Ca Gender, Marriage, Kinship

Front 1

aboriginal society

Back 1

highly decentralized and egalitarian, with people in overlapping and interdependent roles that minimize the possibility that divisive interest groups will come into serious conflict

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social system

Back 2

allows the sorting of people into a workable number of social categories that specify appropriate interpersonal behavior, especially in the critical areas of marriage and access to spiritual property

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Totem/totemic

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In Australia, specific animals, plants, natural phenomena, or other objects that originate in the Dreaming and are the spiritual progenitors of aboriginal descent groups

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Nuclear family

Back 4

primary family unit of mother, father, and dependent children

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Kinship terminology

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An ego-centered system of terms that specifies genealogical relationships of consanguinity and affinity in reference to a given individual

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Complementary Opposition

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A structural principle in which pairs of opposites, such as males and females, form a logical larger whole

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Gerontocracy

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an age hierarchy that is controlled or dominated by the oldest age groups

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Section system

Back 8

: A social division into four sections or eight subsections intermarrying, named groups, which summarize social relationships. Members of each group must marry only members of one other specific group

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totem estate groups

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most important social categories

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dozens of totemic estate groups, or clans

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regulate rights in spiritual property and indirectly provide access to natural resources

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Who one marries is partly determined in reference to the totemic groups of one’s parents, and marriage establishes

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access to territory associated with one’s spouse’s totemic estates

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All social interaction

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takes place between people who can place themselves in specific kinship categories

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Aboriginal kin

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marriageability and relative totemic estate group affiliation

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Because everyone must be fitted into a "kinship" category

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most people are not necessarily what non aboriginals would consider "real kin," but aborigines do treat them as kin

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Aboriginal kinship terms

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reflect shared understandings of social status, and become basic guide lines for behavior

Front 16

Kinship terms

Back 16

represent cultural categories, and their specific application varies considerably

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In a given system, someone might refer to several women using the same term mother.

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The term might then mean "woman of mother’s generation who belongs to mother’s totemic estate group (clan)

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The biological facts of mother hood might be irrelevant in this context.

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When the biological relationship needs to be designated, a modifier such as real or true might be added

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Moieties sort people into two sides by estate groups

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Totems and natural phenomena are assigned to a specific moiety.

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Moiety groupings

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help organize ritual activities

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One moiety may own a particular ritual

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while another moiety actually carries out the ritual

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complementary opposition

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the ceremony could not be performed without the cooperation of both groups

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Many aspects of aboriginal society

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related to the widespread practice of polygyny

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Polygyny automatically creates a scarcity of potential wives

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which is partially alleviated by the large age difference between men and women at marriage

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Girls may be promised in marriage long before they are born, and men might be well beyond 30 years of age before their first marriage

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perhaps to a much older widow, while a 12 year old girl might marry a 50 year old man.

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Polygyny

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offers important benefits for the entire society

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Polygynous

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households may provide child-bearing women with greater security

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An older man is more likely than a young man to have a thorough knowledge of the territory and a wider network of kinship connections

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connections which will benefit his entire household especially in times of resource shortage

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Delaying marriage

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provides the young men with an opportunity to learn the intricacies of the totemic landscape and the locations of critical waterholes

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The aboriginal society

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gerontocracy

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The old men who occupy the upper "class"

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use polygyny and Dreamtime ideology to control women and the labor supply

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Elders do have moral authority

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relationships among individuals at different generation levels are hierarchical and may be expressed as kinship responsibility or "looking after"

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Elders do arrange the marriages

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this is considered to be nurturing and guiding not domination or exploitation.