Deck 13: Families, Kinship, and Marriage 

Question 1

In North America, the relatively high incidence of expanded family households in the lower class is

A) caused by bifurcate merging, a practice brought to the United States by Irish immigrants during the early part of the 20th century.
B) maladaptive, since poor families should be smaller in order to cut down on expenses.
C) the result of enduring cultural ties to Europe.
D) the reason the families of lower-class urbanites are dysfunctional.
E) an important strategy used by the poor to adapt to poverty.

Answer 1

an important strategy used by the poor to adapt to poverty.

Question 2

Which term refers to the family in which a child is raised?

A) family of kin
B) family of nucleation
C) family of orientation
D) genealogical family
E) family of procreation

Answer 2

family of orientation

Question 3

What is the most common system of kinship classification used in the United States?

A) bifurcate collateral
B) generational
C) lineal
D) patrilineal
E) bifurcate merging

Answer 3

lineal

Question 4

Your family of procreation is the one into which you were born.

Question 5

Industrialization increases mobility, which plays a major role in the disappearance of extended families in the United States.

Question 6

In fact, other domestic arrangements outnumber the traditional U.S. household five to one. All of the following are among the reasons for this trend EXCEPT that

A) divorce rates have risen.
B) job demands compete with romantic attachments.
C) contrary to expectations, the importance of kinship is growing in contemporary nations.
D) women are increasingly joining men in the workforce.
E) it is increasingly economically feasible for women to delay marriage and yet live away from their family of orientation.

Question 7

After reaching an all-time low for the twentieth century in the 1970s, the nuclear family is now making a rebound, accounting for a greater number of U.S. households each year.

Question 8

Understanding kinship systems is an important part of anthropology because

A) it provides an objective, universal perspective on how people are related to one another.
B) kinship ties are what triggered the split between the hominin line and the rest of the primates and is thus the defining aspect of our humanity.
C) kinship ties are important to the people anthropologists study; they are a key component of people's everyday social relations.
D) the study of kinship is part of the anthropological tradition established by the field's pioneers.
E) it is the only aspect of anthropological study that the general public cares about.

Question 9

A unilineal descent group whose members demonstrate their common descent from an apical ancestor is a(n)

A) lineage.
B) clan.
C) family of procreation.
D) extended family.
E) family of orientation.

Question 10

Traditionally, in some areas of Bosnia, several nuclear families were embedded in an extended family household called a zadruga. Among the Nayar in southern India, it was typical for people to live in matrilineal extended family compounds called tarawads. Descriptions of these two culturally specific cases highlight how

A) nuclear families are extremely rare in terms of living arrangements.
B) the nuclear family is the only stable kin group arrangement.
C) there are many alternatives to the nuclear family.
D) extended family households are an adaptive strategy for dealing with extreme poverty.
E) children who grow up in stable kin groups are better off than those who don't.

Question 11

What is the name of the postmarital residence pattern in which the married couple is expected to establish their own home?

A) patrilocality
B) neolocality
C) ambilocality
D) matrilocality
E) uxorilocality

Question 12

A descent group consists only of a married couple and their children.

Question 13

In unilineal descent, one's ancestry is traced through only one line of descent.

Question 14

What does ego represent in a depiction of a kinship system?

A) the emotional attachment felt by the people who use the system
B) the boundary between one's kin group and outsiders
C) the sense of distinct individuality that is present in any society
D) the point of reference used to determine which kin terms are applicable to certain individuals
E) a gender-free way of reckoning kinship

Question 15

With patrilineal descent, someone takes his or her father's last name but recognizes descent through both parents.

Question 16

The higher proportion of expanded family households among poorer Americans has been explained as an adaptation to poverty.

Question 17

Although nuclear families are found in many societies around the world, this phenomenon is not a cultural universal.

Question 18

Comparing notions of family between the United States and Brazil, the extended family still plays a central role for most Brazilians.

Question 19

Contemporary North American adults usually define their families as consisting of their husbands or wives and their children. In contrast, when middle-class Brazilians talk about their families, they mean their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and on, down to their children. They rarely mention the spouse. Which of the following is among the reasons for this stark cultural contrast?

A) North Americans value independence over their family.
B) Brazilians live in a less mobile society and so stay in closer contact with their relatives, including members of their extended family, than do North Americans.
C) North Americans have more choices about where they can live, and they have chosen to live away from their relatives.
D) Brazilians readily incorporate strangers into their social worlds.
E) Brazilians have purely economic relationships with their spouses.

Question 20

What are the two basic social units of foraging societies?

A) the lineage and the nuclear family
B) the band and the clan
C) the extended family and the clan
D) the nuclear family and the band
E) the band and the extended family

Question 21

How do the rules of endogamy function in society?

A) They tend to maintain social distinctions between groups.
B) They encourage the extension of affinal bonds to an ever-widening circle of people.
C) They prove that the incest taboo is not the cultural universal it was once thought to be.
D) They extend kin ties across classes.
E) They expand the gene pool.

Question 22

Among the Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil, as in many societies with unilineal descent, which of the following is true?

