Defining

• "Marriage is a union between a man and a woman such that the children born to the woman are recognized as legitimate offspring of both partners." (Royal Anthro Institute Proceedings, 1951, , page 111)
• more Marriage Definitions

Conjugal families - based on marriage

Consanguine families - blood ties, ancestors, heir, descendants

THEORETICAL and ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES

• Wedlock, Matrimony, Marriage (Patrimony, Alimony, Testimony, Immunity)
• Alliance theory of marriage
• Love theory of marriage - differential rates of 'happiness' measures over years of marriage comparing South Asian arranged marriages to American lovers marriages.
• Incest Taboo's universality
• Endogamy/Exogamy - formal, and informal but functional
• Property and Marriage - Bridewealth, Dowry, Wedding Presents - Hope chest, Trousseau
• Sati (suttee) outlawed in 1829, mirrors warrior sacrifice.
• Sororate marriage - sister obligated to replace dead sister: marries her brother-in-law widower.
• Levirate marriage - brother obligated to replace dead brother: marries his sister-in-law widow.
• Common-law marriage
• Inuit marriage - inactivating marriage rather than divorce. Divorce unnecessary since men cannot claim women's stuff and women have no right to any property that is masculine. Custody also non-issue as children are dependents of clan (everyone in village). Second marriages result in 'sisterhoods' for inactive wife and her successor, brotherhoods for the sequence of husbands.
• Plural Marriage - polyandry and polygyny. Paharis fraternal sharing of one wife. Multi-wives normative in majority of societies.
• "Big" wife requests and selects second, third, fourth wives.(The wife picks the out the second wife, her husband doesn't have much to say about it, though veto is possible).
• Same sex marriage - W. African women, if rich enough, can take a wife - more or less as administrative assistant rather than as lover. Same is so in some pastoralist tribes, men take boys as temporary wives when away from home - not really about sex, more about having someone to cook, do laundry - in both cases "wife is understood as "labor objects" more than as 'sex objects" - individuals are not competent to carry on without a dependent/dependable partner, and social custom allows/sanctions/supports these kinds of incorporations.
• Joseph, Mandingo/Sierra Leone, of Norristown- CNA - required to marry "at least 4 or 5" of his father's 64 wives if his dies, "someone has to take responsibility for them." Here marriage confirms a sinecure for women - A Mandingo social security system - property distribution, social responsibility, fictive-kin ties all need to examined to understand this - for sure 'marriage' is much different in that society than is ours, beyond fact in both, it is an institutions that maps social responsibility between citizens recognized as 'men' and citizens in status as 'women

Marriage Issues and Problems

Problems with marriage as a social form, and changing need for marriage as a social structure. Then problems for marrieds and consequences for others.

In US, later age at marriage, fewer people are married - in year 2000, 52% of households have a married couple. In 1950, 78% of US households had a married couple.

Household size decreasing. Number of people living alone increasing ( a la Seinfeld, Sex and the City quartet), also singlehood less abnormal than in 50's. Proportion of never-marrieds in US has increased ever since '60's
Average number of children per woman in US declining. Also average number of children per family decreasing. In 1900, American women averaged nearly 4 live births, now down near 2.

Bonding

Promises	Vows	Commitments
Norbertine monks - vow of Stability

Wedlock, Marriage, Matrimony

Endogamy - wed inside the group. Pharoahnic bro-sis marriages. Catholic rules.
Exogamy - must wed outsider rules (consanguinity), Alliance theory of marriage - dynastic mergers.

Mormon Polygynous family - husband, 5 wives and children

Plural Marriages - polygyny, polyandry, sequential monogamy, open marriage, plural spouses, inactive/active spouse of Inuit, Asante- powerful women (wives even) take a wife,Levirate Marriages,Sororal Marriages

Familial partnerships other than marriage or blood
Non-reproductive (no kids) familiation, long-term, with/without sanctions
DINKS, cohabitants, gaydom, post-college housemates, convents, monasteries, military

 

Saturday Dads/Deadbeat Dads

• from homeless guy who told me 'gave my pay to my lady for the kids', to scene of saturday morning in McDonald's - dads divorced from their family taking kid to breakfast and the zoo.
• Paternity replaces Fatherhood - not yet so in Delaware court -case of Joe Z and his son with the wrong DNA. - support of offspring.

Age at first marriage significant correlate to likelihood of divorce
Religious commitment correlates to lower divorce rate
More years of schooling -lower divorce rate
SES - richer correlates with increased marriage, lower divorce
Race/Ethnicity - AsianA lowest, Cauc, Latino, then Af-A with highest rates of divorce (Kendall)
Reliance on smaller number of committed parents (increases toward single-parenting, or marketplace parenting, diminishment of uncle-ing, aunting, grandparenting, mom-dad-and-the-kids type families)

Holmes - a half a million children born each year in US to women between ages of 13 and 19. 75% of these mothers are not married to fathers.