Marriage, Nayar, family, descent and kin terms

If a definition cannot survive Nayar and Mosuo, it is a folk English definition, not anthropology.

• Westermarck: ritual union, co-residence, sexual rights — fails polygamy, Nayar, Mosuo, same-sex.
• Working definition: a socially recognised contract about sex, economy and children — then list the exceptions.
• Nayar taravad (Gough): visiting husbands, Karnavan, collective property — the famous ‘is this marriage?’ case.

• Endogamy/exogamy; polygyny (Whiting protein/post-partum teaching); polyandry.
• Incest theories: Westermarck familiarity (Kibbutz/Shepher) vs Freud vs alliance (Lévi-Strauss) — why a rule if aversion is natural?
• Bridewealth where women’s work is wealth; dowry where women compete for ranked grooms (Gaulin & Boster). Majumdar’s acquisition list (probation among Kuki, and so on).
• Levirate and sororate keep the alliance when a spouse dies.

• Murdock, Social Structure: family near-universal in 250 societies — then the Nayar/Mosuo counters.
• Residence: patri/matri/bi/neo/avunculocal; warfare and women’s economy as drivers (Ember-type notes).
• Joint family: Cohn’s Chamars, A.D. Ross ‘disintegration’, Kolenda and Census 2011 as ‘not simply dying’.
• Feminism: symmetrical family is a story; unpaid care remains. New forms (skip-generation, living-in).

• Consanguine, affinal, fictive. Uni-, ambi-, bilateral (Ju/’hoansi). Complementary filiation (Fortes).
• Nuer segmentary opposition (Evans-Pritchard). Alliance elementary systems, symmetric vs asymmetric exchange.
• Morgan: classificatory vs descriptive. Crow, Omaha, Iroquois, Sudanese, Hawaiian as term types.
• Khasi matriliny and Richards’s matrilineal puzzle: mother’s brother vs husband.
• Indian regional contrast: Karve zones already have a page — here keep descent mechanics.