A) Marriage between Crow cousins is preferred; marriage between Omaha cousins is considered incest.
B) Marriage between first cousins is preferred, but marriage between second cousins is considered incest.
C) Marriage between cross cousins is preferred; marriage between parallel cousins is considered incest.
D) Marriage between sororate cousins is preferred, although marriage between levirate cousins is considered incest.
E) Marriage between parallel cousins is preferred, whereas marriage between cross cousins is considered incest.

Question 23

As of 2018, more Americans were living alone than were living within a nuclear family.

Question 24

U.S. kinship is bilateral, traced equally through males and females; for example, father and mother.

Question 25

The most common postmarital residence rule is matrilocality, in which the married couple moves in with the husband's family.

Question 26

All cultures have taboos against ________, sexual relations with someone considered to be a close relative, although precisely what constitutes a close relative varies across cultures.

A) incest
B) levirate
C) sororate
D) fraternal
E) exogamy

Question 27

What is the term that anthropologists use to identify ego's socially recognized father?

A) creator
B) genitor
C) mater
D) pater
E) father

Question 28

Which of the following marital customs functions to maintain distinctions between groups?

A) endogamy
B) sororate
C) sororal polygyny
D) progeny price
E) levirate

Question 29

What term refers to the culturally sanctioned practice of marrying someone within a group to which one belongs?

A) exogamy
B) hypogamy
C) endosperm
D) endogamy
E) incest

Question 30

In South Sudan, a Nuer woman can marry a woman if her father has only daughters but no male heirs. This is done to maintain the patrilineage. The "wife" has sex with one or more men until she gets pregnant. The children born are then accepted as the offspring of both the female husband and the wife. What is important in this example is

A) that it illustrates how romantic love is both universal and complicated.
B) the fact that only same-sex marriages are recognized in patrilineal societies.
C) how often marriage is simply about property.
D) how biology overrides culture regardless of human intentions.
E) social rather than biological paternity, again illustrating how kinship is socially constructed.

Question 31

Outside North America, Western Europe, and the European-derived cultures of Latin America, neolocal residence isn't all that common.

Question 32

A recent cross-cultural study of 87 societies, all of which had incest taboos, investigated the rate at which such taboos were broken. The results of this study add to the evidence that

A) incest does happen, but it is not clear whether the authors controlled for the social construction of incest.
B) cultural universals, like the human ability to make fire, always have a genetic basis.
C) many societies need better educational systems.
D) many societies need better techniques of social control.
E) Freud was right: Children everywhere have sexual feelings toward their parents.

Question 33

Members of a clan say they are descended from a common apical ancestor.

Question 34

There is no simple or universally accepted explanation for the fact that nearly all cultures ban incest. However, the most accepted explanation for the incest restriction is

A) that isolated social groups are better at survival.
B) a genetically determined attraction for those most different from us.
C) a genetically programmed instinctive horror.
D) that following rules of exogamy is adaptively advantageous.
E) a widespread and well-founded fear of biological degeneration.

Question 35

What is the term that anthropologists use to refer to the biological father of a child?

A) genitor
B) moiety
C) pater
D) creator
E) provider

Question 36

Members of a clan do not try to demonstrate specific genealogical links; rather, they just stipulate their common ancestry and descent.

Question 37

Why does exogamy, the practice of seeking a husband or wife outside one's own kin group, have adaptive value outside of biological concerns?

A) It impedes peaceful relations among social groups and therefore promotes population expansion.
B) Exogamy is not adaptive; it is just a cultural construction.
C) It increases the likelihood that disadvantageous alleles will find phenotypic expression and thus be eliminated from the population.
D) It creates new social ties and alliances, providing access to more resources and social networks.
E) It was an important causal factor in the origin of social stratification.

Question 38

Neolocal postmarital residence rules require newly married couples to establish their own residence.

Question 39

Which of the following is an example of a rule of endogamy?

A) a taboo on mating with members of one's extended family
B) a taboo on marrying members of the same totemic group
C) the Nazi law forbidding Aryans from marrying anyone but other Aryans
D) the incest taboo
E) a taboo against marrying within the same village

Question 40

The incest taboo is almost culturally universal, but

A) some cultures practice gerontology anyway.
B) not all cultures define incest the same way.
C) some cultures have replaced it with the levirate.
D) not all cultures know about the consequences of incest.
E) not all cultures have one.

Question 41

A lobola, a substantial marital gift from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin, such as among the BaThonga of Mozambique, is

A) widespread in patrilineal societies.
B) the same as a dowry.
C) a form of bride theft.
D) widespread in matrilineal societies.
E) only given for elopements.

Question 42

Cultures have different definitions and expectations of relationships that are biologically or genetically equivalent. In other words, kinship is socially constructed.

Question 43

Which of the following statements about same-sex marriage in the United States today is true?

A) Same-sex marriage is only permissible in Vermont.
B) Because of the Defense of Marriage Act, married same-sex couples do not have the same federal rights and benefits as other legally married couples.
C) The 2015 Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage in the United States.
D) Unlike 21 other countries, same-sex marriage is illegal in the United States.
E) Although legal in most states, same-sex marriages are not recognized by the federal government.

