Marriage in Pakistan

1. Marriage

2. Marriage
• There is no single definition of marriage or
family that is adequate to account for all of
the diversity found in marriages cross-
culturally.
• A socially recognized, stable, and enduring
union between two adults that publicly
acknowledges their rights and obligations and
forms a new alliance between kin groups.

3. Marriage
• The heterosexual, monogamous marriage
dominant in the United States is only one
type of marriage.
• Marriages built around plural spouses or
same-sex relationships also fulfill the
functions of marriage.

4. Edmond Leach on Marriage
• Rights allocated by marriage:
• establish the legal father (pater) and mother
(mater).
• give one or both spouses a monopoly in the
sexuality of the other.
• give one or both spouses rights to the labor
and property of the other.
• establish a joint fund of property for the
benefit of the children.
• establish a socially significant relationship of
affinity between spouses and their relatives.

5. Same-sex Marriage
• In some societies (e.g., Nuer of S. Sudan),
female-female marriages may be occur, with
one female transformed into a legal
‘husband’, and thus the social father (pater) of
the children produced by the ‘wife’ and a
male not of her lineage.

6. Same-sex Marriage:
Two-spirits
• Two-spirits (or berdaches): marriages
among some Native American societies
that allowed two males or two females to
marry and have all the rights and
responsibilities of a heterosexual married
couple.
Contemporary
Two-spirits

7. Same-sex Marriage
• Advocates of marriage equality for same-
sex couples argue that such couples
share resources, make joint decisions,
may raise children, etc., and thus need
access to the same rights and privileges
accorded to heterosexual couples.

8. Leach on Same-sex Marriage
• Based on the data, many anthropologists
believe that same-sex marriages are
legitimate unions between two individuals
because, like other kinds of marriage,
same-sex marriage can allocate all of the
rights discussed by Leach.

9. Marriage Rules
• Every society has culturally defined rules
concerning relations and marriage.
• Marriage rules may determine:
• How many people one can marry.
• How marriages may be dissolved.
• The rituals that legitimate marriage.
• The rights established by marriage.

10. Preferential Marriage Rules:
Cousins
• Rules in unilineal descent societies about
the preferred categories of relatives for
marriage partners:
• Cross cousins
• The children of a parent’s siblings of
the opposite sex, who are not in the
same kin group.
• Parallel cousins
• The children of a parent’s same-sex
siblings, who are in the same kin
group.

11. Parallel vs. Cross Cousins

12. Incest Taboos
• Prohibits certain individuals from having
illegal relationship with each other.
• The most widespread taboo is mating
between mother and son, father and
daughter, and sister and brother.

13. Egyptian Royal Incest
• Manifest (emic) function: royalty passed
through women.
• Latent (etic) functions: maintained the
ruling ideology and consolidated royal
wealth.
Akhenaten (ruled c.
1353-1336 BCE)
married his sister.

14. Exogamy
• Rules specifying that a person must marry
outside a particular group.
• Almost universal within the primary family
group.
• Leads to alliances between different
families and groups.

15. Exogamy
• This practice forces people to create and
maintain a wide social network by turning
potential enemies (strangers) into affinal
kin and allies.
• This wider social network nurtures, helps,
and protects one's group during times of
need.

16. Endogamy
• Rules that marriage must be within a
particular group.
• Functions to express and maintain social
difference.
• Caste (Hindu); religion (Old Order
Amish, Islam- esp. women, Jehovah’s
Witness, Mormon); ethnicity (Jews).
Other examples?

17. Homogamy
• The practice of marrying someone similar
to you in terms of background, social
status, aspirations, and interests.
Examples?

18. Preferential Marriage Rules:
Levirate and Sororate
• Levirate - A man marries the widow of a
deceased brother.
• Ghost Marriage- A Nuer widow
marries her dead husband’s brother;
the kids are considered the children of
the dead husband.
• Sororate - When a man’s wife dies, her
sister is given to him as a wife.

19. Number of Spouses
• All societies have rules about how many
spouses a person can have at one time.
• Monogamy is the ideal norm in Europe
and many of its ex-colonies.
• Despite the ideal, the real norm is
increasingly serial monogamy.

