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1 Introduction

• There is no single definition of marriage that is adequate to account for all of the diversity found in marriages cross-culturally.

• Terms

– Genitor refers to the biological father of a child.

– Pater refers to the socially recognized father of a child.

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2 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.

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3 Incest

• 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.

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• In societies with unilineal descent systems (patrilineal or matrilineal), the incest taboo is often defined based on the distinction between two kinds of first cousins: parallel cousins and cross cousins.

– Sexual relations with a parallel cousin is incestuous, because they belong to the same generation and the same descent group.

– Sexual relations with a cross cousin is not incestuous because they belong to the opposite group or moiety.

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5Explaining the Taboo: Instinctive

Horror• This theory argues that Homo sapiens are genetically

programmed to avoid incest.

• This theory has been refuted.

– However, cultural universality does not necessarily entail a genetic basis (e.g., fire making).

– If people really were genetically programmed to avoid incest, a formal incest taboo would be unnecessary.

– This theory cannot explain why in some societies people can marry their cross cousins but not their parallel cousins.

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6Explaining the Taboo: Biological

Degeneration• This theory argues that the incest taboo developed in

response to abnormal offspring born from incestuous unions.

• A decline in fertility and survival does accompany brother-sister mating across several generations.

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• However, human marriage patterns are based on specific cultural beliefs rather than universal concerns about biological degeneration several generations in the future.

– Neither instinctive horror nor biological degeneration can explain the very widespread custom of marrying cross cousins.

– Also, fears about degeneration cannot explain why sexual unions between parallel cousins but not cross cousins are so often tabooed.

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8Explaining the Taboo: Attempt and Contempt• Malinowski (and Freud) argued that the incest taboo

originated to direct sexual feelings away from one’s family to avoid disrupting the family structure and relations (familiarity increases the chances for attempt).

• The opposite theory argues that people are less likely to be sexually attracted to those with whom they have grown up (familiarity breeds contempt as with kibbutzim).

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9Explaining the Taboo: Marry Out

or Die Out• A more accepted argument is that the taboo originated to

ensure exogamy.

– Incest taboos force people to create and maintain wide social networks by extending peaceful relations beyond one's immediate group. (present-day ex. Queen Victoria)

– With this theory, incest taboos are seen as an adaptively advantageous cultural construct.

• This argument focuses on the adaptive social results of exogamy, such as alliance formation, not simply on the idea of biological degeneration.

• Incest taboos also function to increase a group's genetic diversity.

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10 Endogamy

• Endogamy and exogamy may operate in a single society, but do not apply to the same social unit.

• Endogamy can be seen as functioning to express and maintain social difference, particularly in stratified societies, which Americans have done and still do.

• Homogamy is the practice of marrying someone similar to you in terms of background, social status, aspirations, and interests.

• SES—socioeconomic statue and education

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11 Caste India’s caste

system is an extreme example of endogamy.

It is argued that, although India’s varna and America’s “races” are historically distinct, they share a caste-like ideology of endogamy.

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Untouchables with leprosy

(ex. sexism among castes as in the woman caught in the act of adultery)

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13 Royal Incest• Royal families in widely diverse cultures have engaged in

what would be called incest, even in their own cultures.

• Manifest function: the reason given for a custom by its natives.

• Latent function: an effect a custom has that is not explicitly recognized by the natives.

• The manifest function of royal incest in Polynesia was the necessity of marriage partners having commensurate mana.

• The latent function of Polynesian royal incest was that it maintained the ruling ideology.

• The royal incest, generally, had a latent economic function: it consolidated royal wealth.

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Akhenaton and family ca 1350

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15 Edmund Leach on Marriage

• Edmund Leach argued that there are several different kinds of rights 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 of both spouses rights to the labor of the other.

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• Marriage can give either of 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.

