1. Marriage and the Family
A. Marriage Defined
B. The Universality of Marriage
C. How Does One Marry?
D. Whom Does One Marry? The Universality of Incest Taboo
E. How Many Does One Marry?
Based on thorough reading of the topic, students should be able to:
● Define marriage.
● Explain the reasons for the universality of marriage.
● Analyze the rules for how one marries in a given society.
● Critique the various restrictions on marriage including the incest taboo, whom one marries, and how many
does one marry.
● Show the variation of family and family structure throughout various societies.
A. Marriage Defined
Marriage is one of the various culture universals. By this, anthropologists mean that it is practice observed
by majority of societies all over the world. However, this does not mean that everyone in such societies gets married,
nor does it indicate that societies that practice marriage observe the same marriage rites and rituals. How one
marries, whom one marries, and even how many one marries will vary from society to society. The only cultural
universal about marriage is that no society permits people to marry parents, brothers, or sisters.
Marriage is defined a “socially approved sexual and economic union between a man and a woman”. It is
presumed, by the couple and others, to be more or less permanent, and it subsumes reciprocal rights and obligations
between the two spouses and their future children.
The Nayar “Exception”
There is one group of people in the ethnographic literature that did not have marriage, in the sense that
marriage was defined above. In the 19th century, a caste group in southern India called the Nayar seems to have
treated sex and economic relations between men and women as things separate from marriage. About the time of
puberty, Nayar girls took ritual husbands. The union was publicly established in a ceremony during which the
husband tied a gold ornament around the neck of his bride. But from that time on, he had no more responsibility for
her. Usually, he never saw her again.
The bride lived in a large household with her family, where she was visited over the subsequent years by
other “husbands.” One might be a passing guest, another a more regular visitor; it did not matter, providing
the “husband” met the caste restrictions and was approved by her kin group. He came at night and left the following
day. If a regular visitor, he was expected to make small gifts of cloth, betel nuts, and hair and bath oil. If the father of
the child, or one of a group who might be, he was expected to pay the cost of the midwife. But at no one time was he
responsible for the support of the own or her child, nor did he have any say in the upbringing of his biological
children. Rather, her blood relatives retained such responsibilities.
Whether or not the Nayar had marriage depends, of course, on how we choose to define marriage.
Certainly, Nayar marital unions involved no regular sexual component or economic cooperation, nor did they involve
important reciprocal rights and obligations. According to our definition, then the Nayar did not have marriage. But the
Nayar were not a separate society – only a caste group whose men specialized in soldiering. The Nayar situation
seems to have been a special response to the problem of extended male absence during military service. In more
recent times, military service ceased to be a common occupation of the Nayars, and stable married relationships
have become the norm. Because the Nayar were not a separate society, they are not an exception to our statement
that marriage, as we have defined it, has been customary in all societies known to Anthropology.
Rare Types of Marriage

2. In addition to the usual male-female marriages, some societies recognize marriages between persons of the
same biological sex. But such marriages are not typical in any known society and do not fit the usual type of
marriage. First the unions are not between males and females; second, they are not necessarily sexual unions. But
these “marriages” are socially approved unions, usually modeled after regular marriages, and they often entail
considerable number of reciprocal rights and obligations. Sometimes the marriages involved an individual who is
considered a “woman” or “man” even though “she” or “he” is not that sex biologically.
Activity: The following are cultures with “rare” types of marriages. Research on them and share with the
class what you find out about them. Should you come across other “rare” types, you are encouraged to
present your findings in class.
a. Berdaches (of Cheyenne Indians)
b. Azande marriages (in Azande Africa)
c. Nandi (of Kenya, Africa)
B. The Universality of Marriage
Several explanations have traditionally been offered to explain why all human societies have the custom of
marriage. Each explanation suggests how marriage solves problems found in all societies: how to share the products
of a gender division of labor; how to care for infants, who are dependent for a long time; and how to minimize sexual
competition. The comparative study of other animals, some of which have something like marriage, may help to
evaluate these explanations.
● Gender Division of Labor
Males and females in every society known to anthropology perform different economic activities. As long as there
is gender division of labor by gender, society has to have some mechanism by which women and men share the
products of their labor.
● Prolonged Infant Dependency
Humans exhibit the longest period of infant dependency of any primate. The child’s prolonged dependency places
the greatest burden on the mother, who is the main child tender in most societies. The burden of prolonged child care
by human females may limit the kinds of work they can do. They may need the help of a man to do certain types of
work, such as hunting, that are incompatible with childcare.
● Sexual Competition
Unlike most female primates, the human female may engage in intercourse at any time throughout the year. Some
scholars have suggested that more or less continuous female sexuality may have created a serious problem
– considerable sexual competition between males and females. It is argued that society had to prevent such
competition in order to survive, that it had to develop some way of minimizing the rivalry among males for females in
order to reduce the chance of lethal and destructive conflict.
● Other Mammals and Birds: Postpartum Requirements
None of the theories mentioned above explains convincingly why marriage is the only or the best solution to
a particular problem. Evidence from other animals shows that like humans, animals have some sort of stable female-
male mating. Most species of birds, and some mammals such as wolves and beavers, have “marriage”. One factor in
animal “bonding” may help explain human marriage. Animal species in which females can simultaneously feed
themselves and their babies after birth (postpartum) tend not to have stable matings; species in which females
cannot feed themselves after birth tend to have stable matings. Among the typical bird species, a mother would have
difficulty feeding herself and her babies simultaneously. Because the young cannot fly for a while and must be
protected in a nest, the mother risks losing them to other animals if she goes off to obtain food. But if she has a male
bonded to her, he can bring back food or take a turn watching the nest. When humans began to depend on certain
kinds of food-getting that could be dangerous (such as hunting), mothers could not engage in such work with their

