Exam 20: 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?

Almost all cases of bridewealth are associated with patrilineal, patrilocal systems. Why? If there were such a thing as groom price, where would you expect to find it? Why? Why do we not find groom service ethnographically?

What is the term for the marital exchange in which the bride's family or kin group provides substantial gifts when their daughter marries?

Early anthropologists explained incest taboos as a reflection of "instinctive horror" of mating with close relatives. However, this explanation for incest taboos has been rejected because formal incest restrictions would be unnecessary if humans really do have an instinctive aversion to incest.

Native American berdaches were permitted to marry men.

Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, with the number of wives a man has serving as an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.

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

With unilineal descent, sex with cross-cousins is proper, but sex with parallel cousins is considered incestuous. Why?

"A person can have multiple spouses without ever getting divorced." Using the concepts you have learned in this chapter, explain this seemingly contradictory statement.

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

All of the following are a form of polygamy EXCEPT

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?

Which of the following best defines polygyny?

In a study among the Hopi of northeastern Arizona, more than a third of the women of this community had been divorced at least once, which correlates with the fact that these women were socially and economically insecure.

In tribal societies, unlike industrial ones, marriage entails only an agreement between the people getting married; descent groups play only a minor role.

There is no simple or universally accepted explanation for the fact that all cultures ban incest. However, the most accepted explanation for the incest taboo is

Polyandry is common and practiced under a wide range of conditions.

Which of the following statements about polyandry is most likely true?

In a society with two exogamous lineages or moieties, who is the preferred cross-cousin bride for a male ego?

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