Sex, Marriage and Family

1
Chapter 9

• Sex, Marriage and Family

2
Sexual Relations

• Among primates, the human female is unusual in
  her ability to engage in sexual activity whether
  she is fertile (in estrus) or not.
• Every society has rules that govern sexual access.

3
Marriage and Mating

• All animals, including humans, matesome for life
  and some not, some with a single individual and
  some with several.
• Mates are secured and held solely through
  personal effort and mutual consent.
• Marriage is a culturally recognized right and is
  backed by social, political, and ideological
  factors that regulate sexual relations and
  reproductive rights and obligations.

Siamang (Hylobates syndactylus) male female
pair-bond.
Traditional Greek Wedding
4
Social Functions of Marriage

• Create relationships between men and women that
  regulate mating and reproduction.
• Provide a mechanism for regulating the sexual
  division of labor.
• Creates a set of family relationships that
  provide for the material, educational, and
  emotional needs of children.

5
Sexual and Marriage Practices among the Nayar

• The Nayar are one of many examples of sexually
  permissive cultures.
• A landowning warrior caste, their estates are
  held by corporations made up of kinsmen related
  in the female line.
• These relatives live together in a household,
  with the eldest male serving as manager.
• The Nayar made their income from fighting.
• Traditionally, Nayar boys began military training
  around age of 7, and were away from home for
  significant stretches of time.

6
The Nayar Ritual Husband

• Ritual Husband
• Shortly before a girl experienced her first
  menstruation there is a ceremony that joins her
  with a ritual husband in a temporary union
  which does not necessarily involve sexual
  relations.

Tali ritual Girls boys from allied lineages
performed a ceremony where each groom tied a
gold ornament on his brides neck. Then sent
to be alone (may or may not have sex). wife
morns husband if he dies. Failure to perform
ostracism death
http//www.change.freeuk.com/learning/socthink/fam
ily.html
7
The Nayar Visiting Husband

• Visiting Husband
• The once married woman grows up and begins to
  take visiting husbands. She can take up to 12
  men (one at a time) approved by her family, it
  became a formal relationship that required the
  man to present her with gifts three times each
  year until the relationship was terminated.
• The man could spend the nights with her, but had
  no obligation to support her economically.

8
The Nayar Paternity Death

• Acknowledging Paternity Death of the Ritual
  husband
• When the woman became pregnant, one of the men
  with whom she has a relationship must acknowledge
  paternity by making gifts to the woman and the
  midwife.
• Death of the ritual husband When her ritual
  husband dies she mourns him.

9
Kin Relations

• Consanguineal kin
• Relatives by birth so-called blood relatives.
• Affinal kin
• Relatives by marriage.

10
Incest Taboo

• The prohibition of sexual relations between
  specified individuals, usually parent-child and
  sibling relations at a minimum.

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. Family disruption
Theory mating between family members would
create intense jealousies creating dysfunction.
Role confusion would emerge. Theory of Expanding
Social Alliances marry outside the immediate
family creates a wider network of
inter-family-alliances.
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Endogamy and Exogamy

• Endogamy
• Marriage within a particular group or category of
  individuals.
• Exogamy
• Marriage outside the group.

Cleopatra married her brother (Ptolemy XIII).
Many royal families have entered into endoganous
marriages to keep the line pure.
A Filipina bride and Nigerian groom.
12
Question

• ____________ are relatives by birth, or so-called
  "blood kin.
• Affinal kin
• In laws
• Conjugal kin
• Kith and kin
• Consanguineal kin

13
Question

• Consanguineal kin are relatives by birth, or
  so-called "blood kin."

14
Question

• Marriage within a particular group of individuals
  is called
• incest.
• exogamy.
• monogamy.
• endogamy.
• polygamy.

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Answer D

• Marriage within a particular group of individuals
  is called endogamy.

16
Forms of Marriage

• Monogamy
• Polygyny
• Polyandry
• Bigamy
• Group marriage
• Fictive (Ghost) marriage

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Monogamy

• Monogamy is the most common form of marriage,
  primarily for economic reasons.
• In most of the world, marriage is not based on
  romantic love, but on economic considerations.

Paul Newman Joanne Woodward Married over 50
years.
http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic
le/2008/09/01/AR2008090102087.html
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Serial Monogamy

• A form of marriage in which a man or woman
  marries a series of partners.
• Increasingly common among middle-class North
  Americans as individuals divorce and remarry.

Larry King 6th wife Shawn Southwick
19
Polygamy Vs. Polygyny

• Polygamy One individual having multiple spouses
  at the same time (Polymany gamousmarriage)
• Polygyny Marriage of a man to two or more women
  at the same time a form of polygamy.

Warren Jeffs, leader of a polygamist seck known
as the Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints. Arrested 2006, for rape
Sentenced , 2007 to 10yrs. Colorado City, AZ
Hilsdale, UT.
20
Polyandry

• Polyandry Marriage of a woman to two or more men
  at one time a form of polygamy.

In Tibet, where inheritance is in the male line
and arable land is limited, the marriage of
brothers to a single woman (fraternal polyandry)
keeps the land together by preventing it from
being repeatedly subdivided among sons from one
generation to the next.
Also provides male labor for the Tibetan mixed
economy of farming, herding, and trading.
21
Bigamy

• Bigamy Two simultaneous monogamous marriages.

22
Group (Co-) Marriage

• Marriage in which several men and women have
  sexual access to one another.

