Matrilateral Cross-cousin Marriage Research Articles

Pioneers of the plantation economy: militarism, dispossession and the limits of growth in the Wa State of Myanmar

The characteristic mobility of highland populations in Southeast Asia relied to a large extent on their particular adaption to an ecological environment: swidden cultivation of tubers on mountain slopes. This ecology corresponded to cosmologies in which potency was limitless, or at least had no fixed and delimited precinct (as did the rice paddies and Buddhist realms in the valleys). Military state building, modern transport, and new crops and agricultural technologies have effectively ended swidden cultivation. In this article, I follow the pioneers of the plantation economy in the Wa State of Myanmar, who dispossess local populations of their land and employ them as plantation labour. The limits of growth and potency they encounter are (a) in the natural environment and (b) in the resistance of local populations. Yet, even though there are such limits, the potency to which these pioneers aspire is still limitless. It is however channelled through a new economy of life, epitomised in the plantation, nourished in excessive feasting, and maintained by the kinship dynamics of capture and care.

Disgust, Gender, and Social Change : Testing Alternative Explanations for the Decline of Cousin Marriage in Karo Society.

Among the Karo of Indonesia, the frequency of matrilateral cross-cousin (impal) marriage has declined in recent decades. We conducted a vignette experiment to assess the contributions of a handful of factors in shaping this pattern. Surprisingly, we found that cosocialization of a hypothetical woman with her impal led to increased judgments of marriage likelihood and decreased feelings of disgust in male and female respondents (n = 154). We also found that females, more than males, judged impal marriage more likely when there were practical advantages. Finally, we found that younger men expressed more disgust in response to impal marriages than did older men, while women displayed an opposite but weaker reaction. This suggests the existence of gender-specific changes in attitudes toward the practice, indicating that a full understanding may require the application of sexual conflict theory. Our study illustrates the potential utility-and limitations-of vignette experiments for studying social change.

The Enduring Puzzle of Patriliny in Asante History: A Note and a Document on Ntɔrɔ

The Enduring Puzzle of Patriliny in Asante HistoryA Note and a Document on Ntɔrɔ Tom McCaskie* (bio) Note In reviewing the older, often contradictory, literature on the matter of ntɔrɔ among the Akan, including the Asante, the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye came to the following conclusion: “The ntoro appears to be the basis of inherited characteristics, and may therefore be translated as ‘sperm-transmitted characteristic,’ even though spiritual as well as physiological qualities are attributed to it.” So, ntɔrɔ transmitted by the father, and its homologue mogya (blood) transmitted by the mother, “are genetic factors responsible for inherited characteristics.”1 In 1967–69, during my first stay in Ghana, I met and often talked with A.C. Denteh, a colleague at the university at Legon. We discussed ntɔrɔ, for he had just published a short piece on the subject.2 He was a member of the mmamma (patrilineal sons and grandsons) of the important Kumase stool of Gyaasewa, descended from its still celebrated incumbent Opoku Frɛfrɛ, or Opoku “the nimble” (d. 1826). My records tell me that Denteh spoke [End Page 162] of the “great names” (aboadenfo>ɔ) in his patrilineal line, and of how the holders of such names embodied characteristics that might be passed on to their ntɔrɔ descendants. Naming practices, he remarked, might be employed to encourage or to conduce such an outcome. Finally, I made note of the intense seriousness and pride that marked Denteh’s speech about the matter of his male descent line. Around 1980, I spent much time talking with Meyer Fortes. On one occasion in his Cambridge house we discussed ntɔrɔ—the principle of patrilineal descent in matrilineal Asante society—at length. His view of the matter, documented in his writings on Asante kinship, are well known (as is his view of kinship in general, formulated in his interactions with Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Evans-Pritchard). Meyer had a British structural-functionalist aversion to the kind of interpretative ethnography practised eminently (and at the time fashionably) by Geertz.3 I took up the cudgel of Geertzian interpretation (or, in Meyer’s view, speculation), and asked the obvious question. Where had Asante patrilineality come from historically, and what did it mean and intend? Meyer rehearsed the canonical arguments about structure and function, and bridled at my “speculation” that Asante ntɔrɔ might reference a political past in which succession to office ran in male rather than female descent lines. Our talk concluded with him giving me a copy of the document reproduced in this article. I reprint it here as an evidential addition to any future analysis of Asante ntɔrɔ, which remains enigmatic, an enduring puzzle. Let me now summarize what historians—rather than philosophers or anthropologists—have said about it. Wilks first decoded the historical record to illustrate that while appropriate matrilineal descent was the necessary condition for succession to high royal office in Asante, equally appropriate patrilineal descent was the sufficient condition for the same thing. That is, an ideal candidate for any such royal office should combine together in his person an indispensable claim (supremely so through the exogamous matrilateral cross-cousin marriage of his parents) and a desirable claim (supremely so via patrilineal descent as the grandson of a previous incumbent of that office). Historically, Wilks showed that the factor of patrilineal descent (ntɔrɔ) was (and is still) a significant factor in succession to matrilineally inherited royal office, and most especially to the highest office of all, that of Asantehene.4 [End Page 163] It will be seen that in the document reproduced below (page 3 of manuscript), it is noted that, “Members of the same ntɔrɔ are believed to display certain characteristics in common.” I explored some of the implications of this observation in writing about the web of patrilineal ties that enmeshed—and were acted upon—by Asantehene Kwaku Dua (1834–67). Notably, he made calculated use of marriages between Oyoko women and his own sons, the object of this being to conduce into being a royal grandson who was kra pa, a (re)incarnation of his own patri-personality and, of course, a future Asantehene. In...

