Marriage systems vary widely across cultures. Anthropologists study marriage to understand kinship structures and economic relationships. Marriage is usually an economic and sexual union between a man and woman, though some cultures allow same-sex marriages or exceptions like berdaches. Incest between close relatives is nearly universally taboo, though definitions of relatives vary. Explanations for incest taboos include promoting genetic diversity and maintaining social networks. While monogamy is most common, some cultures practice polygyny or polyandry. How one marries, such as through bridewealth or dowry exchanges, also differs significantly between groups.

1. MARRIAGE SYSTEMS
From Japanese
wedding designer
Yumi Katsura’s
2006 Collection;
Credit:
english.peopledaily.co
m.cn

2. Definitions
 Marriage is an
economic and
sexual union,
usually between a
man and a woman
Sami couple with their daughter

3. Who is a Father?
• We know the biological mother, but the
father is sometimes unknown...
 Establishes legal parentage of children
 Genitor – biological father of a child
 Pater – socially recognized father of a child

4. MARRIAGE Exceptions
The Nayar & The Na of SW China
Rare Types of Marriage
Berdaches
Christian Nuns
Male-Male/Female-Female
marriage

5.  Berdache
 “Two-spirits”

6. WHY IS MARRIAGE
UNIVERSAL?
 GENDER DIVISION OF LABOR
 PROLONGED INFANT DEPENDENCY
 SEXUAL COMPETITION
 POSTPARTUM PROBLEMS

7. Incest and Exogamy
• Exogamy – practice of seeking a
spouse outside one’s own group
 Forcespeople to create and maintain a
wide social network
 Incest – sexual relations with a close
relative
 The incest taboo is a cultural universal
 What constitutes incest varies widely from
culture to culture

8. Explaining the Taboo
 No universally
accepted
explanation for fact
that all cultures ban
incest
–Cross cultural finding
show rules of incest
avoidance shaped by
kinship structures

9. RESTRICTIONS ON MARRIAGE,
Including incest Taboo
Instinctive Horror Theory
Childhood-Familiarity Theory
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Family-Disruption Theory
Cooperation Theory
Inbreeding Theory (Biological
Degeneration Theory)

10. Instinctive Horror Theory
 Homo sapiens are genetically
programmed to avoid incest
–This theory has been refuted
•Specific kin types included within the
incest taboo have a cultural rather than a
biological basis

11. Biological Degeneration Theory
• Incest taboo developed in response to
abnormal offspring born from
incestuous unions
–Decline in fertility and survival accompanies
brother-sister mating across several
generations
–Human marriage patterns based on specific
cultural beliefs rather than universal concerns
about biological degeneration several
generations in the future

12. Attempt and Contempt
• Malinowski (and Freud) argued incest
taboo originated to direct sexual
feelings away from one’s family to
avoid disrupting the family structure
and relations
 Opposite theory argues that people are
less likely to be sexually attracted to those
with whom they have grown up

13. Explaining the Taboo
• Marry Out or Die Out
 More accepted argument is that taboo
originated to ensure exogamy
 Incest taboos force people to create and
maintain wide social networks
 Incest taboos are seen as an adaptively
advantageous cultural construct

14. Royal Incest
 Royalfamilies in widely diverse cultures
engaged in what would be called incest,
even in their own cultures
–Manifest function – reason given for a
custom by its natives
–Latent function – effect custom was not
explicitly recognized by the natives
–Royal incest, generally, had latent
economic function

15. WHO ONE MARRIES
Arranged Marriages
vs. Love Marriages
Exogamy &
Endogamy
Cousin Marriages
 Cross-cousins
 Parallel cousins
Levirate & Sororate

16. Parallel and Cross Cousins and Patrilineal
Moiety Organization

17. Sororate and Levirate

18. Divorce
• Divorce found in many different
societies
 Marriages that are political alliances
between groups harder to break up than
marriages that are more individual affairs
 Bridewealth discourages divorce
 Divorce is more common in matrilineal
societies as well as societies in which
postmarital residence is matrilocal

19. HOW DOES ONE MARRY?
Bridewealth (Bride
price, progeny
price)
Bride Service
Exchange of
Females
Gift Exchange
Dowry
Indirect Dowry

20. Marriage Arrangements
Ember & Ember “Cultural Anthropology” 2006

21. HOW MANY DOES
ONE MARRY?
 MONOGAMY
 POLYGYNY
 Sororal
 Nonsororal
 POLYANDRY
 Fraternal
 Nonfraternal
Shah family (polygyny) - Photo
By J. Fortier

23. Plural Marriages
• Polygyny
 Even in cultures that approve of polygamy,
monogamy tends to be the norm
 Polygyny more common than polyandry
because, where sex ratios are not equal,
there tend to be more women than men
Multiple wives tend to be associated with
wealth and prestige

24. Plural Marriages
• Polyandry
 Polyandry rare, but practiced almost
exclusively in South Asia
Polyandry usually practiced in response to
specific circumstances, and in conjunction with
other marriage formats
Among Paharis of India, polyandry associated
with relatively low female population, due to
covert female infanticide
In other cultures, polyandry resulted from the
fact that men traveled a great deal

25. THE FAMILY
Variation in
Family Form
Matrifocal
Nuclear
Extended
Karki Family - Matrifocal
- Photo by J. Fortier

26. Post-Marital Residence Patterns
Percentage of Societies
in the Ethnographic
Record with Various
Marital Residence
Patterns

27. Main Predictors of Marital Residence Patterns