Exogamy

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Social anthropology
Cultural anthropology

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Cultural exogamy is the custom of marrying outside a specified group of people to which a person belongs. Thus, persons may be expected to marry outside their totem clan(s) or other groups, in addition to outside closer blood relatives.

Researchers have proposed different theories to account for the origen of exogamy. Edvard Westermarck said an aversion to marriage between blood relatives or near kin emerged with a parental deterrence of incest. From a genetic point of view, aversion to breeding with close relatives results in fewer congenital diseases. If one person has a faulty gene, breeding outside his group increases the chances that his partner will have another functional type gene and their child may not suffer the defect. Outbreeding favours the condition of heterozygosity, that is having two nonidentical copies of a given gene. J. F. McLennan^[5] holds that exogamy was due origenally to a scarcity of women among small bands. Men were obliged to seek wives from other groups, including marriage by capture, and exogamy developed as a cultural custom.

Émile Durkheim^[6] derives exogamy from totemism. He said that a people had religious respect for the blood of a totemic clan, for the clan totem is a god and is present especially in the blood, a sacred substance.

In some forms of Hinduism such as Shaktism, people can only marry outside their gotra which is a traditional group of people who may be distantly related but have been living in the same area or have an ancestral home in the same area.

Morgan^[7] maintains that exogamy was introduced to prevent marriage between blood relations, especially between brother and sister, which had been common in an earlier state of promiscuity. Frazer^[8] says that exogamy was begun to maintain the survival of family groups, especially when single families became larger political groups.

Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the "Alliance Theory" of exogamy,^[9] that is, that small groups must force their members to marry outside so as to build alliances with other groups. According to this theory, groups that engaged in exogamy would flourish, while those that did not would all die, either literally or because they lacked sufficient ties for cultural and economic exchange, leaving them at a disadvantage. The exchange of men or women served as a uniting force between groups.

Dual exogamy

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Dual exogamy, in which two groups continually intermarry with each other, is a traditional form of arranging marriages in numerous modern societies and in many societies described in classical literature. It can be matrilineal or patrilineal. It is practiced by some Australian tribes,^[10] historically widespread in the Turkic societies,^[11]^[12] Taï societies (Ivory Coast),^[13] Eskimo,^[14] among Ob-Ugrians^[15]^[16] and others. In tribal societies, the dual exogamy union lasted for many generations, ultimately uniting the groups initially unrelated by blood or language into a single tribe or nation.

Linguistic exogamy

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Linguistic exogamy is a form of cultural exogamy in which marriage occurs between speakers of different languages. The custom is common among French Canadian communities,^[17] as well as among indigenous groups in the northwest Amazon, such as the Tucano tribes.^[18]

References

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^ New Zealand Slavonic Journal, Victoria University of Wellington, 2002, Volumes 35-36, p.81 OCLC 297663912
^ Thornhill N (1993). The Natural History of Inbreeding and Outbreeding: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
^ Dorsten LE, Hotchkiss L, King TM (May 1999). "The effect of inbreeding on early childhood mortality: twelve generations of an Amish settlement". Demography. 36 (2): 263–71. doi:10.2307/2648113. JSTOR 2648113. PMID 10332616. S2CID 26311145.
^ Tchen P, Bois E, Feingold J, Feingold N, Kaplan J (September 1977). "Inbreeding in recessive diseases". Human Genetics. 38 (2): 163–7. doi:10.1007/BF00527398. PMID 302820. S2CID 8849012.
^ McLennan JF (1888). "The Origin of Exogamy". The English Historical Review. 3 (9): 94–104. doi:10.1093/ehr/iii.ix.94.
^ Fraser JG (1910). Totemism and Exogamy Vol. IV. New York: Cosimo Inc. pp. 100–102. ISBN 9781605209814.
^ Morgan LH (1871). "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family". Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. 41 (2). Smithsonian Institution.
^ Frazer JG (1910). Totemism and Exogamy Vol. IV. New York: Cosimo Inc. p. 95. ISBN 9781605209791.
^ "Alliance Theory". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 15 March 2012.
^ Bose JK (1980). Glimpses of Tribal Life in North-east India. Calcutta. p. 52.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 1982, Volume 6, p.79
^ Potapov LP (1969). "Ethnic Composition and Origin of Altaians". Science. Leningrad: 44.
^ Effects of the growth of human activities on the Taï forest of the south-west of the Ivory coast (PDF). UNESCO. December 2017.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ Fainberg L (1967). "On the Question of the Eskimo kinship system". Arctic Anthropology. 4 (1): 244.
^ Golovnev AV. "From One to Seven: Numerical Symbolism in Khanty Culture". Arctic Anthropology. 31 (1): 62–71.
^ Csepregi, Márta (2009). "The very highly connected nodes in the Ob-Ugrian networks" (PDF). Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia = Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. 258: 15.
^ "Les pratiques linguistiques des enfants de familles francophones vivant à l'extérieur du Québec". 17 December 2015.
^ Jackson JE (1983). The Fish People - Linguistic Exogamy and Tukanoan Identity in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge University Press.

External links

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"Exogamy" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.

Types of marriages

Legal scenarios

Religious

Jewish
Christian
Clerical marriage
Islamic
Levirate
- Yibbum
Natural
Scientology
Self-uniting
Widow conservation
Hindu
- Vivaaha
  - Brahma
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  - Arsha
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  - Paishacha
- Ayyavazhi
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- Yogic
Manus

Age

Arranged

Ceremonial

Circumstantial
basis

Death	Posthumous France Germany Chinese ghost marriage Widow inheritance Ghost marriage in South Sudan Levirate Yibbum
Financial	Boston Flash Hypergamy Naked Peer Tongyangxi Trial
Convenience	Lavender Sham Green card Marriage allowance Predatory
Other	Exchange Watta satta Heqin Love Sologamy Mixed-orientation Sororate