Natal Kin Research Articles

Different predictors of intimate partner and natal family violence against women.

BackgroundViolence against women is often studied in the context of violence from intimate partners. However, women receive violence from a wider range of individuals—such as their natal kin—including their siblings, parents, uncles and cousins. Applying insights from evolutionary theory, we examine whether cousin marriage, which has been hypothesized to both reduce the risk of partner violence but increase the risk of natal family violence, associates differently with each type of violence. Second, we test whether common risk factors for partner violence, such as wealth, associate similarly with natal violence.MethodologyWe analyse over 16 000 Jordanian women from three cohorts of the Jordan Demographic Health Surveys. Predictor variables include type of cousin marriage (patrilateral or matrilateral), education, wealth, number of children, urban living and polygyny. Outcome variables include whether a woman’s husband or her natal family has ever been physically violent towards her.ResultsBeing married to a patrilateral cousin but not a matrilateral cousin is associated with a reduced risk of reporting intimate partner violence (IPV). By contrast being married to a matrilateral cousin but not a patrilateral one is associated with a reduced risk of reporting natal family violence. As expected, wealth is negatively associated with reporting partner violence, but we find no association with reports of natal family violence. Finally, individuals with more children are more likely to report IPV.Conclusions and implicationsFindings indicate the importance of distinguishing between types of cousin marriage and highlight substantial differences in risk factors for intimate partner compared to natal family violence.Lay SummarySociodemographic risk factors, such as wealth, may associate differently with intimate partner and natal family violence. Results suggest that whether cousin marriage is protective of violence may depend on the type of cousin and secondly, that violence can have fitness relevant outcomes.

Muslim daughters and inheritance in India: Sharīcat, custom and practice

ABSTRACT Islamic law gives women shares in the estate of a deceased parent, husband, and certain other relatives. However, in India they rarely obtain the inheritance shares to which they are entitled. When the time comes, they typically either waive their inheritance rights or are prevented by their male co-heirs from accessing them. Those who assert a claim to their shares find themselves vilified by their natal kin and by society at large, as greedy, grasping, selfish, unwomanly and lacking in family feeling. They are often even ostracized by their brothers, sisters-in-law, and other family members. Drawing upon data from interviews conducted in Delhi in 2011, I explore this gap in India between Islamic law and actual practice, with specific reference to a Muslim daughter’s right to inherit natal property.

Migration, patriarchy and ‘modern’ Islam: views from left behind wives in rural northern Bangladesh

ABSTRACT Male labour migration can both empower and disempower non-migrating, or left behind, wives – contingent on further distinctions of rural–urban, nuclear-extended households and of class, religion and educational background. Migration catalyses transformations in the gender and religious norms in rural northern Bangladesh. It entrenches patriarchal norms and helps to reinforce the practices of ‘modern’ Islam – by creating the identity of ‘respected’ housewife, a woman who stays home, takes care of her in-laws and wears the burqà – that works within the codes of enhanced classic patriarchy. These patriarchal norms and practices dampen women’s agency through patriarchal codes – constituted of the power relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, restrictions on the physical autonomy of women and women’s dependency on their male kin. In-laws, and the assistance of natal kin, curtail women’s decision-making power. This curtailment serves, ultimately, to sustain the power the in-laws and natal kin exercise over the women.

Women’s perceived support of parents and parents-in-law in China: Socioeconomic resources, reciprocity, and family context

Filial support has been recognized as a main source of social support for China’s aging population. While traditional Chinese families generally adhere to patrilineal, patriarchal, and patrilocal principles, there have been signs of an emerging trend of a complex, bilateral family system that has influenced the ways in which married women support elderly family members, both natal kin and in-laws, in contemporary China. However, little research exists focusing on the perspectives of married women in China on intergenerational support. Drawing on nationally representative data from the Chinese General Social Survey, this study investigates the patterns and determinants of women’s financial and instrumental support of their parents and parents-in-law in China. The main results show that, while education and income separately affect women’s support patterns, their husband’s income level is the crucial factor determining women’s financial support for parents and parents-in-law. In terms of instrumental support, norms of reciprocity are evident between women and parents/parents-in-law. Despite a positive association between financial support that women give to parents-in-law and that which they receive from parents-in-law, women’s financial support tends to be less frequent when their own parents have financially supported them. The implications of these findings for our understanding of intergenerational support mechanisms and for future research are discussed.

