Marriage and Matrilineality

I. What is Marriage?
        A. Romantic love
                1. Western ideology?
                        early 12th century French Troubadours
                2. human universal?
                3. arranged marriages
        B. The imperatives of pair-bonding
        C. The extremes of marriage
                1. The Nayar of southern India
                2. tali-rite marriage
                3. sandbadham marriage

II. Incest taboos (rules of exogamy)
        A. Range of incest
            1. universal rules of exogamy:
                                         

            2. Leviticus prohibitions (see Leviticus 18)
            3. early Catholic prohibitions
            4. modern
                      

        B. Inbreeding
            1. recessive genetic traits
            2. long-term natural selection
        C. Familiarity and contempt
            1. Westermark (1891): familiarity breeds contempt
            2. Kibbutzim studies (Israel)
            3. Chinese sim-pua marriage (in Taiwan)

III. Marriages Rules
        A. the norm around the world
                1. who know best?
                2. the contractual side of marriage
                3. cross-cousin marriage

                        Parallel cousin prohibitions:
                      

B. Trobriand Islanders
                1. matrilineal society
                            -roles of F and MB
                2. Four ranked matriclans:
                            -Pigs (Malasi)
                            -Dogs (Lukuba)
                            -Crocodile/Snake/Opossum (Lukwasisiga)
                            -Iguana (Lukulabuta)
                3. clan exogamy
                4. rule to marry FZD reported by Malinowski
                5. Weiner shows that it is much more flexible in practice

        C. Avunculocal residence: living with husband's mother's brother
                    -villages made up of 6-8 hamlets; each hamlet is a matrilineage
                    -brother-Sister versus Husband-Wife relationship

        D. Death and kin: owners (of the dead) and workers (show innocence of sorcery by working)
                               
                        -lisaladabu: mortuary rituals and exchanges
                        -baloma: spirit of a person, gets reborn
                        -cultural models of conception

IV. Multiple Spouses
        A. Monogamy and serial monogamy
        B. Polygyny (82% of societies)
                1. sign of wealth
                2. political and economic benefits of more than one wife
                3. Trobriand chiefs
                4. the importance of paternity on the Trobriands
        C. Polyandry (<1% of societies; only 4-6 cases)
                1. extremely limited resources, need for low population growth
                2. Tibetans in Nepal
                3. fraternal polyandry