Cultural Anthropology Chapters 9 & 10 – Flashcards
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postpartum sex taboo
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the rule that a husband and wife must abstain from any sexual activity for a period of time after the birth of a child
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incest taboo
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the prohibition of sexual intimacy between people defined as close relatives
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kibbutz
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a communal farm or settlement in Israel
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role ambiguity
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confusion about how one is expected to behave
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exogamy
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a rule requiring marriage outside of one's own social or kinship group
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endogamy
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a rule requiring marriage within a specified social or kinship group
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arranged marriage
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a marriage in which the selection of the spouse is outside the control of the bride and groom
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preferential cousin marriage
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a preferred form of marriage between either parallel or cross cousins
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cross cousins
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children of one's mother's brother or father's sister (siblings of the opposite sex)
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parallel cousins
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children of one's mother's sister or father's brother. (siblings of the same sex)
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levirate
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the practice of a man marrying the widow of his deceased brother
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sororate
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the practice of a woman marrying the husband of her deceased sister
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monogamy
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the marital practice of having only one spouse at a time
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polygyny
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the marriage of a man to two or more women at the same time
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polyandry
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the marriage of a woman to two or more men at the same time
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serial monogamy
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the practice of having a succession of marriage partners, but only one at a time
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bridewealth (bride price)
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the transfer of goods from the groom's lineage to the bride's lineage to legitimize marriage (compensation given upon marriage by the family of the groom to the family of the bride) Bridewealth is most widely found in Africa, where it is estimated that 82% of societies require the payment of bridewealth
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bride service
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work or service performed for the bride's family by the groom for a specified period of time either before or after the marriage (men give labor to the bride's family in exchange for a wife) found in approximately 14% of societies
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dowry
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goods or money transferred from the bride's family to the groom or the groom's family in order to legalize or legitimize a marriage (transfer of goods or money from bride's family to the groom or the groom's family) practiced in India
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reciprocal exchange
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the equal exchange of gifts between the families of both the bride and the groom to legitimize a marriage
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divorce
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the legal and formal dissolution of a marriage
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nuclear family
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the most basic family unit, composed of wife and husband, and children (composed od a married couple and their children)
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extended family
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the family that includes in one household relatives in addition to a nuclear family (composed of three or more generations)
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marriage
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a legal union that involves a man and a woman as husband and wife. (Customs formalizing the relationship between the adult male and female with the family. regulates the sexual and economic rights and obligations between a married couple. Usually involves an explicit contract or understanding and is entered into with the assumption that it will be permanent.
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Name the three (3) basic types of families?
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1. Nuclear 2. Extended 3. Blended
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Family
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a relatively permanent group of people connected by blood, marriage, or adoption that live together and share social and economic responsibilities
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Family of orientation
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the family in which one is born
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Family of procreation
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the family that one creates usually through marriage
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Marriage is based on two (2) premises
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1. Primariness 2. Permanence
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Primariness
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each partner wants to be primary in each other's lives
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permanence
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security that the marriage will last
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natural aversion
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there is a natural aversion to sexual intercourse among those who have grown up together
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inbreeding
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mating between close kin produces a higher incidence of genetic defects
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family disruption
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mating between family members would create intense jealousies
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marry cousins (example)
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Charles Darwin, the author of origin of species had ten (10) children with his wife, who was also his first cousin.