Fertility intentions and outcomes in Indonesia: Evolutionary perspectives on sexual conflict.

Differential fertility preferences for men and women may provide insights into human sexual conflict. We explore whether pairbonded couples have different preferences for future offspring, which socioecological factors are associated with these preferences, and who achieves their desired fertility over time. We utilise the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), a longitudinal survey which collected data from 1993 to 2015, to compare desired future fertility for 9655 couples and follow couples who had divergent preferences. The majority of couples (64.8%) want the same number of future offspring. In 20.7% of couples, husbands want more future offspring than their wives, while the reverse occurs in 14.5% of couples. Living in villages with the husband's or the wife's parent(s) is associated with having divergent preferences for future offspring, where there is a higher likelihood that women prefer more offspring than their husbands. When examining fertility outcomes, women, particularly those who marry at older ages, are more likely to achieve their desired preference. Contrary to previous research, we do not find that living near one's natal kin or having increased autonomy increases an individual's likelihood of achieving desired fertility outcomes.

Royal women and intra-familial diplomacy in late thirteenth-century Anglo-French relations

ABSTRACT This article examines the diplomatic activities of four royal women related to the kings of England and France in the late thirteenth century, during a period of heightened tension in Anglo-French relations. Elite medieval women probably regularly worked in diplomacy between their natal, marital and extended kin, but it is rare that it can be demonstrated in detail. In this example, substantial evidence shows how Marguerite of Provence, Marie of Brabant, Jeanne of Navarre and Blanche of Artois, worked in close collaboration with their male relations and took initiative in negotiating treaties, sharing intelligence, and acting as brokers of favour. That these efforts failed with dramatic consequences probably explains both the richness of extant evidence about the case, and its dismissive treatment by contemporaries and modern historians alike. Instead, it is argued that women's intra-familial diplomacy remained valued by kings and popes, and, indeed, reflected standard diplomatic practice of the time.

The expendable male hypothesis.

Matriliny is a system of kinship in which descent and inheritance are conferred along the female line. The theoretically influential concept of the matrilineal puzzle posits that matriliny poses special problems for understanding men's roles in matrilineal societies. Ethnographic work describes the puzzle as the tension experienced by men between the desire to exert control over their natal kin (i.e. the lineage to which they belong) and over their affinal kin (i.e. their spouses and their biological children). Evolutionary work frames the paradox as one resulting from a man investing in his nieces and nephews at the expense of his own biological offspring. In both cases, the rationale for the puzzle rests on two fundamental assumptions: (i) that men are in positions of authority over women and over resources; and (ii) that men are interested in the outcomes of parenting. In this paper, we posit a novel hypothesis that suggests that certain ecological conditions render men expendable within local kinship configurations, nullifying the above assumptions. This arises when (i) women, without significant assistance from men, are capable of meeting the subsistence needs of their families; and (ii) men have little to gain from parental investment in children. We conclude that the expendable male hypothesis may explain the evolution of matriliny in numerous cases, and by noting that female-centred approaches that call into doubt assumptions inherent to male-centred models of kinship are justified in evolutionary perspective. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals'.

‘For how Long can your Pīharwāle Intervene?’: Accessing natal kin support in rural North India

AbstractBased on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Uttar Pradesh, this article contributes to debates on married women's relations with their natal kin. It compares women in ‘regional’ marriages (which conform to caste and community norms with a relatively small marriage distance) with women in ‘cross-regional’ marriages (those that cross caste, linguistic, and state boundaries, and entail long-distance migration). A focus on cross-regional marriage demonstrates how geographic distance cuts women off from vital structures of support. At the same time, even for regional brides, natal kin support is complicated and relative proximity does not guarantee support. Factors such as caste, class, poverty, the gender of children, notions of honour and shame, and stage in the life-course work together in complex ways to determine the duration and kind of support available. By focusing on marital violence, marital breakdown, and widowhood, the article demonstrates both the presence and the limits of natal kin support. The opportunities to draw on natal kin support vary for women, but its significance must not be understated as it alone provides women with the possibility of leaving their marriages, even if only temporarily. The article focuses on one form of women's agency, one that is constrained and highly dependent on relationships with others (mainly male kin). In such a context of economic and social dependency, natal kin support is an important—and perhaps the only—resource available in situations of marital crisis, and its absence leaves women in a particularly vulnerable position.

