Exam 9: Kinship, Family, and Marriage

Susan Kahn found that Jewish women in Israel are deeply compelled to reproduce their family, religion, and the nation. For women who get pregnant using new reproductive technologies, the ethnicity of a sperm donor is less of an issue than that of an egg donor. How do you classify the way they practice descent?

In some cultures, including Chinese and Indian, there is a strong preference for male children. This preference has been highlighted by what particular development?

In some parts of the world, when a marriage ends, the former spouses often remarry new partners soon afterward. What form of marriage is this?

Through kinship studies across cultures, anthropologists have determined that the ways in which genealogies are constructed can be messy and far from exact. Gaps, interruptions, disruptions, uncertainties, and assumed connections are all found among genealogies. This fact is further underscored by Kathleen Gough's reexamination of anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard's kinship work with Nuer people in Sudan. Describe one example of a genealogical disruption that Gough found among Nuer kinship data collected in the 1930s, and discuss why the disruption likely occurred. What sorts of gaps and disruptions are present in your own genealogy, and why do you think they have occurred? Do you think that genealogies will undergo even greater gaps and disruptions in the future? Why or why not?

The parents of an upper-class family in the United States send their two children to a private boarding school and, later, to an elite college. Both children marry other members of the upper class, who they met at school. Their parents encouraged what kind of an arranged marriage?

Nation-states draw heavily on ideas of ________ in order to create a sense of connection among very different people found within their national borders.

Why might some gay men and lesbians turn to chosen families?

The statement issued in 2004 by the American Anthropological Association noted that a "vast array of family types" all contributed to "stable and humane societies." Why did the organization issue this statement?

When Cesar speaks of his dream to get married and have children, he is talking about his:

In the U.S. it is illegal as well as socially frowned upon to marry certain relatives. This is an example of a society that practices ________,

What model of kinship does the idea that a nuclear family consists of a mother, a father, and their children reflect?

Something similar to marriage exists in every known culture. However, many anthropologists observe that:

A daughter-in-law is an example of what kind of relative?

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?

Many different kinship structures send a son away (or search outside their immediate kin groups) for a marriage partner. What rule does this reflect?

How many different ways of classifying siblings and cousins did early anthropologists find by collecting kinship data from cultures worldwide?

Your friend tells you about an event that took place before her cousin Ayla's wedding in Turkey in which her family gave furniture, kitchen appliances, and cash to the groom's family. In Turkey, it is called "ceyiz." How would anthropologist classify this kind of ritual?

Families and kinship networks have the power to provide support and to nurture. What else do kinship networks do in a society?

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

With the exception of a few historical examples such as Incan, Hawaiian, and ancient Egyptian royalty, incest taboos universally prohibit sexual relations between which members of a group?