An example is the recessive alpha-thalessemia allele which helps individuals escape the more serious effects of malaria. Racial exogamy is when individuals marry outside of their own race. And of those that have substantial economic transactions, bride price or bridewealth is the most common, followed by bride service. Finally, the degree to which spouses choose their marriage partners may help us understand divorce rates. Korotayev, Andrey V., and Joseph Cardinale. Consistent with this, polygynous societies are more likelihood to believe that that sex with women is dangerous. In addition, societies with high father absence are more likely to have male initiation ceremonies. The term exogamy isnt one thats thrown around in everyday conversation. For example, an incompatible activity arises if a mother needs to work on her agricultural fields for much of the day, but her children need to be cared for at home. One important predictor is whether or not women engage in craft specialization or work outside the householdwhen they do so, there is a lower likelihood of arranged marriage (Hull 1989). In other words, a marriage outside the lineage group is . One estimate is 70% of societies allowing cross-cousin marriage allow symmetrical compared with 30% for asymmetrical cousin marriage (Coult 1965). As pointed out by Pasternak, Ember, and Ember (1976), the problem with this reasoning is that most hunter-gatherer societies have multi-family bands that cooperate with each other, so clearly they can support multiple families. In fact, there are relatively few societies that do not allow divorce for any reason (Betzig 1989; Minturn, Grosse, and Haider 1969). Exogamy is usually defined through kinship rather than ethnicity, religion, or class. These are most often the locus of exogamy; marrying a member of ones own clan or moiety typically constitutes a form of incest. Why? He said that a people had religious respect for the blood of a totemic clan, for the clan totem is a god and is present especially in the blood, a sacred substance. Another type of dowry is indirect dowry. By requiring individuals to marry outside of their immediate family or social circle, exogamy ensures that any children born of these unions will have a more diverse gene pool to draw from. This distinction mostly matters in societies with patrilineal or matrilineal descent because in such societies one set of parallel cousins is in your own kin group, while cross-cousins are generally not. Marriage is commonly defined as a socially approved sexual and economic union, presumed to be more or less permanent, and entails rights and obligations between the married couple and any children they might have (C. R. Ember, Ember, and Peregrine 2019). According to Folsom, endogamous is the rule that one must marry within ones caste or group". (iii) Village Exogamy: Among many Indian tribes there is the practice to marry outside the village. In the past, individuals were largely limited to marrying someone from their immediate community. Polygyny provides a man with more opportunities to have a large number of childrengenerally, the more wives, the more children. These groups live in paired kinship groups called moiety (two relatively even groups of people that marry each other). 2019. Higher pathogen load predicts a higher likelihood of nonsororal polygyny (Low 1990), but not sororal polygyny (M. Ember, Ember, and Low 2007). Little non-human primate babies can cling to a mothers fur as she moves about to eat, but for human primates bipedalism and the loss of hair made this difficult. Simple exogamy is in practice in the Indian tribes and North American. tends to occur in societies with non-intensive agriculture or pastoralism at middle ranges of complexity (Schlegel and Eloul 1988; Evascu 1975). Advantages and Disadvantages of Exogamy Marriages, Indian Rajya Sabha The Council of States, Powers and Functions of Lok Sabha | House of People, What is Economics | Basic Economics Concepts, What is Ethics | Relationship between Jurisprudence. Omissions? Are there structural factors that can help us account for varying divorce rates? Their main findings are. Why? While first cousin marriage may have higher risk of offspring carrying harmful double recessive genes, severe population loss makes it more difficult to find eligible mates in societies that are already relatively small. Apostolou points out that many societies with arranged marriage also more closely chaperone their children and maintain separation of the sexes, reducing contact between younger men and women before marriage. So, in a patrilineal society, children will be in the same kin group as their father, their fathers brother, and their fathers brothers children. Of the 148 societies in the Standard Cross Cultural Sample which Broude and Green coded 31.1% have full individual choice, 17.6% have individual choice that requires parental approval, 3.4% have individual choice that also require parental arrangement, 18.2% have either individual choice or arranged marriage, 16.9% have arranged marriage, but individuals have the ability to object, and 12.8% have fully arranged marriage., The figures in this paragraph and in the Figure are based on data from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock and White 1969); these data on polygyny were retrieved from D-PLACE variable SCCS211. Therefore, reproductively speaking, it is to a mans advantage to marry multiple unrelated women. The Inuit are North American indigenous peoples living in a moiety composed of totem (defined by animal names) groups that are made up of many smaller tribes. Social stratification is present (Nimkoff and Middleton 1960). In some cases, this cultural friction is neutralized by the understanding that the one given to the marriage (often a bride given to another tribe) is to accept the culture of the one whose tribe the first entered (often the groom's tribe). A more recent example is the Mosuo or Na of Yunnan in southwest China. 