Effect of Enabling Resources and Risk Factors on the Relationship between Intimate Partner Violence and Anxiety in Ever-Married Women in Minya, Egypt

The effect of intimate partner violence (IPV) on mental health remains understudied in the Arab world. Using data from 608 ever-married women in rural Minya, Egypt who took part in the 2005 Egypt Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) and a 2012 follow-up survey, we assessed how a woman’s enabling resources and risk factors influenced the association of her exposure to IPV with her generalized anxiety. Results from multivariate regression models showed that proximity to natal kin, prior schooling, and engagement in market work 12 months before marriage had protective effects on generalized anxiety associated with IPV. Childhood abuse from mother also had a protective effect on this relationship. Similar abuse from the brother exacerbated the effects of anxiety when a woman was exposed to IPV. Empowerment programs can encourage women to attend school and engage in market or subsistence work, while suggesting strategies to improve the relationship of women with natal kin.

Vestal Virgins and Their Families

This article reexamines the evidence for the relationships between the Vestal virgins and their natal kin from the second century BC to the third century ad. It suggests that the bond between these priestesses and their families remained strong throughout this period and that, as a consequence, interpretations of the Vestals' position within Roman society that emphasize the severing of agnatic ties through their removal from patria potestas may be misguided. When placed in the broader social and legal context, the ritual “capture” of these priestesses is shown to be a necessary feature of their priestly identity, which only marked the Vestals as extraordinary because of the unique intersection of religious and gender categories that characterized their office. Finally, the implications of these findings for the interpretation of Vestal virginity are discussed.

The Unequal Burdens of Repatriation: A Gendered View of the Transnational Migration of Mongolia's Kazakh Population

Beginning in 1992, the newly independent government of Kazakhstan has facilitated the in-migration of 944,000 Kazakhs from neighboring countries, with the majority migrating as family units. Using the post-Soviet repatriation of Kazakhs as an example, we illustrate in this article how socially constituted notions about gender and kinship help reinforce institutional and informal power structures that favor men at three different points in the migration process: in making the decision to migrate, in dealing with the bureaucratic aspects of migration, and in facing the consequences of migration. First, patriarchal power dynamics often mean that women have less influence than men on the decision to migrate. Second, the legal framework for repatriation is based on an implicit assumption that Kazakh households correspond to a patriarchal model, and this has financial consequences for women. Third, transnational migration widens the physical separations from natal kin that women already experience due to Kazakh kinship practices that emphasize patrilineal descent, clan-based exogamy, and patrilocal marriage. [gender, migration, kinship, transnational, Central Asia]

Female Mobility and Postmarital Kin Access in a Patrilocal Society

Across a wide variety of cultural settings, kin have been shown to play an important role in promoting women's reproductive success. Patrilocal postmarital residence is a potential hindrance to maintaining these support networks, raising the question: how do women preserve and foster relationships with their natal kin when propinquity is disrupted? Using census and interview data from the Himba, a group of semi-nomadic African pastoralists, I first show that although women have reduced kin propinquity after marriage, more than half of married women are visiting with their kin at a given time. Mobility recall data further show that married women travel more than unmarried women, and that women consistently return to stay with kin around the time of giving birth. Divorce and death of a spouse also trigger a return to living with kin, leading to a cumulative pattern of kin coresidence across the lifespan. These data suggest that patrilocality may be less of a constraint on female kin support than has been previously assumed.

Lived experiences

In the popular discourse, ‘arranged marriage’ and ‘love marriage’ are assumed to be radically opposed forms of conjugal union, associated with equally polarised responses from the natal kin—approval and encouragement for the former and the opposite for the latter. This article critically examines the lived experiences of ‘arranged marriages’ and ‘love marriages’ among working–class women in Delhi in order to show how, in practice, conjugal relations, in both instances, elicit complex and heterogeneous responses from natal kin. The article highlights the role of emotional, material and practical support provided by the primary natal kin to their married daughters in shaping women's relationship with their husbands and affines. Using ethnographic methods to study the dynamics of married couples’ everyday marital conflicts in slums and low–income resettlement colonies in Delhi, this research makes a case for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of contemporary natal kin support structures, mother–daughter bonds and spousal intimacy in urban north India.

