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fandomhigh2005-11-02 06:41 pm
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Introduction to Anthropology
Daniel arrives late to the class, looking slightly shaken.
"Okay, today we're going to look at two unusual forms of marriage, both of which are no longer around: -
The Nayar are an upper caste group, who are organized politically into small kingdoms and territorially into localized matrilineal descent groups. Although many of their practices have changed after the imposition of British colonial rule, a reconstruction of their traditional system suggests that no substantial marital institutions were present, at least from a Western perspective. On reaching puberty, a woman could entertain an indefinite number of lovers, usually between three and eight, without any public concern over sexual fidelity or paternal responsibility, the two basic features of marriage in European societies. Women would assume the responsibility for raising children within matrilineally constructed households, focusing on mothers, daughters, and sisters. The domestic group also included male members of the matrilineage, i.e. the women's brothers. However, since their main activities were devoted to warfare, all but the eldest men were usually absent during the better part of the year.
In spite of the apparently casual attitudes towards sex and fatherhood, a number of rules were strictly applied and failure to observe them could lead to severest punishments: ostracism and death. The most important focused on two ritual acts: the tying of the tali and the payment of the midwife's fees. In the tali ritual, girls and boys from allied lineages collectively performed a symbolic wedding ceremony in which each "groom" tied a gold ornament on his "brides" neck. In the successive rites the couple was secluded and may or may not have engaged in sexual activity (usually the girl was too young). At the conclusion of the ritual no specific rights or obligations between the couple were established, other than the expectation that the "wife" and her children would make special mourning observances when her "husband" died. However, without the tying of the tali, a woman could not engage in any sexual activity. If she gave birth, her child would be considered to be illegitimate. After the ceremony, she could start receiving lovers provided that they did not come from a lower hereditary caste or subcaste as she did. When the woman bore children, one of the lovers was expected to acknowledge his paternity by presenting gifts to the midwife who assisted in the delivery. While this, like the tali tying, was an almost exclusively symbolic act and incurred no subsequent responsibility, it was considered essential to both the legitimacy and the status of the child insofar as it provided an assurance that it was not the product of a relationship between its mother and a socially inferior man.
The Nayar case imposes a strict test on the understanding of marriage, as it completely dispenses with the child-care functions so strongly emphasized in Western understandings and differs in its concepts of sexual exclusiveness and propriety. It does however impose an important set of rules and fulfills functions that are quite understandable in the context of a lineage and caste based society. The rites and regulations assume the following significance appropriate the broader Nayar social order:
They reflect and enforce a morality that permits open sexual relations provided that they are contracted within the limits of caste membership and uphold standards of hereditary purity.
They contribute to the focusing of social relationships within the caste.
They represent and underscore long term alliances among localized matrilineages, which along with caste groups constitute the core components of the society.
They underwrite the legitimacy and social statuses of newly born children.
According to these observations, along with a consideration of other variations such as woman-woman marriage, Gough suggests a broadened definition of marriage as follows:
Marriage is a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum.
and
The Tiwi, who traditionally lived on the Bathurst Islands just off the coast of northern Australia, were unusual because both sexes frequently marriage people of markedly different ages - in fact, spouses were usually of different generations.
Like other aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Tiw were exclusively hunters and gatherers. Male elders made most of the important decisions in a band, including those about foraging activities and the distribution of food. Many elderly men were polygynous. Polygynous men had access to lots of food from their wives' fathering and fishing, and they could acquire prestige by distributing the food widely to other families. Other male elders were desired as allies, and allies could be acquired by food distribution and by another means, which I'll discuss in a moment. But meat was valued, and as men reached their 50s and 60s, they were unable to hunt effectively. To hunt meat, they needed sons, which they generally had, and sons-in-law, which they could get by marrying off their daughters.
