Transcript BRIDEWEALTH: (progeny price) A gift from the husband and his kin

The basic social building blocks
in most societies are kinship
systems and/or household forms:
(families).
They are very important units for
cross-cultural understanding
• variations of marriage (cross-culturally)
• issues of sexuality and reproductive capacity of
women and men.
• gender relations
• domestic violence
• divorce patterns
• changes in household and kinship systems
Household forms
• Nuclear
• ---a couple (usually a man and a woman)
living together with or without their
unmarried children.
• Extended families
•
---nuclear family plus later generations
(the children of the children also live in the
household )
In North America nuclear
families are declining rapidly
• women independency
• work patterns
• high rate of divorce
Most people belong to at least two
nuclear families in their lifetime.
• family of orientation and
• family of procreation.
Plural marriages
• Or Polygamy
• a. Polygyny: more than one wife
• b. Polyandry: more than one husband
The practice of men marrying later than
women promotes Polygyny among the
Kanury people of Bornu, Nigeria
(Cohen 1967)
• between 18 and 30 years of age
• women between 12-14
• more widows than widowers
Polyandry is more rare than polygyny
• Found in
•
•
•
•
•
Tibet,
parts of India,
Nepal
and Sri-Lanka.
Fraternal polyandry
Bridewealth and Dowry
Bridewealth compensates the wife’s
group for the lost of companionship
and labour.
Dowry, on the other hand, is a marital
exchange in which the wife’s kin
provides gifts to the husband’s family.
Polyandry
• The case of the Pahari people of the
Himalayas in India
• West and Central regions differences
• shortage of females in west Pahari.
• Infanticide
• joined the Buddhist nuns
Discussion Questions
•
Why do you think “fraternal
polyandry” is socially acceptable
in Tibet but not in our society?
• What are the pros and cons of arranged
marriages versus freedom of choice?
Bridewealth and Dowry