ANTH 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Pastoralism, Ascribed Status, Centralized Government
31 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
Exogamy: the practice of seeking a spouse outside one"s own group. Homo sapiens are genetically programmed to avoid incest. This theory has been refuted: specific kin types included with in the incest taboo have a cultural rather than biological basis i. e. ii vs x-cousins. The more accepted argument is that the taboo originated to ensure exogamy. Incest taboo forces people to create and maintain wide social networks. Incest taboos are seen as an adoptively advantageous cultural construct. Consanguineal family (brother and sister not married lives with sister her. The family is one form or another is a universal feature of a human social organisation. The nuclear family (mother = father and their children: most familiar form of conjugal family, harsh environments (among hunters and gathers and industrial societies, high degree of mobility. Isolation from kin: need for both spouses to work outside, no clear responsibilities. Collection of related nuclear families in one household.