Tiwi marriage is unusual because of two rare customs. First, when a girl was born she was almost immediately promised as a wife to some other man. This is "infant betrothal," with the husband selected by the infant's father. Second, there was a cultural requirement that all females vibe married virtually all their lives. So an infant girl was not simply "betrothed." Tiwi seemed to have thought of her as already married. And when a woman's husband died, she remarried almost immediately, which we may call "Window remarriage."
An astute Tiwi father did not marry his infant daughter to just anyone. He used her marriage to win friends and gain allies. The allies who were most valuable were men of about his own age, so naturally he tended to marry his daughters to these men. But the relationship created by one such marriage often was reciprocated – if you married your daughter to a friend, you would likely receive his daughter, sooner or later. So a man might gain a wife in return for a daughter.
If a man's wife had daughters when he was in his 40s and 50s - which was common, then he married some of them to men his own age. Not all of them, though, because a man also wanted sons-in-law to come live in his band and help supply meat. So an elder would look around for a young man in his 20s who seemed like a diligent and skillful hunter and a promising ally. He married some of his daughters to these younger men. When his daughters grew up, his sons-in-law would supply him and his household with meat.
From the perspective of a girl growing into womanhood, she would already have a husband, most likely one who was perhaps 20 or 30 years older than herself, and often even 40 or 40 years older. That is, most women were married to men one or two generations removed from them. Most women spent their younger years working with their co-wives gathering pants for themselves, their children and their joint husband.
Of course, most wives outlived their husbands but did have children by them. By Tiwi custom, the widows had to remarry. But to whom? Some young men in their 20s had failed to attract the notice of the elders and therefore had no wives of their own. But they could still be friends and useful allies of the sons of these widowed women. So at the death of her husband, her sons (usually with her consent and approval) married their mother to a man 20 or 30 years her junior. That way, she would have the support of a strong hunter as she aged, and her sons would strengthen a friendship and gain an ally.
Tiwi wives might seem like "pawns," but in fact they were active participants in marital machinations."
He looks around the classroom, his eyes touching on each of them in turn.
"No homework tonight, guys. I'll see you Friday."
"Okay, today we're going to look at two unusual forms of marriage, both of which are no longer around: -
The Nayar are an upper caste group, who are organized politically into small kingdoms and territorially into localized matrilineal descent groups. Although many of their practices have changed after the imposition of British colonial rule, a reconstruction of their traditional system suggests that no substantial marital institutions were present, at least from a Western perspective. On reaching puberty, a woman could entertain an indefinite number of lovers, usually between three and eight, without any public concern over sexual fidelity or paternal responsibility, the two basic features of marriage in European societies. Women would assume the responsibility for raising children within matrilineally constructed households, focusing on mothers, daughters, and sisters. The domestic group also included male members of the matrilineage, i.e. the women's brothers. However, since their main activities were devoted to warfare, all but the eldest men were usually absent during the better part of the year.
In spite of the apparently casual attitudes towards sex and fatherhood, a number of rules were strictly applied and failure to observe them could lead to severest punishments: ostracism and death. The most important focused on two ritual acts: the tying of the tali and the payment of the midwife's fees. In the tali ritual, girls and boys from allied lineages collectively performed a symbolic wedding ceremony in which each "groom" tied a gold ornament on his "brides" neck. In the successive rites the couple was secluded and may or may not have engaged in sexual activity (usually the girl was too young). At the conclusion of the ritual no specific rights or obligations between the couple were established, other than the expectation that the "wife" and her children would make special mourning observances when her "husband" died. However, without the tying of the tali, a woman could not engage in any sexual activity. If she gave birth, her child would be considered to be illegitimate. After the ceremony, she could start receiving lovers provided that they did not come from a lower hereditary caste or subcaste as she did. When the woman bore children, one of the lovers was expected to acknowledge his paternity by presenting gifts to the midwife who assisted in the delivery. While this, like the tali tying, was an almost exclusively symbolic act and incurred no subsequent responsibility, it was considered essential to both the legitimacy and the status of the child insofar as it provided an assurance that it was not the product of a relationship between its mother and a socially inferior man.