Question 44

Which of the following statements about the role of the Internet in marriage and dating in contemporary societies is FALSE?

A) One's offline social connections influence one's opinions and use of online dating.
B) The Internet has largely supplanted traditional "offline" partner shopping, which has dramatically faded in significance.
C) Like the workplace, bars, parties, and churches, the Internet is part of what has been labeled the "marriage market."
D) Use of the Internet for partner shopping first began to soar when dynamic websites based on databases were introduced.
E) Older people are more likely than younger ones to use online dating to find a partner.

Question 45

Polyandry is common and practiced under a wide range of conditions.

Question 46

Early anthropologists explained incest as a reflection of "instinctive horror" of mating with close relatives. However, this explanation for societal bans has been rejected because formal incest restrictions would be unnecessary if humans really do have an instinctive aversion to incest.

Question 47

What is the name of the custom by which a widower marries the sister of his deceased wife?

A) serial polyandry
B) filial marriage
C) fraternal marriage
D) levirate marriage
E) sororate marriage

Question 48

Which of the following best defines polygyny?

A) the custom whereby a widower marries the sister of his dead wife
B) the type of marriage involving only two spouses
C) the type of marriage in which there is more than one wife
D) the type of marriage in which there is more than one husband
E) the custom whereby a wife marries the brother of her dead husband

Question 49

All of the following are forms of polygamy EXCEPT

A) a woman who has three husbands, all of whom are brothers.
B) a man who has four wives simultaneously.
C) a woman who has two unrelated husbands.
D) a man who has three wives, all of whom are sisters.
E) a man who marries, then divorces, then marries again, then divorces again, then marries again, each time to a different woman.

Question 50

In the caste system of India, failure to adhere to class endogamy rules traditionally resulted in a ritually impure union.

Question 51

A cross-cultural study that systematically compared romantic love in many cultures found

A) that while people everywhere know what love is, they experience it differently.
B) a scholarly bias throughout the social sciences that views romantic love as a luxury in human life, especially in academia.
C) a rise in love matches over arranged marriages in industrialized societies, but the opposite trend in nonindustrialized societies.
D) evolutionary evidence for romantic love in all the societies surveyed.
E) evidence that romantic love may be a universal, although romantic love and marriage do not necessarily go together.

Question 52

Exogamy is the practice of seeking out a mate within one's own social group.

Question 53

What is the term for the marital exchange in which the bride's family or kin group provides substantial gifts when their daughter marries?

A) polygamy
B) dowry
C) brideservice
D) progeny price
E) bridewealth

Question 54

Divorce tends to be more common

A) in all societies when romance fails.
B) in matrilineal than in patrilineal societies.
C) in societies in which marriage residence is patrilocal.
D) when the dowry is very small.
E) when marriages are political alliances between groups.

Question 55

One theory regarding the universality of the incest ban argues that by forcing people to marry outside their immediate kin group, peaceful alliances between people would extend to include a greater number of individuals.

Question 56

Anthropologist Edmund Leach (1955) observed that, depending on the society, several different kinds of rights are allocated by marriage. According to Leach, marriage can-but doesn't always-accomplish each of the following EXCEPT

A) give either or both spouses rights to the labor of the other.
B) give either or both spouses rights over the other's property.
C) give either or both spouses rights over the latent and manifest functions of the other.
D) establish a socially significant "relationship of affinity" between spouses and their relatives.
E) give either or both spouses a monopoly in the sexuality of the other.

Question 57

Native American "Two-Spirits" were permitted to marry men.

Question 58

Which of the following statements about polyandry is most likely true?

A) It is a cultural adaptation to the high labor demands of rice cultivation.
B) It is a cultural adaptation to mobility associated with male travel for trade, commerce, and warfare.
C) It is almost always sororate.
D) It is legal in the United States.
E) It is found only among fishing communities in Madagascar.

Question 59

Incest is a cultural universal that is defined the same way by all cultures.

Question 60

Anthropologists have noted a trend away from arranged marriages and toward romantic love.

Question 61

In tribal societies, unlike industrial ones, marriage entails only an agreement between the people getting married; descent groups play only a minor role.

Question 62

Although briefly popular after its introduction, online dating never became a significant part of the marriage market.

Question 63

In a study among the Hopi of northeastern Arizona, more than a third of the women of the community had been divorced at least once, which correlates with the fact that these women were socially and economically insecure.

Question 64

Cross-culturally, divorce is known only in industrialized societies where a high percentage of women are gainfully employed.

Question 65

Dowries are most common in societies in which women occupy an elevated status position.

Question 66

As of 2018, same-sex marriage was legal in most countries.

Question 67

Serial polygamy is the practice of having more than one wife, but never more than one at the same time.

Question 68

In almost all cases of marriage in nonindustrial societies, some kind of preexisting social relationship between any two individuals helps determine whether they may marry.

Question 69

If Hannah marries her deceased husband's brother, the arrangement is considered a levirate marriage.

Question 70

With polyandry, a woman takes more than one husband at one time.

Question 71

Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, with the number of wives a man has serving as an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.