The present study examines the validity of Robert Redfield's one-dimensional "folk-urban continuum" in a sample of 70 pre-industrial societies. As hypothesized, a factor analysis revealed that there is more than a single overriding factor about the "folk-urban continuum." These variables include kinship organization, size-complexity, and relative isolation. The author also contends there is an inverse relationship between relative isolation and size-complexity.

Using HRAF's ethnographic reports from 11 immigrant groups to North America (1959-1989), the author asks: what social structural factors account for these patterns of language loss and retention? While focusing on the second and third generations, this study assesses the impact of residence, religion, school, festivals, homeland, marriage, and labor on language retention. The author suggests that residential closeness and the continued practice of religious rituals from the country of origin are the main factors influencing mother tongue maintenance into the third generation, while participation in community festivals is a marginal predictor.

This study looks at the relationship between the presence of love magic in a society and sexual anxiety. Results show support for the hypothesis that love magic is positively correlated with sexual anxiety.

The myths, legends, and folktales of nearby groups tend to more alike than those of more distant groups. Three competing models attempt to explain this distribution of cultural traits: (1) vertical transmission, (2) horizontal transmission, and (3) independent innovation. The authors examine 18 Arctic hunter-gatherer groups to quantify the extent to which geographic distance, cultural ancestry, and effective population size predict overlap in folktale inventories.

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.

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 article compares the relative importance of the sun vs. the moon for a world-wide sample of societies. The contexts in which the sun and the moon are found important are also compared.

This article investigates paternal warmth, particularly its relationship with parental proximity (often used as its proxy) and maternal warmth. The author also investigates whether paternal warmth, paternal proximity, materal warmth, and socialization for aggression are good predictors of theft, homicide, and violence in offspring.

This study examines different sources of marital stability. Authors find that subsistence dependence between partners provides marital stability and where subsistence dependence is not important, romantic love substitutes as a source of marriage stability.

This article explores the relationship between polygyny and witchcraft accusations in three societies in Kenya. It is argued that the closer co-wives live (have adjacent houses, common yard), the more likely they are to accuse one another of witchcraft. The affects of household structure on population density and intra-household relationships are also discussed.