Ex Among members of an Eskimo hunting crew a
headman could lend his wife to a crew member who
could then borrow his wife in turn. The families
enter into a partnership relationship that can be
as strong as kinship where the children are
raised with retained recognition of the
relationship.
23
Fictive (Ghost or Levirate) Marriage

• Marriage by proxy to the symbols of someone not
  physically present to establish the social status
  of a spouse and heirs.
• Ex In the Nuer culture (who are cattle herders)
  of southern Sudan a woman can marry a man who has
  died without any heirs.
• The deceased mans brother may stand-in on his
  behalf if they have offspring the children will
  be considered the dead mans legitimate heirs.
• A woman of wealth can marry a deceased man in
  order to keep her power and wealth.

Levirate marriage Often practiced by societies
with strong clan structures that practice
endogamous Levir husbands brother
24
Cousin Marriage

• 19 states allow first cousin marriages in US.
• 31 states do not allow it.
• In some societies, the preferred spouse for a man
  is his fathers brothers daughter, known as
  patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage. (Arabs,
  ancient Israelites Greeks).
• a parallel cousin is the child of a fathers
  brother or a mothers sister.
• Some societies favor matrilateral cross-cousin
  marriagemarriage of a man to his mothers
  brothers daughter, or a woman to her fathers
  sisters son.
• A cross cousin is the child of a mothers brother
  or a fathers sister.

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Marriage Exchanges

• Bride-price
• Payment of money from the grooms to the brides
  kin (opposite of a dowry). Its a way of showing
  respect for the bride and her parents,
  compensates the family for the loss of her
  economic input, and gives father rights to
  offspring.
• Bride price is most common among polygynous,
  small-scale, patrilineal societies--especially in
  sub-Saharan Africa and among Native Americans. 
• Bride service
• The groom is expected to work for a period of
  time for the brides family.
• Often moves in with them to help hunt, etc..
• Dowry
• Payment of a womans inheritance at the time of
  marriage to her or her husband.
• Can be very serious in parts of India if not paid
  (women die from kitchen accidents.)

26
Dowry

• In some societies when a woman marries, she
  receives her share of the family inheritance
  which she brings to her new family. Shown here
  are Slovakian women carrying the objects of a
  womans dowry.

27
Question

• Bride __________ refers to the period of time a
  groom is expected to work for his bride's family.
• price
• service
• period
• exchange
• work

28
Answer B

• Bride service refers to the period of time a
  groom is expected to work for his bride's family.

29
Divorce

• Factors contributing to divorce
• Many marriages are based on ideals of romantic
  love or the idealization of youth.
• Establishing an intimate bond in a society in
  which people are taught to seek individual
  gratification is difficult.

30
Family Household

• Family consists of people who consider
  themselves related by blood, marriage or
  adoption.
• Patrilineal Vs. Matrilineal

• Household - basic residential unit in which
  economic production, consumption,
  inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are
  organized and carried out.
• i.e., Family members that live in the same house.

31
Functions of the Family
The family fulfills basic needs or functions
within the society.
Functions

• Socialization of children
• Care of the sick and aged
• Recreation
• Sexual control
• Reproduction
• Economic productivity

32
Forms of the Family

• Conjugal family
• is a nuclear family of adult partners and their
  children (by birth or adoption) where the family
  relationship is principally focused inwardly and
  ties to extended kin are voluntary and based on
  emotional bonds, rather than strict duties and
  obligations. This considers the spouses and their
  children as of prime importance and which has a
  fringe of comparatively lesser important
  relatives. The marriage bond is important and
  stressed.
• Consanguineal family
• Relationship by blood, whether lineal (for
  example by direct descent) or collateral (by
  virtue of a common ancestor). The degree of
  consanguinity is significant in laws relating to
  the inheritance of property and also in relation
  to marriage, which is forbidden in many cultures
  between parties closely related by blood.

33
Forms of the Family

• Nuclear family
• A group consisting of one or more parents and
  dependent offspring, which may include a
  stepparent, stepsiblings, and adopted children.
• Extended family
• A collection of nuclear families, related by ties
  of blood, that live in one household.

34
Nuclear Families
Extended Families

• In the Maya communities of Central America and
  Mexico, sons bring their wives to live in houses
  built on the edges of a small open plaza, on one
  edge of which their fathers house already
  stands. All members of the family work together
  for the common good and deal with outsiders as a
  single unit.

• Among Inuit people in Canada who still hunt for
  much of their food, nuclear families are typical.
  Their isolation from other relatives is usually
  temporary. Much of the time they are found in
  groups of at least a few related families.

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Household Types in the United States in 2000
36
Five Basic Residence Patterns

• Patrilocal
• Matrilocal
• Ambilocal
• Neolocal

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Residence Patterns

• Patrilocal residence
• A residence pattern in which a married couple
  lives in the locality associated with the
  husbands fathers relatives.
• Important in polygynous cultures where warfare is
  prominent.
• Often found in cultures where animal husbandry
  and/or intensive agriculture is customary.
• Matrilocal residence
• A residence pattern in which a married couple
  lives in the locality associated with the wifes
  relatives.
• Often found in horticultural societies, where
  political organization is uncentralized
  cooperation among women is important.
• Example Hopi Indians.

38
Residence Patterns

• Ambilocal residence
• A pattern in which a married couple may choose
  either matrilocal or patrilocal residence.
• Common among food-foraging peoples where economic
  cooperation of more people than are available in
  the nuclear family is needed but where resources
  are limited in some way.
• Neolocal residence
• A pattern in which a married couple may establish
  their household in a location apart from either
  the husbands or the wifes relatives.
• Common where independence of the nuclear family
  is emphasized, such as industrial societies like
  the U.S.

39
Families in a Globalized World

• Many of Chinas 114 million migrant laborers work
  in factories and live in factory dormitories such
  as this.