Chapter 9 Marriage and the Family

1. Chapter 9 Marriage and the Family

2. Chapter Outline • Marriage and the Family • Marriage and the Family: Functions • Mate Selection: Who Is Out of Bounds? • Mate Selection: Whom Should You Marry? • Number of Spouses • Economic Considerations of Marriage • Divorce • Residence Patterns: Where Do Wives and Husbands Live? • Family Structure

3. Definition of Family • Social unit characterized by: • economic cooperation • management of reproduction • child rearing • common residence. • Includes male and female adults who maintain a socially approved sexual relationship.

4. Marriage Defined • Customs formalizing the relationship between male and female adults within 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.

5. Social Functions of Marriage • Creates relationships between men and women that regulate mating and reproduction. • Provides a mechanism for regulating the sexual division of labor. • Creates a set of family relationships that provides for the material, educational, and emotional needs of children.

6. Incest Taboos: Theories • Natural Aversion Theory - there is a natural aversion to sexual intercourse among those who have grown up together. • Inbreeding Theory - mating between close kin produces a higher incidence of genetic defects.

7. Incest Taboos: Theories • Family Disruption Theory – mating between family members would create intense jealousies and the family would not be able to function. • Theory of Expanding Social Alliances - marrying outside the immediate family creates a wider network of interfamily alliances.

8. Restrictions on Marriage Partners Cultures restrict choice of marriage partners through: • Exogamy • Endogamy • Arranged marriages • Preferential cousin marriage • Levirate and sororate

9. Number of Spouses • Monogamy • Marriage of one man to one woman. • Polygyny • Marriage of a man to two or more women. • Polyandry • Marriage of a woman to two or more men.

10. Marriage: Transfer of Rights • Marriage often includes the transfer of certain rights between the marrying parties: • Rights of sexual access. • Legal rights to children. • Rights of spouses to each other’s economic goods and services.

11. Economic Transactions of Marriage • Bridewealth • Bride service • Dowry • Woman exchange • Reciprocal exchange

12. Bridewealth • Compensation given upon marriage by the family of the groom to the family of the bride. • Approximately 46% of all societies give substantial bridewealth payment as part of the marriage process. • Bridewealth is most widely found in Africa, where it is estimated that 82% of societies require the payment of bridewealth.

13. Bride Service • Men give labor to the bride’s family in exchange for a wife. • He often moves in with his bride’s family, works or hunts for them, and serves a probationary period of several weeks to several years. • Found in approximately 14% of societies.

14. Dowry • Transfer of goods or money from bride’s family to the groom or the groom’s family. • Practiced in less than 3% of societies. • If the marriage ended in divorce, the woman was entitled to take the dowry with her.

15. Divorce Across Cultures • Divorce arrangements found in the many cultures of the world vary widely. • Organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church prohibit divorce outright. • A Hopi woman from Arizona could divorce her husband easily by simply putting his belongings outside the door.

16. Factors in Rising U.S. Divorce Rate • Industrialization and urbanization have undermined traditional functions of the family. • Less time spent with family members and less willingness to make sacrifices for the good of the family. • Western culture emphasizes romantic love as the basis for marriage. • Less stigma attached to divorce than in the past.

17. Marriage Residence Patterns • Patrilocal: Couple lives with or near relatives of the husband’s father (69%). • Matrilocal: Couple lives with or near the relatives of the wife (13%).

18. Marriage Residence Patterns • Avunculocal: Couple lives with or near the husband’s mother’s brother (4%). • Ambilocal: Couple has a choice of living with relatives of the wife or the husband (9%). • Neolocal: Couple forms independent residence away from relatives (5%).

19. Family Structures • Nuclear family – Comprises wife, husband, and children. • Extended family – A larger social unit, comprising relatives from three or more generations.