A marital exchange in which the wife’s group provides substantial gifts to the husband’s family.
This has long been practiced in places such as India. / A gift from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin before, at, or after marriage.
Bride wealth often legitimizes children born to the woman as members of the husband’s descent group.
Bride wealth can also be ‘paid’ by the groom working for the bride’s family for a time.
The bride price or bride wealth system constitutes assumes an important role in the distribution of family property and the arrangement of exchanges and alliances among families in many societies / Monogamous
only one woman should be married to one man at a time
Polygamous
one person can be married to more than one person simultaneously
Polygyny
marriage of one man and more than one woman
Polyandry
marriage of one woman with more than one man
Household types and patterns:
This includes all the varying combinations of people living in a household.
Consult the handout that I gave you for the changing household dynamics in the U.S.
Australia and Britain are among those countries whose household patterns are changing from nuclear families as most common to single person families, etc.
Economic and social changes account for household type changes. / Endogamy is a rule that requires marriage within a specific social group (ethnicity, class, religion etc.) or kin group.
- who you marry tends to be who you trade with
Exogamy is a rule that requires marriage outside of one’s own social group or kin group.
- Exogamous relationships tend to extend relationships to prevent war and to create alliances. / The smaller the society (maximal social unit) the more prominent the role of kinship as an organizing subunit.
The larger the society, the more varied the types of organizing subunits.
The larger the society (maximal social unit), the more the subunits will be organized on principles other than kinship.
• Horticulture is sometimes called gardening. Often includes slash and burn techniques.
Political organization: tribe
Basis of economics: reciprocity and redistribution
Social stratification: egalitarian
Leadership style: headman with some authority in group decision-making, but no real power
Ownership of property: leaders, but not centralized
Type and importance of kinship: groups (extended families) develop along with population growth that comes with horticulture.
Dani women, Indonesia
Social control often includes importance of age sets (groups of same-sex individuals of similar age who move through many or all of life’s stages together).
Informal methods include: Gossip, gossip, ridicule, avoidance
Formal methods include: formalized punishment or requirements of compensation.
Religion: “Bigman” or shamans emerge in some tribes.
Relatively high warfare in some groups, but not in others.
/• Humans have been foragers for 90 to 99 percent of their existence.
• Political organization: band – small group of people from 20 to 80 individuals.
• Basis of economics: reciprocity.
• Social stratification: egalitarian.
• Leadership style: no centralized leadership. Flexible and leaders have no power to coerce or demand.
• Ownership of property: little or no sense of personal ownership.
• Kinship: family is of extreme importance. Bilateral kinship. Band exogamy. Ties between bands established through marriage.
• Social control is through gossip, ridicule, avoidance, but no formal laws or punishments.
• Violators are often considered ill.
• Violence between members of the band occurs (mostly quarrels over women), but no warfare.
• Religion: no religious hierarchy or full-time specialists.
/• Hunting and gathering (foraging): no domesticated food production or domestication of animals.
• Horticulture: production of plants using a simple, non-mechanized technology.
• Pastoralism (herding): food getting strategy that depends on the care of domesticated herds.
• Agriculture: fields in permanent cultivation using plows, animals, and techniques of soil and water control.
• Industrialization: mechanization of production.