Deck 7: Families, Kinship, and Marriage

Question 1

In matrilineal societies

A)daughters become lifetime members of their mother's group, but sons belong to their father's group.
B)sons become lifetime members of their mother's group, but daughters belong to their father's group.
C)descent groups include only the children of the group's women.
D)descent groups include only the children of the group's men.
E)postmarriage residence tends to be patrilocal.

Answer 1

descent groups include only the children of the group's women.

Question 2

What is the most stable social group among band societies with a seasonal pattern of population dispersal?

A)The lineage
B)The band
C)The nuclear family
D)The clan
E)The expanded family household

Answer 2

The nuclear family

Question 3

Which of the following statements about the incest taboo is true?

A)Incest is tabooed only in societies that practice patrilocal residence.
B)The incest taboo is a feature of a capitalist economy.
C)The incest taboo does not eliminate incest.
D)Anthropologists, like Kottak, predominantly believe that the incest taboo has a genetic basis.
E)Incest was not documented in classic ethnographies and has only recently been the focus of research in anthropology.

Answer 3

The incest taboo does not eliminate incest.

Question 4

The gift that a wife's group gives to her husband's family is known as

A)polygyny.
B)bridewealth.
C)dowry.
D)progeny price.
E)brideservice.

Question 5

Which of the following is one of the main differences between descent groups and nuclear families?

A)Descent groups are typically not involved with politics, while nuclear families are.
B)Nuclear families are always exogamous, while descent groups are always endogamous.
C)Descent groups are permanent, while nuclear families are not.
D)Members of descent groups are called affines, while members of nuclear families are called consanguines.
E)Nuclear families are found only in industrial societies, while descent groups are found only in foraging societies.

Question 6

What is the name of the custom in which a widow marries the brother of her deceased husband?

A)Sororate marriage
B)Serial polyandry
C)Filial marriage
D)Levirate marriage
E)Polygynous marriage

Question 7

What is the name of the family in which a child is raised?

A)Family of procreation
B)Family of orientation
C)Family of nucleation
D)Levirate family
E)Sororate family

Question 8

Rules of endogamy

A)prove that the incest taboo is not a cultural universal.
B)encourage people to disregard social distinctions in choosing mates.
C)tend to maintain social distinctions between groups.
D)expand a population's gene pool.
E)result in ever-widening kinship networks.

Question 9

What term refers to a unilineal descent group whose members claim, but cannot demonstrate, common descent from an apical ancestor?

A)Clan
B)Lineage
C)Extended family
D)Family of procreation
E)Family of orientation

Question 10

What term refers to sexual relations with someone considered to be a close relative?

A)Levirate
B)Sororate
C)Polyandry
D)Incest
E)Exogamy

Question 11

The incest taboo is a cultural universal, but

A)not all cultures have one.
B)not all cultures define incest the same way.
C)not all cultures know about incest.
D)some cultures have replaced it with the levirate.
E)some cultures nevertheless encourage incest.

Question 12

What are the two basic social units typically found in foraging societies?

A)Band and clan
B)Lineage and nuclear family
C)Extended family and clan
D)Nuclear family and band
E)Band and extended family

Question 13

Kottak argues that the relatively high incidence of expanded family households among poorer North Americans is

A)the result of a patrilocal residence pattern.
B)an adaptation to poverty.
C)maladaptive, since smaller families would have fewer expenses.
D)the result of bifurcate merging, a practice brought to the United States by Scotch-Irish immigrants during the early part of the 20th century.
E)the reason welfare in the United States is ineffective.

Question 14

In general, what happens as the value of bridewealth increases?

A)Marriages become more volatile.
B)Marriages become more frequent.
C)Marriages become more stable.
D)Marriages become less frequent.
E)Marriages become more symbolic.

Question 15

What is the name of the postmarital residence pattern in which a married couple is expected to live in the husband's community?

A)Neolocality
B)Patrilocality
C)Matrilocality
D)Ambilocality
E)Uxorilocality

Question 16

The anthropological term for a socially recognized mother is

A)mater.
B)genitor.
C)mother of orientation.
D)pater.
E)mother of procreation.

Question 17

What term is synonymous with bridewealth?

A)Dowry
B)Sororate
C)Tribute
D)Bride bribe
E)Progeny price

Question 18

What term refers to the practice of marrying a person outside of the group to which one belongs?

A)Incest
B)Exogamy
C)Hypogamy
D)Endogamy
E)Polygamy

Question 19

What term refers to a gift made by the husband and his kin to the bride and her kin?

