This article examines the status of the elderly cross-culturally, proposing that familial complexity, unlineal descent, and unilocal residence are predictors of high status. The authors theorize that elderly male status will be highest in patrilineal and patrilocal societies; elderly female status will be highest in matrilineal and matrilocal societies. Some support is found for these patterns, but the authors ultimately regard them as too simple to adequately predict status of the elderly.

This article examines the relationships between family structure, type of mate-selection system, and romantic love as a basis for mate-selection. Analysis indicates that autonomous mate selection is more common in societies with nuclear family structure and neolocal residence patterns. Romantic love as a basis for mate selection is also more common with nuclear family organization, but it is negatively associated with neolocal residence patterns.

This article explores factors affecting the status of the elderly, looking particularly at type of family, economy, and wealth transfer.

This article reassesses the cross-cultural work on status of the elderly and tests two additional variables, socialization values and ancestor worship, as predictors of the status of the elderly.

This article tests a broad hypothesis that marital structure is associated with economic type. Results indicate that where women's potential contribution to subsistence is high (as in gathering and agricultural societies), women's contribution is positively associated with polygyny. By contrast, in fishing, hunting, and herding societies, female contribution to subsistence is generally minimal and has a negative association with polygyny.

The second and third parts of this book classify the economic systems of foraging and agricultural societies in the SCCS based on correlations between their institutions of property an distribution. These economic types are then examined for relationships with other social, political, demographic, and environmental factors in order to draw tentative conclusions regarding the origins of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. The fourth part of the book uses cross-national data to examine similar associations in industrial/service economies, and is not included here.

Explores 109 traits relating primarily to physical habitat, economy, political and social organization, and religion, to see how they relate to the role and treatment of the aged. General patterns were sought. Numerous ethnographic examples are given.

This article examines the relationship between respect for the elderly and their socially valued activities. Support is found for this association under certain conditions: it is significant with independent families in societies with no belief in a single god and absence of slavery. Theories of disengagement and activity among the elderly are also discussed, and the authors propose that they be considered as a continuum.

This article tests Randall Collin's 1975 theory that political-economic factors, rather than family/kinship factors, predict the degree of sexual stratification in a given society. A multivariate model is tested and findings contradict the theory.

This article reviews theories of marital power and tests for a relationship between wives’ contribution to subsistence and their conjugal power in patriarchal cultures. Results indicate a positive association. The role of cultural complexity is also considered; its relationship with wives’ power is negative and linear while its relationship with wives’ contribution to subsistence is negative and non-linear.