Social and Cultural Anthropology: Concepts, Institutions, Kinship, Marriage and Family
Social and cultural anthropology tests concepts used to compare societies: culture, social structure, kinship, marriage, family, and residence. The exam expects precise definitions and the ability to reason from a case rather than memorize labels alone.
Core concepts
- Culture is learned, shared, symbolic, and adaptive. Ethnocentrism judges others by one's own standards; cultural relativism understands practices in their context without abandoning ethical judgment.
- Status is a position; role is its expected behavior. Norms, values, and sanctions regulate social life.
- Descent may be patrilineal, matrilineal, or bilateral. Kinship terminology systems include Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Omaha, Crow, and Sudanese.
- Marriage forms include monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry. Bridewealth transfers goods to the bride's kin; dowry transfers goods with the bride. Cross-cousin marriage is common in parts of South Asia.
- Family forms include nuclear, extended, and joint; residence may be patrilocal, matrilocal, avunculocal, or neolocal.
Worked example
In a matrilineal society, a man's heirs are his sister's sons, and a mother's brother has authority over his nephews. The reasoning is that descent runs through women, but inheritance and authority may still be exercised by men. This is matrilineal, not matriarchal: political power is not automatically held by women.
Traps
Matrilineal does not mean matriarchal. Polyandry is rare and not the same as polygyny. Bridewealth and dowry move in different directions. Descent, inheritance, and residence are separate rules and can vary independently.