Sňatky Přemyslovců aneb Jak si vybírali ženichy a nevěsty

Premysliden ruled over the Czech countries (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia) more than three hundred years (ca. 930–1306). They cooperated with the ruling houses of the neighbouring states (Hungary, Poland, Saxony, Bavaria, Austria etc.) as their political efforts as their marriage policy. The analysis of the Premysliden marriages indicated the existence of the rule of the exogamy, the rule of the preferential matrilateral cross cousin marriage, the rule of the long time systematic exchange of the women among two ruling houses. Example of the Premysliden marriage practice gives the idea of the search of the marriage rules existing in Europe during the early mediaeval centuries.

Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage among the Chothe of Manipur

This article highlights the prevailing status of prescriptive marriage alliance system among the Chothe, often wrongly called Purum, which took centre stage in social anthropology in the early 1960s. It also deals with many confusions and doubts prevailing in the literature on matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. It shows that the Chothe kinship and marriage system is, to use Rodney Needham’s words, ‘ideal, stable and adaptive’ even today, despite considerable changes that have occurred since the time of Tarak Chandra Das, who worked on the Chothe during 1930s.

Acting ethically, responding culturally: framing the new reproductive and genetic technologies in Sri Lanka

The spread of new reproductive and genetic technologies to the developing world stimulates reflection on the ethical issues they generate. The ‘built-in-ness’ of assumptions about personhood and relationality within these technologies means that local professionals must, perforce, engage with attempts to make sense of new technology with reference to local meanings and traditions or take positions which reject them. This paper explores such attempts to indigenise bioethics in contemporary Sri Lanka with reference to ethical/ cultural conflicts surrounding two practices: donor insemination and consanguinity counselling. The former is discussed in relation to the now defunct practice of polyandry and the latter in relation to matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. The final discussion takes up the consequences of this detailed parsing of local relationality for the larger project of rendering bioethics in some sense comparative.

The Ancient Maya Kinship System

This article suggests that the Maya kinship system was originally Kariera in type, based on bilateral cross-cousin marriage with cross-cutting patrilineal descent and alternate generation moieties. The quadripartite structure of the Maya kinship system was isomorphic to, and may have been the model for, the quadripartite structures of Maya cosmology and settlement. In this respect, the Maya kinship system was similar to Kariera systems in Australia and goes back to the small-scale communities of the Proto-Maya or Archaic period before 2000 B.C. By the Classic period, however, beginning around A.D. 250, there apparently were two different marriage systems in Maya society: a bilateral cross-cousin marriage system for commoners and a matrilateral cross-cousin marriage system for royalty and nobility. In this respect, Maya marriage practices were similar to those of the city-states in early Chinese civilization.

Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage in Australia

Etude des techniques du mariage chez les aborigenes d'Australie, plus precisement des relations de parente qu'il exige. Comment le modele de mariage caracterise de maniere generale les moeurs de la societe aborigene australienne

Men Who are Called "Women" in Toba-Batak: Marriage, Fundamental Sex-Role Differences, and the Suitability of the Gloss "Wife-Receiver"

This article gives brief accounts of affinal relations, marriage, gender roles, and long-term lineage relationships among Toba Bataks of Samosir, north Sumatra, Indonesia. Ethnographic data, presented in tandem with data on the Kachin and similar cultures, are used to call into question the use of the term “wife-taker” as opposed to “wife-receiver,” as it is generally employed with reference to the groom, his family, and lineage-mates, in glossing a major conceptual category of Southeast Asian hinterland societies that have preferred matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. It is argued that “wife-taker” is more distorting of Batak practice and of their system of values than “wife-receiver.”

Some Problems and Prospects in Residence and Marriage

general polygyny, (2) the nonexistence of amitalocal residence, and (3) the factors underlying the preponderance of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. The first problem involves an unusual form of social organization recorded for the Comorian archipelago (Ottenheimer and Ottenheimer 1979). In these islands of the western Indian Ocean, men marry two or more unrelated women who maintain separate households with their mothers and sisters in distinct quarters, towns, or islands. The wives are then visited by the men who attempt to spend equal time with each wife. This simultaneous occurrence of

Pakpak adat and kinship terminology; an assessment of their meaning and mutual relationship

This article will explore the meaning of the term (currently used by nearly all indigenous ethnic groups in Indonesia and Malaysia) in Pakpak Batak society by establishing a connection between and certain features of the Pakpak kinship system. Pakpak is the sum of social rules verbalized by Pakpak society. Today, many of these rules are defunct and others are vestiges of a once highly refined system. Formerly the Pakpak possessed a system of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage in which wife-taking patrilineages (anakberru) gave material wealth to their wife-giving lineages (kula kula or puang) in exchange for women and spiritual sanction. This article will suggest that formerly adat was designed to express and propagate this asym metric prescriptive alliance system. The discussion is divided into four sections:

Aspects du système de parenté inca

Pour la période qui va de la fin du XVIe siècle au début du XVIIe, les matériaux susceptibles d'éclairer la signification des termes de parenté inca figurent dans les sources suivantes : l'Arte et le Vocabulario, de Domingo de Santo Tomas, imprimés tous deux à Valladolid, en 1560 ; l’Arte de la lengua general, ouvrage anonyme (attribué à Juan Martínez Oramechea), imprimé pour la première fois en 1586 à Séville où il fut réimprimé en 1603, puis à Lima, en 1604 et 1614 ; l’Arte et le Vocabulario de Diego González Holguín, imprimés à Lima en 1607 et 1608 respectivement ; l'Arte de Diego Torres Rubio, imprimé à Lima en 1619 ; et le Ritual formulario de Juan Pérez Bocanegra, imprimé à Lima en 1631. On est surpris de la somme considérable de matériaux que fournissent ces sources ; et si l'ambiguïté demeure en ce qui concerne les traductions d'un certain nombre de termes particuliers, quantité d'autres en sont remarquablement exempts, grâce aux spécifications descriptives qui font suite aux traductions initiales.

