is lifelong.
Occupational specialization often sets off one caste from
another.
The belief that intercaste sexual unions lead to ritual impurity
for the higher-caste partner has helped to maintain endogamy and
to ensure the pure ancestry of high-caste children.
While castes are endogamous groups, many are internally subdivided
into exogamous lineages.
Marital Rights and Same-Sex Marriage
Edmund Leach observed that several kinds of rights may be allocated
by marriage.
Marriage can establish the legal father of a woman's children
and the legal mother of a man's.
Marriage can give either or both spouses a monopoly in the sexuality
of the other.
Marriage can give either or both spouses rights to the labor
of the other.
Marriage can give either or both spouses rights over the other's
property.
Marriage can establish a joint fund of property—a partnership—for
the benefit of the children.
Marriage can establish a socially significant "relationship of
affinity" between spouses and their relatives.
There are no logical reasons why same-sex marriage could not allocate
all of the rights discussed by Leach.
Because same-sex marriage is illegal in the United States (with the
exception of Vermont and Massachusetts), same-sex couples are denied many
of the rights and benefits enjoyed by different-sex couples (e.g., rights
to the labor and property of a spouse, the ability to establish a joint
fund of property, relationships of affinity with a spouse's relatives).
Same-sex marriages have been recognized in various historical and
cultural settings (e.g., Native American berdaches; the marriage of two
women among the Igbo and the Lovedu in Africa).
Marriage Across Cultures
In nonindustrial societies, marriage often is more a relationship
between groups than one between individuals.
Bridewealth and Dowry
In societies with descent groups, descent-group members often
have to contribute to the bridewealth—a customary gift before,
at, or after the marriage from the husband and his kin to the wife
and her kin.
Bridewealth compensates the bride's group for the loss of
her companionship and labor.
Bridewealth is also known as progeny price, because it makes
the children born to the woman full members of her husband's descent
group.
Bridewealth is common in patrilineal groups.
As the value of bridewealth increases, marriages become more
stable; thus, bridewealth is insurance against divorce.
Dowry is a marital exchange in which the wife's group provides
substantial gifts to the husband's family.
Dowry correlates with low female status.
Dowry is much less common than bridewealth.
In societies with bridewealth, a woman's ability to bear children
is essential to the stability of her marriage.
Most nonindustrial food-producing societies allow plural marriages,
or polygamy.
Polygyny, in which a man has more than one wife, is common.
Polyandry, in which a woman has more than one husband, is
very rare.
Polygyny may result from an infertile wife remaining married
to her husband after he has taken a substitute wife provided by her
descent group.
Durable Alliances
Customs such as the sororate and the levirate highlight the importance
of marriage as an alliance between groups.
In a sororate marriage, a widower marries one of his deceased
wife's sisters (or another woman from her group if she has no sister
or if all her sisters are already married).
In a levirate marriage, a widow marries one of her deceased husband's
brothers.
Divorce
Ease of divorce varies across cultures.
Marriages that are political alliances between groups are harder
to break up than are marriages that are more individual affairs.
Substantial bridewealth discourages divorce, and replacement
marriages (levirate and sororate) also help to preserve group alliances.
Divorce is more common in matrilineal and matrilocal societies
(e.g., the Hopi of the American Southwest).
Divorce is harder in patrilocal societies, as a woman may be
less inclined to leave her children, who as members of their father's
lineage would be expected to remain with him.
In foraging societies, different factors favor or oppose divorce.
Factors favoring divorce:
Since foragers tend to lack descent groups, the political
alliance functions of marriage are less important to them than
they are to food producers.
Foragers also tend to have few material possessions, making
the process of dissolving a joint fund of property easier.
Factors opposing divorce:
Ties between spouses tend to be durable in societies in which
the family is an important year-round unit with a gender-based
division of labor.
Sparse populations mean there are few alternative spouses.
In contemporary Western societies, divorce may occur when sex, romance,
and/or companionship fade, while economic ties, obligations to children,
concern about public opinion, or simple inertia may keep marriages intact.
Plural Marriages
Polygamy (marriage to more than one spouse at a time) is illegal
in contemporary North America, but North Americans do practice serial
monogamy (remarrying after divorce).
Polygyny
Even in cultures that encourage polygyny, monogamy still tends
to be the norm, largely because most populations have roughly equal
sex ratios.
The custom of men marrying later than women (so that there are
more widows than widowers) promotes polygyny.
The context and function of polygyny vary from society to society
and even within the same society.
Some men are polygynous because they have inherited a widow from
a brother, while others have multiple wives because they seek prestige
or want to increase household productivity.
Polyandry
Polyandry is quite rare, being practiced almost exclusively in
South Asia (Tibet, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka).
Polyandry seems to be a cultural adaptation to mobility associated
with customary male travel for trade, commerce, and military operations.
Polyandry ensures there will be at least one man at home to accomplish
male activities.
Fraternal polyandry is also an effective strategy when resources
are scarce.
Brothers with limited resources can pool their resources
in expanded (polyandrous) households.
Because polyandry restricts the number of wives and heirs,
land can be transmitted with minimal fragmentation.
Box: Social Security, Kinship Style
In Arembepe, Brazil, all members of the community claimed to be related,
although (as in a clan) they could not trace exact genealogical links
to their distant kin.
In Arembepe, the rights and obligations associated with kinship and
marriage comprised the local social security system, which had both benefits
and costs.
The primary benefit was guaranteed help from kin, in-laws, and
ritual kin in times of need.
The primary costs were limits on individuals' economic advance.
Successful people were expected to share with more kin and
in-laws, and with more distant kin, than were poorer people.
Increasing wealth resulted in invitations to enter into ritual
kin relationships (e.g., serving as godparents) involving additional
obligations.