485 lessons. 4) Stress of marriage. Although some research supports the idea that societies with matrilocal residence are more tolerant of divorce (Minturn, Grosse, and Haider 1969), other research does not find the relationship particularly strong when other factors are controlled (Ackerman 1963; Pearson and Hendrix 1979). Two families that are connected by at least one blood tie that form a single social and/or economic unit. See: formal polyandry and informal polyandry. Cultural exogamy is marrying outside a specific cultural group; the opposite being endogamy, marriage within a social group. Confinement of womens reproductive potential to one man (Frayser 1985). Affiliations: Structural Determinants of Differential Divorce Rates., Sexual Selection Under Parental Choice: The Role of Parents in the Evolution of Human Mating., Sexual Selection Under Parental Choice: A Revision to the Model., Individual Mate Choice in an Arranged Marriage Context: Evidence from the Standard Cross-cultural Sample., Bride Theft and Raiding for Wives in Cross-Cultural Perspective., Explaining Cross-National Differences in Polygyny Intensity., Solidarity, Stratification and Sentiment: The Unilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage According to the Theories of Levi-Strauss, Leach, and Homans and Schneider., Causes of Conjugal Dissolution: A Cross-cultural Study., Societal Complexity and Familial Complexity: Evidence for the Curvilinear Hypothesis., Nuclear Vs. Extended Family, Monogamy Vs. Polygyny: Democracy Vs. Non-Democracy? Exogamy is a widely practiced marriage custom whereby individuals marry outside of their social group. Keywords: Adat sanctions, exogamy, marriage, Tenganan, Bali. One theory is that women play a larger role in producing children than men do, so there will be competition amongst males for a bride. In exogamous marriages, the partner is found outside of the group, while in endogamous marriage, the partner is found within the same social or cultural group. Why? The opposite of exogamy is endogamy . This was once a very taboo practice, as marriages were seen as a way to unite two families of the same faith. Dr. Alston has taught intro psychology, child psychology, and developmental psychology at 2-year and 4-year schools. Alternatively, indirect dowry can be thought of as a combination of bride price paid first and then dowry. Whiting, John W. M., and Beatrice B. Whiting. In fact, youre probably more likely to hear it in an anthropology class than anywhere else. The assumption is made that societies with social classes are likely to have private property and such property would create interest in keeping land together rather than dividing it into smaller and smaller pieces. Men were obliged to seek wives from other groups, including marriage by capture, and exogamy developed as a cultural custom. This restriction is prevalent in the Munda and other tribes of Chhota Nagpur of Madhya Pradesh. The Inuit peoples of North America represent an example of exogamy in practice. Compromise: Marriage requires compromise . Why? Cultural exogamy is marrying outside a specific cultural group; the opposite being endogamy, marriage within a social group. Why couldnt two women cooperate? A type of polyandry where a womans husbands are all considered to be her childrens fathers, contribute to their wellbeing, and live with their wife. Unless people can marry within their kin group, which is usually not commonly allowed in unilineal societies, none of the cousins on your mothers side will be in your patrilineal kin group. In addition, while extended families are associated with agriculture and sedentariness, the associations are very not very strong (Pasternak, Ember, and Ember 1976). From a genetic point of view, aversion to breeding with close relatives results in fewer congenital diseases. For example, a moiety might be composed of the totems Raven and Eagle. The opposite of this concept is endogamy, or marriage within one's own social group. It is often called out-marriage due to the importance of looking outside one's group. The more likely that marital residence is with or near the husbands kin, the more likely there is compensation to the brides kin (M. Ember 1970). Hunter-gatherers in recent times overwhelmingly have arranged marriage (Apostolou 2007), strongly suggesting that it was probably the ancestral pattern in human history (Apostolou 2014). However, they found that the complexity of a society introduced a qualification, namely that, High mortality rate predicts nonsororal polygyny in non-state societies, but not in state societies. Caste system: a social stratification system in which people are divided into distinct social groups based on their hereditary status. 1988. There also may be broader societal consequences. Why? 1965. In the diagram below, a circle stands for a female, a triangle for a male, and an equal sign for a marriage. Women feel unhappy because of no prior understanding with the members of that family. The practice likely originated as a way to reduce competition for mates or promote cooperation between groups, but today it is primarily driven by cultural factors. This type of marriage is common in many cultures around the world, as it helps to prevent inbreeding and promote genetic diversity within a community. In other words, exogamy helps to keep the gene pool fresh. Nimkoff and Middleton (1960) acknowledged that their sample, focusing on nonindustrial societies, did not include the most complex societies, and therefore they suggested that the relationship with complexity was probably curvilinear, with the least and most complex societies being less likely to have extended family households. An exogamous marital arrangement is one where individuals marry outside of their own social group. Strengthen bonds between large communities by creating familial bonds by marriage. Nimkoff, M. F., and Russell Middleton. Endogamy: the practice of marrying within ones own social group. 