Maué Kinship and Omaha Terminology

The Maue are one of very few tribes of South American Indians with Omaha kinship terminology. The Maue also have patrilineal clans, and kinship system constitutes a nice example of Radcliffe-Brown's conception of a system ordered by the principle of unity of lineage. Although lack of history allows only a speculative reconstruction of origins of their kinship system, Maue data do have some bearing on theories of origin of Omaha terminology. Hypotheses stressing unilineal descent groups as a necessary precondition, and those that invoke matrilateral cross-cousin marriage as an important factor, would seem to be most promising.

Relative Status of Wife Givers and Wife Takers in Gilyak Society

It has been by and large accepted that among the Gilyaks of the Amur region and the island of Sakhalin, who practice a very precisely defined form of prescriptive matrilateral cross cousin marriage, wife takers possess superior status vis-à-vis the wife givers, an apparent exception to the postulate that the giver has a hold over the taker. In this paper it is shown that the patrilineal Gilyak accord superior status to wife givers and not to wife takers. An analysis of a tale supporting this thesis is offered. It is shown that matrilateral cross cousin prescriptive alliance per se does not create status differentiation, but such factors as primacy of residence and form of land tenure play much more decisive roles in the emergence of classstratification.

Are the Siriono Raw or Cooked?

In this paper Siriono myth and ritual are interpreted with a model of Siriono social structure. Whereas other students of the Siriono have noted their lack of sociability and have even suggested that their culture is incoherent, the present approach suggests that social exchange among the Siriono is a total social fact, but one that focuses on a peculiar relationship between men and women within a kinship idiom of parallel descent and matrilateral cross-cousin marriage.

Prescriptive Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage in Asymmetric Alliance Systems: A Fallacy

Previous articleNext article No AccessPrescriptive Matrilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage in Asymmetric Alliance Systems: A FallacyLorenz G. LöfflerLorenz G. Löffler Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 20, Number 2Summer, 1964 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.20.2.3629327 Views: 4Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1945-1972), which is continued by the Journal of Anthropological Research (1973-present). Copyright 1964 Department of Anthropology, The University of New MexicoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Pascal Bouchery The Kinship Terminology of the Adi of Arunachal Pradesh (Padam and Minyong), European Bulletin of Himalayan Research , no.5656 (Sep 2021).https://doi.org/10.4000/ebhr.162Philippe Ramirez Matrimonial Patterns and Trans-Ethnic Entities, (Dec 2016): 157–165.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45901-1_16Rodney Needham, A. P. Elkin PRESCRIPTION, Oceania 43, no.33 (Feb 2015): 166–181.https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1973.tb01207.xDavid H. P. Maybury-Lewis Prescriptive Marriage Systems, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 21, no.33 (Sep 2015): 207–230.https://doi.org/10.1086/soutjanth.21.3.3629229

Avunculocality and Incest: The Development of Unilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage and Crow-Omaha Kinship Systems

IN THIS paper1 we present a theory of the development of kinship systems2 and unilateral cross-cousin marriage. This theory builds upon the important contribution recently made by Lane and Lane (1959: 25465) concerning kinship systems and departs radically from the theory of unilateral cross-cousin presented by Homans and Schneider (1955). In this presentation we presuppose much of the analysis of kinship organization given by Murdock in his Social Structure (1949). Throughout this paper we shall test theoretical statements against the massive amount of data presented in Murdock's World Ethnographic Sample (1957:664-87).3 It has long been known (Lowie 1917:151-52) that kinship systems are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal descent respectively. Homans and Schneider (1955:34-35) have shown, and Murdock (1957:687) has confirmed, that patrilateral cross-cousin (PCCM) and matrilateral cross-cousin (MCCM)4 are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal descent groups respectively. Recently, Lane and Lane (1959:257-58) have noted that rules affect the alignment of kin types in kin groups and, more importantly, have claimed that MCCM produces the correct alignment for terminologies in matrilineal and patrilineal societies respectively.5 Since they accept the view, strongly confirmed by Murdock (1949:113-83), that common kin-group membership is a major factor in common kinship classification, they are led to suggest that: Crow-Omaha systems of terminology may be associated not only with matrilineal and patrilineal sibs respectively, but also with matrilateral cross-cousin marriage (1959:258).