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Interracial marriage
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at one time in the United States interracial marriage was against the law
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consanguineal relatives
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one's biological or blood relatives. (those biological family members such as mother, father, grandparents, children, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, and cousins to whom we are related through birth or blood
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affinal relatives
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kinship ties through marriage (that is, in-laws) those sociological family members such as husband, or wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law to whom we are related through marriage
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fictive kinship
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relationships among individuals who recognize kinship obligations even though the relationships are not based on either consanguineal or affinal ties (blood or marriage) Example: godparenthood, parents friends that are referred to as "aunts" or "uncles"
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vertical function of kinship
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the ways in which all kinship systems tend to provide social continuity by binding together different generations
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horizontal function of kinship
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the ways in which all kinship systems, by requiring people to marry outside their own small kinship group, function to integrate the total society through marriage bonds between otherwise unrelated kin groups (solidify or tie together a society across a single generation through marriage)
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Ego
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the person in kinship diagrams from whose point of view the relationships are traced
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lineality
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kin relationships traced or related through a single line, such as son, father, and grandfather (direct line of descent)
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collaterality
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kin relationships traced through a linking relative such as uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, and cousins
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kinship system
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those relationships found in all societies that are based on blood or marriage
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descent
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a person's kinship connections traced back through a number of generations
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unilineal descent
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tracing decent through a single line (such as matrilineal or patrilineal) as compared to both sides (bilateral descent)
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matrilineal descent
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a form of descent in which people trace their primary kin connections through their mothers
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patrilineal descent
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a form of descent in which people trace their primary kin relationships through their fathers
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cognatic descent
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a form of descent traced through both females and males
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matriarchy
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a system of governance whereby women rule over men or are empowered to make decisions over men
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lineage
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a unilineal descent group whose members can trace their line of descent back to a common ancestor
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segmentation
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the process that takes place within a lineage whereby small subdivisions of a lineage oppose one another in some social situations but coalesce and become allies in other social situations
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clans
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unilineal descent groups, usually comprising ten or more generations, consisting of members who claim a common ancestry even though they cannot trace step by step their exact connection to that ancestor
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phratries
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unilineal descent groups composed of related clans
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moieties
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complementary descent groups that result from the division of a society into halves
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double descent
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a system of descent in which individuals receive some rights and obligations from the father's side of the family and others from the mother's side
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ambilineal descent
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a form of descent in which a person chooses to affiliate with a kin group through either the male or the female line
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bilateral descent
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a type of kinship system in which individuals emphasize both their mother's kin and their father's kin relatively equally
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kindred
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all of the relatives a person recognizes in a bilateral kinship system
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patrilocal residence
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a residence pattern on which the married couple lives with or near the relatives of the husband's father
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matrilocal residence
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a residence pattern in which the married couple lives with or near the relatives of the wife
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avunculocal residence
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a residence pattern in which the married couple lives with or near the husband's mother's brother
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ambilocal residence
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a residence pattern in which the married couple may choose to live with either the relatives of the wife or the relatives of the husband
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neolocal residence
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a residence pattern in which the married couple has its own place of residence apart from the relatives of either spouse
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Eskimo (Inuit) system
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the kinship system most commonly found in the United States; it is associated with bilateral descent. usually a mother, father, and their children live together
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Iroquois system
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a kinship associated with unilineal descent in which the father and father's brother are called by the same term, and are the mother and the mother's sister
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reproductive technologies
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recent developments, such as invitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and sperm banks, that make the reckoning of kin relationships more complex
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Two major functions of marriage?
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1. procreation of offspring (children) 2. family relationship (descent)
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kinship
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a system of social organization between people who are or are held to be biologically related or who are given the status of relatives by marriage, adoption, or other ritual
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godparenthood (coparenthood)
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in it's many manifestations is the most commonly cited illustration of fictive kinship
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Functions of descent groups
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1. Mechanism for inheriting property and political office 2. Control behavior 3. Regulate marriages 4. Structure primary political units
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Rules of descent: Two types
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1. Unilateral - trace their ancestry through mother's line or father's line, but not both. Sixty percent (60%) of population falls under unilateral. 2. Bilateral (cognatic) descent is counted along both the mother's and father's line.
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Principles of kinship classifications
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1. generations 2. gender 3. lineality versus collaterality 4. consanguineal versus affinal kin 5. relative age 6. sex of the connecting relative 7. social condition 8. side of the family
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Characteristics of a descent group
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1. have a strong sense of identity 2. often share communally held property 3. provide economic assistance to one another 4. engage in mutual civic and religious ceremonies
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Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881)
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a 19th century evolutionist, held that all societies pass through certain distinctive evolutionary stages. Conducted an ethnographic study of the Seneca Indians (an Iroquois group) Author of: Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871) Also wrote: Ancient Society (1877)
