Unit 4: The Family
descended from a female ancestor, lived under a single roof, with an older man or karnavan as the head of the group or tharavad. Women were allowed to take several sambandham husbands who visited the tharavad at night but did not live there. The paternity of the children would not be known and the karnavan, the woman’s brother, was responsible for bringing up her children, with the ‘husbands’ playing no part. This system seems to have developed as a response to the lifestyle of the Nayar, as most of the men were away a lot of the time fighting as mercenary soldiers.
Cross-cultural comparisons and variations in marriage This section discusses different types of marriage across cultures, including monogamy, serial monogamy, polygamy and polyandry.
Serial monogamy: when someone has more than one marriage partner during their life, but only one at any given time. Polygamy: being married to more than one person at the same time; for example, a man with several wives or a woman with several husbands.
POLYGAMY AND POLYANDRY Polygamy is a marriage that involves at least three people. It can take two forms: polygyny, when a man has several wives, and polyandry, when a woman has several husbands. These can be rational adaptations to unusual circumstances if, for example, there is an imbalance between the numbers of men and women. After a war has reduced the numbers of men of fighting and marrying age, a group can regain its former numbers more quickly if the surviving men are allowed to marry and have children by several women. Polyandry seems always to have been rare. Examples that are known usually involve a woman marrying two or more brothers. This is known as fraternal polyandry. It has been practised in Tibet, where it helps to prevent the division of scarce farming land into areas too small to support a family. The Nayar family and marriage system described above is polyandrous, although the husbands did not live with their wives. Polygyny is far more widespread, and is allowed by law in most of Africa and the Middle East and in parts of southern Asia. Islam allows a man to have up to four wives. However, even in these countries most marriages are monogamous because it is expensive for a man to support several wives and their children. It is usually the wealthy men who take more than one wife, and the number of wives can be an indicator of status and wealth. The first wife is usually regarded as senior to other wives and has a higher status. Each wife may have separate living quarters within a larger compound. Group marriages are a fourth way, after monogamy, polygyny and polyandry, in which relationships between husband and wife may be structured. In a group marriage there are two or more husbands and two or more wives. Although unusual, this may be a recognised form of marriage, and being unfaithful with someone outside the marriage would be treated as just as wrong as infidelity would be in another form of marriage. Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa since 2009, is one of the world’s best known polygamists. In April 2012 he married for the sixth time, with his other three current wives (one having died and the other divorced) present. Polygamy is allowed in South Africa by the Customary Marriages Act.
133
M
Polygyny: when a man has more than one wife at the same time.
E
Monogamy: being married to one person at a time.
PL
KEY TERMS
MONOGAMY Monogamy is a marriage between only one man and one woman. In many countries it is the only legal type of marriage. The increase in divorce in the UK and other modern industrial societies has led to serial monogamy becoming more common; that is, a person has several marriage partners over their lifetime, but only one at a time.
SA
Polyandry: when a woman has more than one husband at the same time.
TOP TIP Monogamy, and related terms like polygamy, have in the past always referred to marriage. Today they can be applied more generally to long-term relationships involving cohabitation (see page 134).
© Cambridge University Press 2014 9781107645134ch04_p122-157.indd 133
1/2/2014 6:18:21 PM