The Nayar case imposes a strict test on the understanding of marriage, as it completely dispenses with the child-care functions so strongly emphasized in Western understandings and differs in its concepts of sexual exclusiveness and propriety. It does however impose an important set of rules and fulfills functions that are quite understandable in the context of a lineage and caste based society. The rites and regulations assume the following significance appropriate the broader Nayar social order:
They reflect and enforce a morality that permits open sexual relations provided that they are contracted within the limits of caste membership and uphold standards of hereditary purity.
They contribute to the focusing of social relationships within the caste.
They represent and underscore long term alliances among localized matrilineages, which along with caste groups constitute the core components of the society.
They underwrite the legitimacy and social statuses of newly born children.
According to these observations, along with a consideration of other variations such as woman-woman marriage, Gough suggests a broadened definition of marriage as follows:
Marriage is a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum.
and
The Tiwi, who traditionally lived on the Bathurst Islands just off the coast of northern Australia, were unusual because both sexes frequently marriage people of markedly different ages - in fact, spouses were usually of different generations.
Like other aboriginal peoples of Australia, the Tiw were exclusively hunters and gatherers. Male elders made most of the important decisions in a band, including those about foraging activities and the distribution of food. Many elderly men were polygynous. Polygynous men had access to lots of food from their wives' fathering and fishing, and they could acquire prestige by distributing the food widely to other families. Other male elders were desired as allies, and allies could be acquired by food distribution and by another means, which I'll discuss in a moment. But meat was valued, and as men reached their 50s and 60s, they were unable to hunt effectively. To hunt meat, they needed sons, which they generally had, and sons-in-law, which they could get by marrying off their daughters.
Tiwi marriage is unusual because of two rare customs. First, when a girl was born she was almost immediately promised as a wife to some other man. This is "infant betrothal," with the husband selected by the infant's father. Second, there was a cultural requirement that all females vibe married virtually all their lives. So an infant girl was not simply "betrothed." Tiwi seemed to have thought of her as already married. And when a woman's husband died, she remarried almost immediately, which we may call "Window remarriage."
An astute Tiwi father did not marry his infant daughter to just anyone. He used her marriage to win friends and gain allies. The allies who were most valuable were men of about his own age, so naturally he tended to marry his daughters to these men. But the relationship created by one such marriage often was reciprocated – if you married your daughter to a friend, you would likely receive his daughter, sooner or later. So a man might gain a wife in return for a daughter.
If a man's wife had daughters when he was in his 40s and 50s - which was common, then he married some of them to men his own age. Not all of them, though, because a man also wanted sons-in-law to come live in his band and help supply meat. So an elder would look around for a young man in his 20s who seemed like a diligent and skillful hunter and a promising ally. He married some of his daughters to these younger men. When his daughters grew up, his sons-in-law would supply him and his household with meat.
From the perspective of a girl growing into womanhood, she would already have a husband, most likely one who was perhaps 20 or 30 years older than herself, and often even 40 or 40 years older. That is, most women were married to men one or two generations removed from them. Most women spent their younger years working with their co-wives gathering pants for themselves, their children and their joint husband.
Of course, most wives outlived their husbands but did have children by them. By Tiwi custom, the widows had to remarry. But to whom? Some young men in their 20s had failed to attract the notice of the elders and therefore had no wives of their own. But they could still be friends and useful allies of the sons of these widowed women. So at the death of her husband, her sons (usually with her consent and approval) married their mother to a man 20 or 30 years her junior. That way, she would have the support of a strong hunter as she aged, and her sons would strengthen a friendship and gain an ally.
Tiwi wives might seem like "pawns," but in fact they were active participants in marital machinations."
He looks around the classroom, his eyes touching on each of them in turn.
"No homework tonight, guys. I'll see you Friday."
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