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17Marital Rights and Same-Sex Marriage

• In the section Kottak argues that same-sex marriages are legitimate unions between two individuals because like other kinds of marriage, same-sex marriage can allocate all of the rights discussed by Leach.

– In the U.S., since same-sex marriage is illegal, same-sex couples are denied many of these rights (e.g., rights to the labor of the other, over the other’s property, relationships of affinity with the other’s relatives).

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– This does not mean that same-sex marriages, like any other cultural construction, are not capable of meeting these needs, only that in the U.S. laws prevent them from doing so.

• There are many examples in which same-sex marriages are culturally sanctioned (e.g., the Nuer, the Azande, the Igbo, berdaches, and the Lovedu).

• http://www.wolverton-mountain.com/articles/gay__marriage.htm

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19 Bridewealth• Particularly in descent-based societies, marriage partners

represent an alliance of larger social units.• Bridewealth is a gift from the husband’s kin to the wife’s, which

stabilizes the marriage by acting as an insurance against divorce.

• Brideprice is rejected as an appropriate label, because the connotations of a sale are imposed; but progeny price is considered an equivalent term.

• Dowry, much less common than bridewealth, correlates with low status for women.

• Fertility is often considered essential to the stability of a marriage.

• Polygyny may be practiced to ensure fertility.

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20 Durable alliances

• The existence of customs such as the sororate and the levirate indicates the importance of marriage as an alliance between groups.

• Sororate marriages involve the widower marrying one of his deceased wife’s sisters.

• Levirate marriages involve the widow marrying one of her deceased husband’s brothers.

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21 Divorce

• Divorce is found in many different societies.

• Marriages that are political alliances between groups are harder to break up than marriages that are more individual affairs as with foragers.

• Payments of bridewealth also discourage divorce.

• Divorce is more common in matrilineal societies as well as societies in which postmarital residence is matrilocal.

• Divorce is harder in patrilocal societies as the woman may be less inclined to leave her children who, as members of their father’s lineage, would need to stay him.

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22 Divorce in Foraging Societies• In foraging societies forces act to both promote and

discourage divorce.

• Promote divorce:

– Since foragers lack descent groups, marriages tend to be individual affairs with little importance placed on the political alliances.

– Foragers also have very few material possessions.

• Discourage divorce:

– The family unit is the basic unit of society and division of labor is based on gender.

– The sparse populations mean that there are few alternative spouses if you divorce.

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23 Divorce in the U.S.

• The U.S. has one of the world’s highest divorce rates.

• The U.S. has a very large percentage of gainfully employed women.

• Americans value independence.

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24 Polygyny

• Even in cultures that approve of polygamy, monogamy still tends to be the norm, largely because most populations tend to have equal sex ratios.

• Polygyny is more common than polyandry because, where sex ratios are not equal, there tend to be more women than men.

• Multiple wives tend also to be associated with wealth and prestige (the Kanuri of Nigeria and the Betsileo are used as examples).

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25 Polyandry

• Polyandry is quite rare, being practiced almost exclusively in South Asia.

• Among the Paharis of India, polyandry was associated with a relatively low female population, which was itself due to covert female infanticide.

• Polyandry is usually practiced in response to specific circumstances, and in conjunction with other marriage formats.

• In other cultures, polyandry resulted from the fact that men traveled a great deal, thus multiple husbands ensured the presence of a man in the home.

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O v e r v i e w

Gender

This chapter introduces students to the study of Gender. It discusses gender stratification, the relationships between gender and sexuality, and the role of gender in industrialized societies.

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27 Introduction

• The investigation of cultural constructions of gender is frequently an arena for a version of the nature-nurture debate.

• Sex refers to biological differences, while gender refers to the cultural construction of male and female characteristics.

• Sexual dimorphism refers to marked differences in male and female biology besides the primary and secondary sexual features (for example, the average difference in height and weight between men and women is an aspect of sexual dimorphism, but not the differences in genitalia and breasts).