Social Support and Distress among Q'eqchi' Refugee Women in Maya Tecún, Mexico

This article addresses issues of vulnerability and distress through an analysis of the relationship between social support networks and traumatic stress in a Q'eqchi' refugee community in southern Mexico. The sociopolitical violence, forced displacement, and encampment of Guatemalan Mayan populations resulted in the breakdown and dispersal of kin and community groups, leaving many Q'eqchi' women with weakened social support networks. Research involving testimonial interviews and traumatic stress and social support questionnaires revealed that Q'eqchi' refugee women with weak natal kin social support networks reported greater feelings of distress and symptoms of traumatic stress than did women with strong networks. In particular, a condition identified as muchkej emerged as one of the most significant symptoms reported by women with weak natal kin support networks. I critically consider muchkej as an idiom of distress and argue that aid organizations should consider the relationship between social support and traumatic stress, as expressed through such idioms, when attempting to identify vulnerable members of a refugee population.

Village to Distant Village: the opportunities and risks of long-distance marriage migration in rural China

Recently much attention has focused on the rising tide of rural to urban migration in China. Some of this migration is inter-provincial, and some is merely a shift to the nearest big town or city. Much less is known about the effects of long-distance marriage between rural areas. This type of migration does not entail a shift to urban household registration, nor does it involve adaptation to city living. Distant rural migration is a phenomenon that often includes risk-taking women who marry into distant regions seeking a better life, or better opportunities, compared to their natal village. Yet these migrants typically remain farmers. Based on fieldwork in rural Henan and Yunnan I discuss cases of village women and men who had married at great distance from their natal kin. I observe some of the effects of family separation and social strategies adopted by migrants in rural settings. Much as urban migrants often face a world of uncertainties, those who migrate long-distance to other rural communities face a world of strangers with little legal or social protection.

Family Interests? Women’s Power: the absence of family in dowry restitution cases in fifteenth‐century Valencia1

Using cases dating from 1420 to 1434 from the court of the civil justice in the city of Valencia, Spain, this article examines who acted as witnesses in women’s dowry restitution cases, focusing specifically on the family. At the time of her contract of marriage, a woman’s family would help provide her with the all‐important dowry, giving her the means by which to marry well, according to her social class. But a family’s investment in a woman’s dowry did not end with its devolution to her husband upon marriage. Although the law stated that a husband had the right to administer his wife’s dowry, there were limitations to his control. According to the prevailing laws in Valencia, a woman could seek restitution of her dowry, in the court of the civil justice, for a variety of reasons—including if she felt her husband was mismanaging it. Focusing on the labouring classes, who made up the majority of female petitioners seeking the restoration of their dowries, this article examines some of the reasons why both natal and marital kin of husbands and their petitioning wives appear so infrequently as witnesses in later medieval Valencian society. The article also puts forth some suggestions as to the implications of this in terms of a woman’s control of her marital assets.

Interpretations of Elder Suicide, Stress, and Dependency among Rural Japanese

This article explores ideas expressed by older, rural Japanese to explain suicide among their age peers. It also looks at how older Japanese conceptualize residing with children and grandchildren in terms of dependency and stress. While the multigeneration household often is represented by both young and old in Japan as an ideal living situation for the elderly, many elders also see coresidence as a significant source of stress due to conflicting values held between generations. For many rural elderly, the stress associated with coresidence is viewed as being sufficiently severe to lead some of them to end their lives. Based on conversations held with elders in rural Japan, these themes are contextualized in terms of Japanese concepts of (Japan, suicide, aging, dependency, stress) ********** In the summer of 1998, Satoh Keiko, a woman in her mid-thirties, succinctly expressed a common theme used by people in rural northern Japan to interpret the motivations of elders who kill themselves: Elderly who are living alone do not commit suicide all that often, but those who are living with children and grandchildren often commit suicide. The idea that living with one's children and grandchildren is likely to influence an elder to commit suicide seems at odds with widely held assumptions about the centrality of filial piety in shaping intergenerational relationships in Japan, as well as stereotyped images of later life in Japan in which older people are represented as being happiest living in multigenerational households (e.g., Palmore and Maeda 1985). Using data from Taiwan, Wolf (1972, 1975) argues that suicide can be a form of sanction against young family members, as people, particularly natal kin, raise questions about what drove the deceased to end his or her life. The actual or assumed threat of suicide can be a strategy elders use to manipulate their children (Ikels 2004b:7; Wolf 1972:159-60). This insight may apply to the high rate of elder suicide in rural Japan, for self-aggression in Japan can be interpreted as a sign of resentment against a source of frustration in interpersonal conflicts (Lebra 1984:48). Self-destruction, then, is one possible way for someone in Japan to cope with conflict, particularly where direct confrontation is not valued in interpersonal relationships. For Satoh-san, the multigeneration household does not necessarily insulate an elder from loneliness and isolation. In fact, as will become evident from the data presented here, the multigeneration household in Japan may well represent a context in which suicidal feelings are intensified as a result of stressful relationships with kin. Elder suicide in Japan is interpreted in part in terms of perceptions about multiple and conflicting cultural frames existing within a confined social space. For many Japanese, younger and older generations are perceived as having completely different core values, which leads to considerable stress between those generations (Traphagan 2003). My informants indicated repeatedly that the presence of these conflicting value systems--which can be understood in terms of Bourdieu's (1977) concept of habitus, the cognitive and motivating structures that motivate and limit behavior--contribute to the generation of stress and alienation that may lead an elder to end his or her life, even if it does not specifically represent a form of sanction against younger generations, as Wolf (1972) found for Taiwan. This article explores narratives that elders living in a Japanese city known as Mizusawa express about motivations behind suicide among their age peers. Given the limited ethnographic work related to elder suicide, the data presented here are important for their ethnographic value. However, an examination of elder suicide in Japan also has theoretical implications because the practice can be understood in relation to rapid social change and perceptions of stress associated with competing values held by different generations. …

