Exam 10: Kinship, Family, and Marriage

Globalization places stress on many different aspects of our lives, including kinship systems. What result of globalization often affects kinship?

How do humans build kinship ties between two people who are not their immediate biological kin?

A patrilineal descent group traces kinships through which side of the family?

Which anthropological question does the TV show Transparent help to highlight as it follows a parent coming out as transgender to her children, grandchildren, and remarried ex-wife?

In a matrilineal descent group, continued membership in the same family group is passed down through which member?

Melanie Medeiros's research on the impact of a new tourism industry on families in Brogodo, Brazil, demonstrates which pattern?

Cousins who are children of a father's brother or a mother's sister are considered which type of cousin?

The author of your textbook describes a situation in a Chinese village in which family and ancestral records had been destroyed as part of the national cultural revolution in the 1960s. The author uses this case to underscore the fact that political factors can shape efforts to construct and maintain kinship. What are two examples of ways in which political factors may have shaped kinship in the United States? Do you think that political factors continue to influence kinship in any way today? Why or why not? What future implications may current political factors have on future forms of kinship?

All of us are born or adopted into a family. When we make a choice to leave this natal family and choose a mate in order to have children, what kind of family are we becoming part of?

Marriage in various forms occurs all over the world. In the United States, we typically practice kindred exogamy. What is kindred exogamy and what are two examples of marriages that would violate its rules? How does exogamy generally differ from endogamy? Is endogamy officially or unofficially practiced in the United States? What are two examples of unofficial or implicit endogamy that may occur in a group of people? What are some benefits and drawbacks of exogamy and endogamy?

For most individuals in descent groups in the United States, their relationship is based on consanguinity. What is the basis of this consanguineal relationship?

The textbook opens by discussing the TV show Transparent, in which Maura comes out to her children and ex-partner as transgender. What two key anthropological questions about kinship and the family does this show highlight? Be sure to mention and explain at least one key term in your answer.

Kinship is the most effective strategy that humans have developed to form stable, reliable, separate, and deeply connected groups that can last over time and through generations. What comprises the system of kinship?

Families in the United States are supplementing biological connections and affinal marriage connections with alternative family forms based on friendship, respect, and mutual support. One alternative family form is that of chosen families. What are chosen families, and what are some of the reasons that they exist and are becoming more common? Give three examples of chosen families in the United States. Do you think that chosen families existed in the distant past? Why or why not? What do you think will happen to the prevalence of chosen families in the future, and why?

What are the two types of descent groups distinguished by anthropologists?

While the notion of a romantic marriage predominates thinking in the United States, what is another common reason for marriage prevalent in other countries?

Anthropologists in the early twentieth century believed that kinship structures would yield crucial data and patterns about societal structure. What was one of the primary goals of these efforts?

Incest taboos universally prohibit sexual relations between which members of a group?

Why did the number of international adoptees coming to the United States drop from 17,416 to 6,441 between 2008 and 2013?

You attend a friend's wedding. At one point, the father of the groom hands a set of new car keys to the bride. What would you, as an anthropologist, call this?