Exam 11: Marriage

Polygamy, although formally outlawed, has survived in Turkey since the Ottoman period, when having several wives was viewed as a symbol of power, wealth, and sexual prowess. Unlike the past, when the practice was customary and not illegal, polygamy can put contemporary women at risk. How?

Homogamy is the practice of marrying within a culturally prescribed group to which one does not belong.

Native American berdaches were permitted to marry men.

Cultures have different definitions and expectations of relationships that are biologically or genetically equivalent. In other words, kinship is socially constructed.

In South Sudan, a Nuer woman can marry a woman if her father has only daughters but no male heirs. This is done to maintain the patrilineage. The "wife" has sex with one or more men until she gets pregnant. The children born are then accepted as the offspring of both the female husband and the wife. What is important in this example is

A Nuer woman married to a woman can be the pater of a child she did not father. Native American berdaches, biological men who represent a third gender, sometimes assume the role of a wife when married to a man with whom they share the products of their labor. Cross-cultural examples such as these illustrate

Which of the following best defines polygyny?

Which of the following is ego's cross-cousin?

Dowries are most common in societies in which women occupy an elevated status position.

What is the term that anthropologists use to refer to the biological father of a child?

Divorce tends to be more common

Although the incest taboo is a cultural universal, cultures define incest differently. For example, in many cultures it is incestuous to marry parallel cousins but not cross-cousins. What is the difference?

How would you explain the universality of the incest taboo? You may draw on one or more of the explanations offered previously.

Which of the following marital customs functions to maintain distinctions between groups?

Why does exogamy, the practice of seeking a husband or wife outside one's own kin group, have adaptive value outside of biological concerns?

How do the rules of endogamy function in society?

The children of your father's sister are called your cross-cousins.

Among the Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil, as in many societies with unilineal descent, which of the following is true?

What term refers to one of two descent groups in a given population?

Same-sex marriages are not culturally viable institutions.