Week 10 — Marriage, Family, and Households
Welcome to your Week 10 Start Here page.
Why this matters
A social-work student asking who shares a client's home and someone deciding with a partner where to live after a wedding both meet this week's question: what does a marriage join?
In plain language
A wedding looks like a promise between two people, but it almost always ties two families together as well. Anthropologists study marriage (a union that a community recognizes and that creates duties between the partners and their families) in every society. This week you will learn who a person may marry, what gifts or work pass between the families, how many spouses a marriage can join, and where a new couple lives afterward. You will also look at the household (the people who share a home and daily life) and see how its shape changes over a lifetime.
- Already covered: Week 9 gave you kinship diagrams and descent; Week 6 gave you the gift's obligations.
- This week: marriage, marriage exchanges, residence rules, and households.
- How they connect: a marriage joins two of Week 9's descent groups.
- Where we're going next: Week 11, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality.
Focus
What does a marriage join, and where does a new couple live?
By the end of this module, you should be able to:
- [ ] tell exogamy from endogamy
- [ ] tell bridewealth, bride service, and dowry apart by direction
- [ ] apply five residence rules and keep descent apart from residence
- [ ] name household forms and how they change
To-do
Plan your week
- Read Chapter 10 (about 35 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
- Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
- Do the Ethnography Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
- Take the quiz.
This week's checkpoint: name the rule for a couple who moves near the husband's father's kin.
You've got this
Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.
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