Residential variation among hunter-gatherers

Behavior Science Research • Vol/Iss. 10 • Published In • Pages: 199-227 •
By Ember, Carol R.

Hypothesis

". . . in noncommercial societies, where married couples are usually obliged to live and work with kin, depopulation so reduces the feasibility of adhering to a single unilocal rule that couples are forced to live with whichever spouse's close relatives are still alive (213)

Test

Test NameSupportSignificanceCoefficientTail
Mann-Whitney U-TestSupportedp<.05UNKNOWNOne-tailed

Variables

Variable NameVariable Type OCM Term(s)
Population ChangeUNKNOWNPopulation
ResidenceUNKNOWNResidence

Related Hypotheses

Main AuthorHypothesis
Weisner, Thomas S.Mothers rearing children are unlikely to live in nuclear, neolocal households (173).
Textor, Robert B.Hunter-gatherers tend to live in communities without a city or town and with less than 200 people (51, 81).
Rohner, Ronald P."Our cross-cultural data support Minturn and Lambert's conclusion, in that a moderately strong tendency exists in polygynous societies for co-wives who live in the same house to reject their children more often that co-wives who live with their children in separate dwellings . . ."
Ember, MelvinSince in societies with sororal polygyny co-wives live together in the same house, it should also be true that sisters find it easier to live together when they are married to different men in matrilocal societies. I expected houses in matrilocal societies to have a larger living floor area than houses in patrilocal societies (177)
Terry, Roger L.Monotheism and distance between married sons and their parents will be directly related on a societal level. "Societies that prescribe that married sons live close to their parents were hypothesized not to evidence monotheism, whereas societies that prescribe that married sons live far from their parents were hypothesized to be monothestic (p.176)."