Lévi-Strauss: structuralism
- alliances created through marriage, reciprocal or generalised exchange which binds affinity through the "circulation of women" who link together the various social groups into one greater society
- e.g. bilateral cross-cousin marriage results in a system of direct (tho restricted) exchange between paried lineages
- focus on group composition: elementary structures/positive rules/prescriptions, complex structures/negative rules/prohibitions
Rubin: "Do women become objects?"
Collier and Rosaldo: "Are women exchanged between men or are they formin political alliances?", "Is marriage a relation that organises privileges?"
There are marriage systems based on "marriage payments"
- bride service, bride wealth bride price and dowry
- bride price can be interpreted as a sign of respect not a purchase
- in arranged marriages, men may be valued as a prize of respect
Nuer men are expected to go through long courtship processes
- bridewealth of money or cattle (which may have to be acquired by loans in order to accumulate presentable enough wealth), and certain ceremonial rites
Bride service
- in societies where political economy does not revolve around complex property systems of accumulative wealth?
- matrilocal arrangement, suitor helps with the household labour and gets to know her male relatives: economic union
Arranged marriages
- couple expected to develop a loving relationship
- often based on extended family ties
- parental power over children is affirmed
- helps keep family traditions and values in tact
- helps consolidate and extend family property
- helps young people avoid uncertainty
Nuer ghost marriages
- a Nuer woman may marry a deceased man to help keep her wealth and power, as it would not need to be physically shared between the persons
- a widow would usually marry a brother of the deceased husband and any children from this union would belong to the deceased
(sororal polygyny levirate - when the husband of a group of women dies, he may be replaced by his brother)
(sororal polygyny levirate - when the husband of a group of women dies, he may be replaced by his brother)
- a barren woman is sometimes married to another woman as her "husband", the wife is impregnated by a secret boyfriend and the barren woman is the father
Could we see marriage as a process rather than as an event?
Is marriage a natural occurrence?
- sometimes ordained by a deity
- restricted sexual access
- reduction of independence and autonomy
- difference expectations of what partners do for each other
Can we have a universal definition of marriage?
- not always heterosexual
- not always child-bearing
- not always sexual
- not always with a living spouse
- not always with a full spouse - polygamy
- not always involving just two individuals
- not always cohabiting
Marriage as a union of individuals with shared interests?
- how does this differ from membership to an association?
British marriage laws
- union between a man and a woman
- no one can be forced to marry
- both members must be older thatn 15
- neither person may already be married to another person
- can't be too closely related, i.e. within the nuclear family, a grandparent or grandchild to the other person, or first cousins
- at least two witnesses must be present at ceremony and sign confirmation
Same-sex marriages
- legal in Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada and S. Africa
- Israel, Aruba, Netherlands, Antilles and several states in USA recognise same-sex marriages as being equal to heterosexual marriage
- in UK civil partnership gives similar rites to same-sex union as with heterosexual marriages
Love has become more popular reason to marry in last 200 years
- before then it was seen more as a frivolous feature of a marriage
Biological evolution
- gradual process of biogenetic diversification (derived from random genetic mutation) leads to the development of increasingly complex organisms
Social/cultural evolution
- the evolution of human society and culture which shared with biology the idea of evolution being a process
Malinowski: family as a universal institution
- promiscuity does not mean an absence of family
- family functions to fulfil the universal need of nurturing children
because all children must be nurtured (whether "primitive" or civilised), then family construction must be natural, or are there other ways of nurturing children?
Engels: Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
- built on the work of Morgan
- communal property seen as fair and egalitarian
- nuclear family as a product of history associated with particular economic and political conditions
Ethnographic evidence suggests that there is no universal family model, rather many kinds of domestic arrangements
Article 16(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights..
- it matters to nation states that families exist, hence there are provisions to protect this institution
- state assistance/benefits tends to be family-oriented
Blackwood: Wedding Bell Blues (2005)
- heteronormative - dominant heterosexual male plus wife and children
- she believes that kinship studies in anthropology models families on the heteronormative and the patriarchal is set as ego in the model
- this then makes all other domestic arrangements inferior or weak, rather than studying them as viable family units
- e.g. when presented with a mother and children, questions of the missing father figure arises
Bororo in Brazil, as described by Lévi-Strauss
- houses are built around the men's hut where the men spend a lot of their time, they would go to their wives when they pleased
Zafimaniry in Madagascar, as described by Bloch
- the man builds a house to express his love for a lady, presenting it as a place for them to live together
- he continually improves and strengthen the house
-she does not move in until their third child is born
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