This book investigates a broad hypothesis linking social solidarity and initiation ceremonies. The author proposes that “the degree of solidarity of a given social system determines the degree to which status transitions within it will be dramatized” (1). A variety of operational hypotheses are supported for both male and female initiation ceremonies.

This book examines male and female power in various kinship configurations. Variables for male dominance and female autonomy are associated with various political and social variables, such as political complexity and co-wife jealousy. Several hypotheses are supported.

This is a preliminary study of predictors of female contribution to agriculture. Results suggest that several variables are significantly related to female contribution to agriculture rather than one dominant variable.

The cross-cultural test on preindustrial societies is a very minor part of a larger work testing the theory that a psychological factor--need for achievement--plays a large role in understanding economic growth and decline. Most of the work focuses on countries and complex societies in the historical past.

This article investigates the relationship between economic type and socialization of children. The author focuses on the concentration of value emphases in childhood socialization--that is, whether children are instilled with several different value orientations rather than just one or two. Value concentration is examined alongside subsistence technology and economic diversification; attention is also paid to gender differences.

The author explicitly defines and provides code for male and female age organizations and secret societies in Africa, as well as their significant sociopolitical roles within society. The author conducts preliminary analysis using the codes to explore characteristics and regional patterns of such organizations and societies. The analysis is compared to existing studies in order to assess the code and better understand cross-cultural patterns and variances. The author identifies the usefulness of the code beyond Africa, and discusses avenues for future research. No explicit hypotheses were tested, but Ericksen includes some descriptive generalizations.

Author proposes and presents evidence in support of the theory that most societies practice virilocal or patrilocal residence (this is the "normal" pattern" and that matrilocal residence is adopted when societies migrate to an already populated area.

In this article, the author departs from previous research on common vs. private property ownership predictors to understand why ocean property rights often play out differently than land. As opposed to the dominant hypothesis that common property regimes will change to private property when resources are scarce and population increases, the author proposes economic defendability (the relationship between the value of the property and the cost to defend it) as a better predictor of property regime type.

This study investigates the role of economic development in facilitating political development in preindustrial societies, theorizing that the redistribution of resources is an important factor in this relationship. Results indicate that these two types of development have a curvilinear relationship, and the author concludes that economic development is a necessary but not sufficient cause of political development in preindustrial societies.

This study presents a sociological theory of marriage type based on socioeconomic organization. Results suggest that intensive agriculture, more stratification, greater political integration, a fixed settlement pattern, a larger population, and greater labor specialization tended to be correlates of monogamy.