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28 Definitions

• Gender roles are the tasks and activities that a culture assigns to the sexes.

• Gender stereotypes are oversimplified but strongly held ideas of the characteristics of men and women.

• Gender stratification describes an unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, and personal freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions in social hierarchy.

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29 Recurrent Gender Patterns

• Cross-culturally the subsistence contributions of men and women are roughly equal.

• In domestic activities, female labor dominates, while in extradomestic activities, male labor dominates.

• Women are the primary caregivers, but men often play a role.

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30Economic Roles and Gender

Stratification• Roughly equal contributions to subsistence by men and

women correlates with decreased gender stratification.

• As women’s contributions to subsistence become differentially high or low, gender stratification increases.

• Gender stratification is lower when domestic and public spheres are not clearly distinguished.

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31 The Public-Domestic Dichotomy

• Strong differentiation between the home and the outside world is called the domestic-public dichotomy, or the private-public contrast.

– The activities of the domestic sphere tend to be performed by women.

– The activities of the public sphere tend to be restricted to men.

• Public activities tend to have greater prestige than domestic ones, which promotes gender stratification.

• The question should be asked, “Who places prestige on work?”

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32 Sex-Linked Activities

• All cultures have a division of labor based on gender, but the particular tasks assigned to men and women vary from culture to culture.

• Almost universally, the greater size, strength, and mobility of men have led to their exclusive service in the roles of hunters and warriors.

• Lactation and pregnancy also tend to preclude the possibility of women being the primary hunters in foraging societies.

• However, these distinctions are very general, and there is always overlap (!Kung San are used as an example).

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33 Natural Form of Human Society

• Before 10,000 years ago, all human groups were foragers.

• In foraging societies, the public-domestic spheres are least separate, hierarchy is least marked, aggression and competition are most discouraged, and the rights, activities, and spheres of influence of men and women overlap the most.

• Relative gender equality is most likely the ancestral pattern of human society.

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34 Gender among Horticulturalists

• Martin and Voorhies (1975) studied 515 horticultural societies to investigate how gender roles and stratification varied according to economy and social structure.

• Women were found to be the main producers in horticultural societies.

• In half of the societies, women did most of the cultivating.

• In a third of the societies, men and women made equal contributions to cultivation.

• In only 17% of the societies did men do most of the work.

• Women dominated horticulture in 64% of the matrilineal societies and in 50% of the patrilineal societies.

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35Reduced Gender Stratification—Matrilineal, Matrilocal Societies

• Female status tends to be relatively high in matrilineal, matrilocal societies (e.g., Minangkabau).

• Reasons for high female status were that women had economic power due to inheritance, and the residence pattern lent itself to female solidarity.

• A matriarchy is a society ruled by women.

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• Anthropologists have never discovered a matriarchy, but the Iroquois show that women's political and ritual influence can rival that of men.

– Warfare was external only, as is typical of matrilineal societies.

– Women controlled local economy; men hunted and fished.

– Matrons determined entry in longhouses and also had power of impeachment over chiefs.

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37Reduced Gender Stratification—

Matrifocal Societies• A survey of matrifocal (mother-centered, often with no

resident husband-father) societies indicates that male travel combined with a prominent female economic role reduced gender stratification.

• The example of the Igbo (Nigeria) demonstrated that gender roles might be filled by members of either sex.

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38Increased Gender Stratification—

Patrilineal-Patrilocal Societies• The spread of patrilineal-patrilocal societies has been associated

with pressure on resources and increased local warfare.

– As resources become scarcer, warfare often increases.

– The patrilineal-patrilocal complex concentrates related males in villages, which solidifies their alliances for warfare.

• This combination tends to enhance male prestige opportunities and result in relatively high gender stratification (e.g., highland Papua-New Guinea).

– Women do most of the cultivation, cooking, and raising children, but are isolated from the public domain.

– Males dominate the public domain (politics, feasts, warfare).

