ANT 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Edvard Westermarck, Endogamy, Enculturation
Document Summary
Kin group: group of people organized based on kinship relationships. Nuclear family: family group consisting of a married couple and their offspring. Have the responsibility of nurturing and enculturating children. Extended family: culturally recognized relatives of varying degrees of distance. Household (domestic group): people who reside in the same physical space. Fictive kinship: when people who are not biologically related behave as if they are relatives. Definition: prohibition against sexual intercourse between certain kinds of relatives. Biomedical reasons (offspring have higher chance of exhibiting harmful recessive alleles) Assumption that many people have sexual desire for close relatives. Result: taboo helps groups control this behavior. Marry out or die out by e. b. Prohibiting marriage between relatives people seeking mates outside domestic groups. Results in widening of economic and political cooperation. Peace in the family (family disruption hypothesis) Nuclear family incest leads to competition within family unit. Assumption that people have little sexual desire for close relatives.