A)Bride theft
B)Elopement
C)Dowry
D)Bridewealth
E)Cross-cousin marriage

Question 20

What term is used to refer to a nonhuman apical ancestor of a clan?

A)Tarawad
B)Sororate
C)Levirate
D)Totem
E)Pater

Question 21

Which of the following statements about polyandry is true?

A)It is found only among mining communities in Madagascar.
B)It is a cultural adaptation to the high labor demands of rice cultivation.
C)It is a cultural adaptation to mobility associated with male travel for trade, commerce, and warfare.
D)Polyandry almost always takes the form of a sororate.
E)Polyandry fails to meet Leach's criteria for marriage.

Question 22

Why is polygyny a problem in Turkey today?

A)Muslims believe that polygyny is a sin.
B)Second wives are not protected by the law as their marriages are not legal.
C)The dowry of a second wife is too expensive.
D)Turkey will not be accepted into the European Union if they do not allow polygyny.
E)Too many men are being left without wives.

Question 23

Compare endogamy and exogamy.How absolute is the distinction between the two? Use examples to illustrate your argument.

Question 24

In unilineal descent, one's ancestry is traced through either the male or the female line (not both).

Question 25

Members of a clan claim (but cannot demonstrate) descent from a common apical ancestor.

Question 26

Does the practice of bridewealth necessarily imply gender inequality? What is the function of bridewealth, what type of society does it typically occur in, and how does it affect marriage and divorce? How does a dowry differ?

Question 27

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

Question 28

What are the six things that Leach argued marriage can accomplish?

Question 29

In what ways has industrialism affected North American family organization?

Question 30

Why does bridewealth stabilize marriages?

Question 31

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

Question 32

How does marriage function as a kind of group alliance? What role do bridewealth and dowries play in creating and maintaining marriage alliances?

Question 33

How does divorce vary cross-culturally? What factors affect the ease (or difficulty) and frequency of divorce?

Question 34

What is polygyny?

A)A situation in which a woman has more than one husband at the same time
B)The custom whereby a wife marries the brother of her dead husband
C)The type of marriage that follows divorce
D)The custom whereby a widower marries the sister of his dead wife
E)A situation in which a man has more than one wife at the same time

Question 35

What are some of the general patterns found in the family organization of foragers?

Question 36

In what way is exogamy adaptive?

A)It increases the number of individuals that one can rely on in times of need.
B)It increases the likelihood that disadvantageous alleles will find phenotypic expression and thus be eliminated from the population.
C)It impedes peaceful relations among social groups and therefore promotes population expansion.
D)It was an important causal factor in the origin of the state.
E)It reduces the gene pool of a community.

Question 37

Discuss ways in which kinship and descent help human populations adapt to their environments.

Question 38

Which of the following statements about divorce is not true?

A)Divorce is more common now than it was a century ago.
B)The more substantial the joint property, the more complicated the divorce.
C)Divorce is harder in a patrilineal society.
D)Divorce is unique to industrialized nation-states.
E)Substantial bridewealth discourages divorce.

Question 39

The zadruga is a type of extended-family household found in what part of the world?

A)Mexico
B)Malabar Coast of India
C)Eastern Siberia
D)Western Bosnia
E)Japan

Question 40

Discuss the major similarities and differences between nuclear families, extended families, and descent groups (e.g., lineages and clans).

Question 41

Tarawad is the Nayar word for nuclear family.

Question 42

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

Question 43

Divorce is more common in matrilineal/matrilocal societies than it is in patrilineal/patrilocal societies.

Question 44

In industrialized nations, extended families are more common among the lower class than among the upper class.

Question 45

Your nuclear family includes you, your parents, and your grandparents.

Question 46

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

Question 47

Industrialization increases mobility, which has played a major role in the decline of extended families in the United States.

Question 48

A progeny price is paid to the bride's family so that her children permanently belong to the husband's group.

Question 49

Taboos against incest prevent it from ever occurring in human societies.

Question 50

After reaching an all-time low in the 1970s, the frequency of nuclear families in North America has been steadily increasing.

Question 51

Polygyny has not occurred in Turkey since it was outlawed by the government in 1926.

Question 52

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

Question 53

Although the nuclear family is found in many societies around the world, it is not a cultural universal.

Question 54

Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions; for instance, the number of wives a man has may be an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.

Question 55

If a man marries his deceased brother's widow, this is called a levirate marriage.

Question 56

The caste system of India is an extreme example of exogamy.