2003. Murdock, George Peter, and Douglas R. White. Ackerman (1963) finds that. 2011). If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. Some societies frown on cousin marriage so much that even distant cousins are forbidden. Such lineages may in turn be grouped into clans or moieties. According to this theory, groups that engaged in exogamy would flourish, while those that did not would all die, either literally or because they lacked sufficient ties for cultural and economic exchange, leaving them at a disadvantage. Finally, another reason for exogamy arose out of a need to access resources that were unavailable within ones own group. Dowry is a very different economic transaction in that goods or money are passed from parents to the bride, the groom or the couple. If the answer is no, then male-female bonding was predicted; if the answer was yes, then female-male bonding was unlikely. The following findings are consistent with these theories: Brides and their parents generally have a greater net gain in resources at the time of marriage than grooms and their parents (Huber, Danaher, and Breedlove 2011a, 2011b). Informal polyandry is where two or more men are recognized as fathers and provide some help to the same woman and her children. The children of siblings of the same gender (i.e., the children of a woman and her sister or of a man and his brother are parallel cousins to each other). To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. What is a Exogamous relationship? Symmetrical cross-cousin marriage is somewhat more likely when economic transactions at marriage (such as bride price or dowry) are absent. Small size communities and greater variation in rainfall (Dow, Reed, and Woodcock 2016). One form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which two groups continually intermarry with each other. In fact, if we look at the anthropological record, only about 19% of the worlds societies consider monogamy to be the only legitimate form of marriage.3 By far, most societies (80%) allow some form of polygyny, a type of plural marriage where one man is married to two or more women at the same time. Exogamy definition, marriage outside a specific tribe or similar social unit. During this time she mainly grinds corn, signifying a symbolic payment of service to the grooms mother for her son. The Nayar were a subcaste in India. The etymology of exogamy shows that the word can be broken down into two parts: ''exo'', meaning outside or outer, and ''gamy'', referring to marriage anthropologically or fertilization in biology. Ancient Rome residence dance Hoben, Ashley D., Abraham P. Buunk, and Maryanne L. Fisher. M. Ember (1984) notes that both a high male mortality in warfare combined with a discrepancy in age of marriage predict general polygyny more strongly than either condition alone. 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California in 1973: Summary & Decision, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): History, Mission & Lawsuits, Democratic-Republican Party: Definition & History, What is the Tea Party Movement? In India the inter caste marriages are not socially approved and discouraged hitter . However, in modern times it has become more common for people of different religions to marry one another. Ember, Melvin, Carol R. Ember, and Bobbi S. Low. Extended family households range from small two-unit families, to large families with 3-4 generations of related individuals. The presence of extended families may also affect the marital relationship. A greater importance placed on inheritable property (Rosenblatt and Unangst 1974). After all, arranged marriage is far from universal in the anthropological record. This theory may explain why most bird species have bonding. To understand what a cross-cousin is versus a parallel cousin, it helps to think of the term cross as meaning related to you by crossing gender in the parental generation. In social science, exogamy is viewed as a combination of two related aspects: biological and cultural. Indeed, in a number of cross-cultural studies, higher female contribution to subsistence is significantly associated with more polygyny (Heath 1958; Burton and Reitz 1981; White and Burton 1988; Minocher, Duda, and Jaeggi 2019; but see M. Ember 1984). Other causes of sex ratio imbalance in favor of females include migration of men for work or trade. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[320,100],'anthropologyreview_org-leader-4','ezslot_9',146,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-anthropologyreview_org-leader-4-0');Ethnic exogamy is when individuals marry outside of their own ethnic group. Such transactions, such as bride price or dowry, reflect higher involvement in the establishment of a marriage. While they are rarely the typical form of marriage in a society, societies practicing polyandry to some degree are more likely to have an opposite sex ratio favoring males rather than females (Starkweather and Hames 2012 see polyandry section below). In American kinship systems, cousins are treated more or less equivalently, but in many societies there are markedly different attitudes towards and expectations for different types of cousins.