The division of labor between generations of women in rural China

Using the 1993 wave of the China Health and Nutrition Survey, I examine the work arrangement of coresiding mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in rural China. The analyses suggest that work activities of daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law are not independent of each other, but rather reflect a coordination of activities. I use the typology of “inside” vs. “outside” work to describe the intergenerational work arrangement, which was used to depict traditional gender division of labor in China. In addition to the effect of individual resources and local labor market conditions, multivariate analysis documents that the division of labor between the generations of women is a type of family strategy as well as a result of power dynamics in the household. For example, the intergenerational division of labor responds to family needs, such as childcare demands, with the mother-in-law more likely to adjust her work activities than the daughter-in-law. The results also indicate that the work arrangement tends to favor the daughter-in-law the closer her natal kin lives. Analyses on housework arrangements also suggest that the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law share housework responsibilities.

Marriage form and family division in three villages in rural China

This paper presents a study of the influence of children's marriage form and other characteristics on whether married couples in three villages in rural China establish a family separate from the joint family of their natal kin. The results reveal that, for children with a brother, sons in virilocal marriages are more likely than daughters in uxorilocal marriages to establish a family separate from that of their parents and do so earlier than these daughters. However, among children without a brother, sons and daughters do not differ significantly in whether or when they divide off from their extended family and set up a new family. The majority of family division occurs in the first 5 years after marriage for sons and daughters. Number of siblings and other characteristics also affect the likelihood of family division. We discuss demographic, socio-economic, and cultural causes underlying this phenomenon as well as its social implications.

Women's social networks and child survival in Mali

This paper explores the influence of women's social networks on child survival through a comparative investigation of two ethnic groups in Mali, West Africa. Data are drawn from a study of women's social networks and health conducted during the period 1996–97. Separate samples of 500 ever-married women aged 15–49 were surveyed at two geographically distinct sites representing Bamanan and Fulbe populations respectively. Consistent with known differences in economic risk, household structure, and cultural norms, descriptive analysis reveals a greater probability of child death among the Fulbe, and a larger mean size of total, material, practical and cognitive networks among the Bamanan. Cox regression models are used to examine the association between social network size, function and composition and the odds of child death (1–5 years). Among the various biological, household and community-level variables tested in the basic model, spacing exerts an expected negative effect on the odds of child death in both groups, while household SES predicts child survival only among Fulbe children. When variables representing the educational and psychosocial attributes of the mother are included, no effects are detected in either group. Controlling for these factors, the size of total, practical, cognitive and emotional networks are found to significantly increase the odds of child survival among the Fulbe only. Compositional variables, such as the extent to which natal kin, non-kin or husbands figure in a woman's network, nor the degree to which networks are located within household yield any significant results for the Fulbe. Among Bamanan women, however, the higher the proportion of network members living in the household, the lower the odds of child death. The paper concludes by discussing the methodological, conceptual and practical implications of these findings.