ANTH 1101 25 September Kinship cont Mapping kinship o Symbols Square male or female unknown Triangle male Circle female marriage bond descent bond codescent bond ego signifies self o Very simplistic especially with modern reproductive technology Descent systems of reckoning consanguinal kin o Functions of descent groups Marital sexual Economic sharing work and resources Ex Tibetan fraternal polyandry Political both within the group and in relation to other groups Descent group to which you belong has specific responsibilities Religious a descent group may have its own rites and beliefs Ex Hopi clans responsible for different festivals o Define who we regard as really in our family o Descent groups Unilineal descent in which descent is traced through parents and ancestors of only one sex Most cultures used this but now bilateral dominates Patrilineal both males and females belong to their father s kin group but not their mother s o Patrilineages tend to be patriarchal whereas matrilineages are more mixed Matrilineal follows a female line only daughters can pass on the family line to their offspring Bilateral descent in which descent can be traced through either or both parents Present in few but heavily populated societies Can be traced either down from a key ancestor to all his or her descendants or up from an individual to all his or her direct ancestors Present in large industrial cultures as well as really small harsh hunter gatherer societies o Gives a much broader population to draw from American kinship groups in a crisis ANTH 1101 25 September o Typically bilateral out from the self ego back to their grandparents and out to their aunts and uncles families kin network is defined by ego s known relatives o Latent kinship ties to kin outside the network that you usually keep in touch with can be activated in certain circumstances Ex for job connections organ donations etc o Somewhat vaguely defined kin system works all right for us because we don t function as kin units much o Kin pattern is known as the personal kindred pattern in this system only full siblings share the same set of kin In contrast in a unilineal system the members of the lineage are clearly defined and every member shares the same understanding of who else is included E g in a patrilineal society you would likely know or know about your grandfather s brother s sons and their descendants because they would be in your patrilineage If you live in a society that participates in warfare land title rights o Kinship structures Hawaiian system all relatives of same generation and sex are called by same term not a strongly lineage oriented system Hierarchical in terms of age and position in society Relatively weak system because the land was so bountiful and held communally no need for extreme stratifications Iroquois system father and father s brother are called by same term as are mother and mother s sisters parallel cousins are called the same terms as siblings cross cousins are differentiated and are preferred as marriage partners Parallel cousins ego s father s brother s children and mother s sister s cousins Cross cousins ego s father s sister s children and mother s brother s children There is a crossing of gender in the parent generation with cross cousins but not with parallel ones Eskimo system the nuclear family is differentiated from other kin and members from one another kin outside the nuclear family are differentiated by generation and sometimes by sex but not by paternal or maternal side Ecologically influenced hunter gatherer society Focus on affines o Marriage ANTH 1101 25 September Relationship between one or more men culturally defined and one or more women culturally defined recognized by society as having a continuing claim to mutual sexual access Some form of marriage is a human universal Only about 5 of cultures have rules that forbid sex outside of marriage Distinction between marriage and mating mating concerns only individuals and their offspring marriage concerns the whole society it is culturally sanctioned and is backed by legal economic and social forces o Marriage customs Polygamy any marriage system involving more than one Polygyny a marriage system involving one man having partner of one gender multiple wives Polyandry a marriage system involving one woman having multiple husbands Tibet o When Brothers Share a Wife Uses functionalism to interpret behavior why might polyandry benefit the adherents of the culture Rejects a lot of explanations female infanticide survival in a harsh environment In actuality prevents the division of land and limits population o Residence patterns where a couple lives Patrilocal with the husband s patrilineal kin Matrilocal with the wife s matrilineal kin Avunculocal with the wife s brother the children s uncle frequently found in matrilineal societies Ambilocal near whichever family is convenient or has the most resources or work to share Neolocal somewhere new not close to either family U S society is predominantly neolocal o Incest having relations with an individual who is culturally defined as related to you in a way which makes such sexual activity inappropriate Taboo partly because of concerns over birth defects Not all societies regard this as taboo though All societies prohibit relations in the nuclear family and most extend this to aunts and uncles o Endogamy marrying within some culturally defined group o Exogamy marrying outside some culturally defined group o How Many Fathers are Best for a Child Bari Indians in Venezuela Children have multiple sources of support o African Polygyny watch video in power point Tribal Wives ANTH 1101 25 September Language and Culture Language a system of communication in symbols of any kind of information Symbol a sound a gesture or object which a particular culture has arbitrarily associated with a particular meaning o Purely cultural o Humans are the only organisms that use symbolic language mostly Sign some kind of natural association with whatever it denotes o Smoke is a sign of fire a seagull is a sign that saltwater is close by Communication involves the transmission of information between people or groups o People tend to communicate signals all the time which may or may not have any informational content or utility o Communication can be complicated by differences in people s language and worldviews The study of language morphemes phonemes and grammar o Phonemes smallest units of sound o Morphemes