How does the use of corporal punishment or physical discipline of children vary across hunter-gatherer and agro-pastoralist societies? Through a comparative analysis of 139 egalitarian and agrarian cultures, the author finds that 1. The use of corporal punishment against children is higher in agrarian societies than in hunter-gatherer societies, where it is absent or infrequently practiced, and 2. This difference in the use of corporal punishment is correlated with cultural parental attitudes, such as affection towards children, indulgence in children’s behavior, responsiveness to children’s needs, children’s autonomy, and father involvement. Low corporal punishment generally is related to more affection, higher indulgence, more autonomy of children, and higher father presence. The relationships are much stronger in agrarian societies.

This article tests hypotheses put forth by Murdock that female contribution to subsistence is associated with matrilocal residence.

This study examines relationships between subsistence type, population size, and sedentarism. Hunting, gathering, fishing, and herding societies tend to be smaller than horticultural and agricultural societies. Horticulture, agriculture, and fishing societies tend to be more sedentary.

This study examines previous hypotheses concerning kinship terminologies, particularly the development of bifurcate merging. The roles of moieties, exogamy, unilinear kin groupings, unilinear descent, and preferential mating are considered.

This article investigates factors influencing the division of labor by gender, including occupation specialization, the type of material labor involves, the presence of the plow, nomadism, and the advantage that a product may yield to either sex. Hypotheses are widely supported.

This study re-examines patterns of cross-sex kin relationships using new ethnographic data. The author looks specifically at cross-sex kin relationship in relation to marriage rules.

This paper examines the distribution and diffusion of the seven patterns of sibling classifaction given by the author. The author then studies the association between descent and sibling terminology.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of many aspects of social structure including family, clan, community, kinship terminology, social organization, regulation of sex, incest taboos, and sexual choice.

Data on the distribution of economic activities between the sexes is presented. Tabulations suggest that preindustrial societies have a strong tendency to segregate labor by gender, and that no occupation is exclusively assigned to women.

The paper presents the preliminary findings of pilot studies testing the factors affecting the variation in rules regarding premarital sex cross-culturally. Only the trends emerging from the pilot studies are discussed. No findings are conclusive.