3. infants along.
C. How Does One Marry
Societies vary remarkably on marking the onset of marriage. Some of the ways societies mark marriage
include:
a. Elaborate rites and rituals
b. Economic transactions before, during or even after the onset of the marriages
Elaborate Rites and Rituals
Many societies have ceremonies marking the beginning of marriage. But others, such as the Taramuit Inuit,
The Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific, and the Kwoma of New Guinea, use different social signals to indicate
that a marriage has taken place.
Research: Find out how the societies mentioned above mark the onset of marriage. How do they compare to
the rites and rituals of your own society?
Economic Aspects of Marriage
“It’s not man that marries maid, but field marries field, vineyard marries vineyard, and cattle marry cattle.”
This German saying seems to indicate the economic considerations in marriage. Such transactions include:
a. Bride price or bride wealth – gift of money or goods from the room or his kin is given to the bride
and her family. Bride price occurs all over the world but is most common in Oceania and in Africa.
Payment can be made in different currencies; livestock and food are two of the most common.
The Subanon of the Philippines is reported to have the most expensive bride price. Check the link
(litera1no4.tripod.com/subanon_frame.html.)This practice is most likely to occur in societies
where they practice horticulture, which lack stratification, where women contribute a lot to primary
subsistence activities, and where males dominate decision-making in the household.
Displaying the Tafuliae shell money
for a bride-price in North Malaita.
b. Bride Service- requires that the groom work for the bride’s family, sometimes before the marriage
begins, sometimes after. An example of a society which practices this is the Eskimos of North Alaska.
Native North and South Americans were also likely to practice bride service, particularly if they were
egalitarian food collectors.
c. Exchange of females- the exchange of as sister or a female relative is exchanged for the bride.
Examples of societies which practice this include the Tiv of West Africa and the Yanomamo of Brazil.
These societies are horticultural, egalitarian, and to have a relatively high contribution of women to
primary subsistence activities.

