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This chapter (10) deals with a universal pattern in human societies: marriage. As defined in this book, marriage is a socially approved sexual and economic union that has reciprocal obligations between the two spouses and the spouses and their children. It is felt that as marriage is universal that it must be adaptive. It is proposed that marriage solves several problems between males and females. Three major problems are apparently solved by marriage. These are the gender division of labor, prolonged infant dependency and sexual competition between males for females.
Marriage may be universal but that does not mean every society deals with it in the same way. How people marry varies considerably, even as much as the economic considerations. In many societies (75%) some form of economic transaction must occur before the marriage can be formalized. These transactions include bride price, bride service, dowry, indirect dowry, gift exchange, or even the exchange of females. The one marriage restriction that exists in all cultures is the incest taboo. Simply put it means that a person cannot many particular kin members. The most universal aspect is the prohibition of sexual intercourse between parents and children and between siblings. Various theories exist as to why this prohibition is universal. Edward Westermarck proposed the childhood-familiarity theory, Sigmund Freud proposed that the incest taboo is a reaction against unconscious, unacceptable desires, Bronislaw Malinowski hypothesized the family-disruption theory. The cooperation theory was first proposed by Edward Tylor, and then later elaborated on by Claude Levi-Strauss and Leslie White. Probably the oldest idea that deals with the taboo of incest is the fear of inbreeding The next section of the chapter deals with the idea of who one marries There are arranged marriages, levirate and sororate marriages, cousin marriage, and rules of exogamy and endogamy that force a person to marry outside of a predefined group or inside of a predefined group, respectively How many people one person can marry is also of some interest to anthropologists. In most societies the answer has been more than one. Monogamy (the marriage of one man to one woman) has actually been one of the least common practices between all societies. Most societies have allowed polygyny (the marriage of one man to more than one woman), while most have not allowed polyandry (the marriage of one woman to more than one man). Group marriage (where more than one man is married to more than one woman) is very uncommon. Another cultural universal is the family. Families vary in structure from society to society. The most common form is the extended family In this family more than the mother, father and children (nuclear family) live in the same residence. It may include a married couple and their married children, or two married brothers and their entire families, including several generations of relatives The smallest family, on the other hand, is the single-parent family, usually headed by the mother (matrifocal) The question usually arises as to why the extended family is so popular? They are usually found in sedentary agricultural societies The basic factor that makes them so common is economic in nature.
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