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39Homosexual Behavior among the

Etoro• Etoro culture is used as an example of extreme male-female

sexual antagonism and the degree to which gender is culturally constructed.

• Etoro men believe that semen is necessary to give life force to a fetus.

– Men have a limited supply of semen.

– Sexuality depletes this supply and saps male vitality.

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• Heterosexual intercourse is seen as necessary to reproduce, but unpleasant because it will lead to a man's eventual death. Recall the song, “Killing me softly with your love”?

– Heterosexual sex is discouraged and limited to only about 100 days a year.

– Heterosexual sex is banned from community life and must take place in the woods far from the village.

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41Homosexual Behavior among the

Etoro (cont.)• Although heterosexual sex is discouraged, homosexual sex

between males is viewed as essential.

– In order for boys to grow into men, they must orally receive semen from older men.

– Homosexual acts can take place in the village.

• Etoro homosexuality is governed by a code of conduct.

– Homosexual sex between older men and younger boys is seen as essential.

– Homosexual sex between boys of the same age is discouraged.

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42 Sexual Orientation

• All human activities, including sexual preferences, are to some extent learned and malleable.

• Sexual orientation refers to a person’s habitual sexual attractions and activities.

• Heterosexuality refers to the sexual preference for members of the opposite sex.

• Homosexuality refers to the sexual preference for members of the same sex.

• Bisexuality refers to the sexual preference for members of both sexes.

• Asexuality refers to indifference toward or lack of attraction to either sex.

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43 Sexual Norms

• Sexual norms vary considerably cross-culturally and through time.

• There tends to be greater cross-cultural acceptance of homosexuality than of bestiality and masturbation.

• Flexibility in human sexual expression is part of our primate heritage.– Masturbation exists among chimpanzee and other

primates.– Homosexual behavior exists among chimpanzee and other

primates.• Sexuality is a matter that culture and environment determine

and limit.

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44 Gender among Agriculturalists

• With agriculture, women become cut off from production.

• Martin and Voorhies (1975) found that women were the main workers in only 15% of the agricultural societies, down from 50% of the horticultural ones.

• Martin and Voorhies (1975) found that males dominated the cultivation in 81% of the agricultural societies, up from only 17% of the horticultural ones.

• This shift is due in part to the increase of heavier labor that characterizes agriculture and the increase in the number of children to raise.

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45Gender among Agriculturalists

(cont.)• Social changes that accompany agriculture also functioned to

reduce the status of women.

• Belief systems started to contrast men's valuable extradomestic labor with women's domestic role, now viewed as inferior.

• The decline of polygyny and the rise of the importance of the nuclear family isolated women from their kin and co-wives.

• Female sexuality is carefully supervised in agricultural societies, which results in men having greater access to divorce and extramarital sex.

• However, there are many exceptions to this, wherein women still do most of the cultivation work and have a correspondingly high status (e.g., Betsileo).

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46 Patriarchy and Violence

• Patriarchal Societies

– The male role in warfare is highly valued.

– Violent acts against women are common and include dowry murders, female infanticide, clitoridectomies.

• Domestic Violence

– Family violence is a worldwide problem.

– Abuse of women is more common in societies where women are separated from their supportive kin ties (e.g., patrilineal, patrifocal, and patrilocal societies).

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47 Early American Industrialism

• The public-domestic dichotomy as it is manifested in America (“a woman’s place...”) is a relatively recent development.

• Initially, women and children worked in factories, but were supplanted by immigrant men who were willing to work for low wages.

• Since World War II, the number of women in the work force has increased dramatically, driven in large part by industry’s search for cheap, educated labor, in combination with technology mitigating the effect of notions about appropriate work for women.

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48 The Feminization of Poverty

• The number of single-parent, female headed households has doubled since 1959, with the largest proportion of these being minorities.

• The combination of dual responsibilities (parenting and work) and poorer employment opportunities means that these households are increasingly poverty stricken.