Matrilateral Cross-cousin Research Articles

Oblique and Asymmetrical Cross-Cousin Marriage and Crow-Omaha Terminology

W,tHY does cross-cousin marriage exist at all? Why should a man be urged to marry his mother's brother's daughter, but not be allowed to choose his father's sister's daughter, or vice versa, permitted to marry his father's sister's daughter while the mother's brother's daughter is forbidden? The term asymmetrical stresses a one-sided quality. Yet, though cross-cousin marriage limits the direction in which each sex can marry, the marriage ties of the sibling group always go in both directions, maternal and paternal, since male and female siblings marry on opposite sides of the family. Why this curious limitation of the direction in which each sex may marry with its consequent proscription of sister exchange? In matrilateral cross-cousin marriage a woman's son marries her relative, her brother's daughter, while a man's daughters marry his relatives, his sister's sons. Conversely, the patrilateral form binds a son to his father's people, a daughter to her mother's. Since preferential marriage is presented as a ready-made institution by a parental generation to its children, the older generation has a heavy stake in the matter. The matrilateral form is the more common. Has it prevailed because of a psychological bias in favor of reinforcing the attachment between mothers and sons and fathers and daughters? This may be a factor, but it can hardly be an ineluctably decisive one since the patrilateral form does exist. There are other important considerations. There are at least 54 peoples who prescribe, prefer, or allow cross-cousin marriage.1 The list of these is given below. It adds to and alters that compiled by Homans and Schneider (1955) with due reference also to the work of Needham (1958, 1962), Dumont (1957a), and Murdock (1957).2 There are more instances to be scratched out of the literature than have been followed up here. However, these suffice for the present discussion. A particularly large number of additional examples could be produced if one included symmetrical cross-cousin marriage where there is a preference for one side. However, the list below, though it includes a few borderline instances of this type, is on the whole a list of peoples having an exclusive preference for one cross-cousin as against the other. The instances include the whole range from cases in which cross-cousin marriage is allowed in exceptional circumstances to those in which it is prescribed.

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).