4. The Yanomamo of Brazil practice exchange of females, while the
Andaman Islanders practice gift exchange between families of couples about to be married.
d. Gift Exchange – involves the exchange of gifts of about equal value by the two kin groups about to be
linked by marriage. Among the Andaman Islanders, respective sets of parents whose children will marry
send gifts of food and other objects to each other through a third party. This arrangement continues
until the marriage is completed and the two kin groups are united.
e. Dowry – a substantial transfer of goods or money from the bride’s family to the bride. A family has
to have wealth to give a dowry, but because the goods go to the bride, no wealth comes back to the
family that gave the dowry. Payment of dowries was common in medieval and Renaissance Europe,
where the size of the dowry often determined the desirability of the daughter. The practice is still being
observed by families in certain parts of eastern Europe and in sections of southern Italy, where land is
often a major item provided by the bride’s family.
f. Indirect dowry – payments to the bride that originate from the groom’s family. The goods are first given
to the brie’s father, who passes most, if not all of the gifts, to the bride. This is practiced by the Basseri
of southern Iran, where the groom’s father assumes the expense of setting up the couple’s new house.
The pictures above show a dowry ceremony. The bride’s family waits for the arrival of the
groom and his family. Guests are often entertained by songs and dances. Some of the items the
bride and her family received. The groom with part of his gift.
D. Whom Does One Marry? The Universality of Incest Taboo
Incest taboo, the rigid regulation on marriage and found in all cultures, prohibits sexual intercourse or
marriage between some categories of kin. The most universal aspect of incest taboo is the prohibition of sexual
intercourse or marriage between mother and son, father and daughter, and brother and sister. No society in recent
times has permitted either sexual intercourse or marriage between those pairs. A few societies in the past, however,
did permit incest, mostly within the royal and aristocratic families, though generally it was forbidden to the rest of the
population. For example, the Incan and the Hawaiian royal families allowed marriage within the family. Probably the
best known example of incest involved Cleopatra of Egypt.
It seems clear that the Egyptian royalty indulged in father-daughter and brother-sister marriages. Cleopatra

5. was married to two of her younger brothers at different times. The reasons seem to have been partly religious – a
member of the family of the pharaoh, who was considered a god, could not marry any “ordinary” human – and partly
economic, for marriage within the family kept the royal property undivided.
But despite these exceptions, the fact remains that no culture we know of today permits or accepts incest
within the nuclear family. Several explanations attempt to explain why.
1. Childhood Familiarity Theory - suggested by Edward Westermarck, argued that persons who have
been closely associated with each other since earliest childhood, such as siblings, are not sexually
attracted to each other and therefore would avoid each other in marriage.
2. Family Disruption Theory - associated with Bronislaw Malinowski, suggests that sexual competition
among family members would create so much tension that the family could not function as an effective
unit. Because the family must function effectively for it to survive, society has to curtail competition
within the family. The familial incest taboo is thus imposed to keep the family intact.
3. Cooperation Theory – was proposed early on by Edward B. Tylor , and elaborated later by Leslie Ward
and Claude Levi-Strauss. It emphasizes the value of the incest taboo in promoting cooperation among
family groups and thus helping communities to survive. As Tylor saw it, certain operations necessary for
the welfare of the community can be accomplished only by large numbers of people working together.
4. Inbreeding Theory – focuses on the potentially damaging consequences of inbreeding, or marrying
within the family. People within the same family are likely to carry the same harmful genes. Inbreeding
then will tend to produce offspring who are more likely to die early of genetic disorders than are the
offspring of unrelated spouses.
Whom Do We Marry?
It is misleading to conclude that societies all over the world marry for love. The majority of marriages simply
do not occur in so free and coincidental a way in any society. In addition to the incest taboo, societies often have
rules restricting marriage with other persons, as well as preferences about which other persons are the most
desirable mates.
1. Arranged Marriages – when marriages are handled (negotiated) by the immediate families or by go-
betweens.
2. Exogamy and Endogamy - the rule of exogamy means marriage partners often must be chosen from
outside one’s own kin group or community; while endogamy obliges a person to marry within some group.
3. Cousin Marriages
A. Cross-cousins – siblings of the opposite sex; that is, a person’s cross-cousins are father’s
sisters’ children and mother’s brothers’ children. This is a practice among Chippewa
Indians.
B. Parallel cousins – are children of siblings of the same sex: father’s brothers’ children
and mother’s sisters’ children. The Kurds, who are mostly Sunni Muslims prefer to marry
father’s brothers’ daughters.
4. Levirate and Sororate
A. Levirate – a custom whereby a man is obliged to marry his brother’s widow, such as for
instance among the Chukchee of Siberia.
B. Sororate – obliges a woman to marry her deceased sister’s husband.
E. How Many Do We Marry?
Monogamy - marriage involving one man and one woman
Polygamy – multiple marriages
a. Polygyny – marriage of one man to a number of females

6. b. Polyandry – marriage of one female to many men
Four Possible Forms of Marriage
Form of Marriage males females
Monogamy =
Polygamy
Polygyny = +
Polyandry + =
Group marriages + = +
Polygyny
a. Sororal polygy – a man is married to two or more sisters
b. Non sororal polygyny - co-wives are not sisters
Polyandry
a. Fraternal polyandry – husbands are brothers
b. Non fraternal polyandry – husbands are not brothers