The author examines modes of marriage and societal organization from a functionalist (general evolutionary) perspective. He focuses on the relationships of subsistence (economic) patterns, settlement patterns, and social complexity to predicting modes of marriage, with particular emphasis on the importance of subsistence as an underlying structural influence upon social patterns.

The author examines modes of marriage and societal organization from a functionalist (general evolutionary) perspective. He focuses on the relationships of subsistence (economic) patterns, settlement patterns, and social complexity to predicting modes of marriage, with particular emphasis on the importance of subsistence as an underlying structural influence upon social patterns.

The author examines modes of marriage and societal organization from a functionalist (general evolutionary) perspective. He focuses on the relationships of subsistence (economic) patterns, settlement patterns, and social complexity to predicting modes of marriage, with particular emphasis on the importance of subsistence as an underlying structural influence upon social patterns.

The author examines modes of marriage and societal organization from a functionalist (general evolutionary) perspective. He focuses on the relationships of subsistence (economic) patterns, settlement patterns, and social complexity to predicting modes of marriage, with particular emphasis on the importance of subsistence as an underlying structural influence upon social patterns.

The author examines modes of marriage and societal organization from a functionalist (general evolutionary) perspective. He focuses on the relationships of subsistence (economic) patterns, settlement patterns, and social complexity to predicting modes of marriage, with particular emphasis on the importance of subsistence as an underlying structural influence upon social patterns.

The author examines modes of marriage and societal organization from a functionalist (general evolutionary) perspective. He focuses on the relationships of subsistence (economic) patterns, settlement patterns, and social complexity to predicting modes of marriage, with particular emphasis on the importance of subsistence as an underlying structural influence upon social patterns.

Authors explore the problem of data quality control, systematic error and spurious correlations possibly caused by systematic errors in global cross-cultural studies. They offer a solution (the use of control variables investigating potential sources of systematic error) and apply the technique to a cross-cultural study of the substantive correlates of societal organization and modes of marriage.

Authors explore the problem of data quality control, systematic error and spurious correlations possibly caused by systematic errors in global cross-cultural studies. They offer a solution (the use of control variables investigating potential sources of systematic error) and apply the technique to a cross-cultural study of the substantive correlates of societal organization and modes of marriage.

This article posits a theory of social evolution based on agriculture. The author suggests that a society’s energy source, type of tool materials, and systems of agriculture constitute a variable cluster, and that they are associated with societal scale, economic differentiation, and mode of political integration. Empirical analysis supports this neoevolutionary theory of agriculture.

This chapter considers several forms of wealth transmission at marriage. The relationships between descent rules and incidence of bridewealth, dowry, and gift exchange are examined and several patterns emerge from empirical analysis.