20. Polygamy
• A rule allowing more than one spouse.
• Not everyone in such cultures has
multiple spouses.

21. Polygyny
• A man may have multiple wives.
• Typically associated with patrifocality
and male prestige (e.g., Igbo).
• Sometimes a survival strategy (e.g., a
Tiwi man may have a dozen wives who
forage so they can all eat.)
A polygynous
Igbo family

22. Polyandry
• A woman may have multiple husbands.
• Associated with matrifocality and is rare
and decreasing.
• In ancient Marquesan (French Polynesian
) society, élite women could have two
non-fraternal husbands.
Contemporary
Marquesan man

23. Polyandry
• In most cases, (e.g., the Toda of S. India
and several Tibetan and Nepali ethnic
groups), fraternal polyandry is associated
with men traveling often.
Nepali fraternal
polyandrous family

24. Choosing a Mate
• In most societies, marriage is important
because it links kin groups of the married
couple.
• This accounts for the practice of arranged
marriages.
• “Love marriage” v. arranged marriage &
social change.

25. Exchange of Goods in
Marriage
• Three kinds of exchanges made in
connection with marriage are:
• Bride service
• Bridewealth
• Dowry
• Typical in descent-based societies, where
marriages create alliances.
• Stabilize marriage by acting as pressure
against divorce.

26. Exchange in Marriage and
Gender
• Bride service and bridewealth are often
associated with higher women’s status.
• Dowry is often associated with lower
women’s status.

27. Bride Service
• The husband must work for a specified period
of time for his wife’s family in exchange for his
marital rights.
• Occurs mainly in egalitarian foraging societies,
where accumulating material goods for an
exchange at marriage is difficult.
• Among the Ju/’hoansi a man may work for
his wife’s family until the birth of the third
child.

28. Bridewealth
• The most common form of marriage exchange.
• Cash or goods are given by the groom’s kin to
the bride’s kin to seal a marriage.
• Legitimates the new reproductive and
socioeconomic unit created by the marriage.
• Bridewealth paid at marriage is returned if a
marriage is terminated.
• When done as way to recompensate bride’s
family for their loss of her and her labor, it is
associated with high status of women.

29. Dowry
• Less common than other forms of
exchange at marriage.
• Dowry has different meanings and
functions in different societies.
• In some cases it represents a woman’s share
of her family inheritance.
• In other cases it is a payment transferred
from the bride’s family to the groom’s family,
in which case it’s associated with low status
of women.

30. Bridewealth in New Guinea.
Dowry in
India

31. Marriage as a Rite of Passage
• Arranged Marriages: common where alliance
is important.
• Courtship: common in societies without
arranged marriages.
• Among foragers and
pastoralists/horticulturalists, wedding are often
simple ceremonies
• Among agriculturalists (chiefdoms & states),
they tend to be extravagant affairs, often with
feasting.

32. Rules of Residence
• Neolocal residence - A couple
establishes an independent household
after marriage.
• Commonly associated with industrial and
postindustrial societies.
• Advantages are
mobility and
independence.
• Disadvantage is
socio-economic
isolation.

33. Rules of Residence
• Patrilocal/virilocal residence - A woman
lives with her husband’s family after
marriage.
• Commonly associated with patrifocality and
internal warfare.
• Matrilocal/uxorilocal residence - A man
lives in the household of his wife’s family.
• Commonly associated with matrifocality and
external warfare.

34. Rules of Residence
• Avunculocal residence - A married
couple is expected to live with the
husband’s mother’s brother.
• Associated with matrilineality, but men
get wealth and status from their
maternal uncles.
• If a couple can choose between living with
either spouse’s family, the pattern is
called bilocal residence and is very
adaptively flexible.

35. Divorce
• Marriages that are political alliances are
harder to break up than marriages that are
more individual affairs.
• Bridewealth and dowry discourage divorce.
• Divorce is more common in matrilineal and/or
matrilocal societies.
• Divorce is harder in patrilocal societies as the
woman may be less inclined to leave her
children who, as members of their father’s
lineage, would stay with him.

36. Divorce among Foragers
• Forces act to both promote divorce:
• Marriages tend to be individual affairs
without alliance concerns.
• They have few material possessions.
• Forces act to discourage divorce:
• The family unit is primary and labor is
divided by gender.
• A sparse population means few alternative
spouses.

37. Divorce in Nation-states
• The U.S. has one of the world’s highest
divorce rates and a very large percentage of
gainfully employed women.
• Americans value independence.
• Protestantism tends to be less strict about
divorce.
• Many religions, such as Roman Catholicism,
Islam, and Orthodox Judaism have strict rules.