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Inheritance, Property, and Marriage in Africa and Eurasia

Inheritance, Property, and Marriage in Africa and Eurasia This paper tries to utilize the cross-cultural material presented by G. P. Murdock in the Ethnographic Atlas to analyse the concomitants of differences in the system of inheritance, particularly with respect to the contrast between Africa and Eurasia. In the major Eurasian societies property tends to be distributed directly, from parents to children of both sexes (i.e. by diverging devolution); in Africa property largely devolves between persons of the same sex, laterally as well as lineally. An attempt is made to show the distribution of diverging devolution and its association with the payment of dowry, with monogamy, with in-marriage of various sorts, and with kin terms that differentiate the nuclear family from more distant kin. The tight control of property represented by diverging devolution is in turn seen as deriving from the intensive exploitation of resources which is also linked to the growth of complex political institutions. These associations are tested and held to be established. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Sociology SAGE

Inheritance, Property, and Marriage in Africa and Eurasia

Goody, Jack
Sociology , Volume 3 (1): 22 – Jan 1, 1969
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References (2)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © by SAGE Publications
ISSN
0038-0385
eISSN
1469-8684
DOI
10.1177/003803856900300104
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This paper tries to utilize the cross-cultural material presented by G. P. Murdock in the Ethnographic Atlas to analyse the concomitants of differences in the system of inheritance, particularly with respect to the contrast between Africa and Eurasia. In the major Eurasian societies property tends to be distributed directly, from parents to children of both sexes (i.e. by diverging devolution); in Africa property largely devolves between persons of the same sex, laterally as well as lineally. An attempt is made to show the distribution of diverging devolution and its association with the payment of dowry, with monogamy, with in-marriage of various sorts, and with kin terms that differentiate the nuclear family from more distant kin. The tight control of property represented by diverging devolution is in turn seen as deriving from the intensive exploitation of resources which is also linked to the growth of complex political institutions. These associations are tested and held to be established.

Journal

Sociology – SAGE

Published: Jan 1, 1969

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