This book investigates sanctions for nonmarital conceptions or birth. The author conducts cross-cultural tests for hypotheses derived from a variety of theories. Results do not support one theory over another, but suggest that variables such as sociocultural complexity, family structure, descent, fraternal interest groups, sexual inequality, and child-parent relationships all affect the consequences of illegitimacy.

This book investigates sanctions for nonmarital conceptions or birth. The author conducts cross-cultural tests for hypotheses derived from a variety of theories. Results do not support one theory over another, but suggest that variables such as sociocultural complexity, family structure, descent, fraternal interest groups, sexual inequality, and child-parent relationships all affect the consequences of illegitimacy.

This book investigates sanctions for nonmarital conceptions or birth. The author conducts cross-cultural tests for hypotheses derived from a variety of theories. Results do not support one theory over another, but suggest that variables such as sociocultural complexity, family structure, descent, fraternal interest groups, sexual inequality, and child-parent relationships all affect the consequences of illegitimacy.

This book discusses the characteristics of adolescence cross-culturally and examines the differences in the adolescent experience for males and females. Several relationships are tested in order to gain an understanding of cross-cultural patterns in adolescence.

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.

In this chapter of 'Beyond War,' Douglas critiques previous codes of warfare to make a distinction between feuding and warring. A test of warfare and level of social complexity among hunter-gatherers is conducted. Results indicate that complex hunter-gatherers make war while a majority of simple hunter-gatherers do not.

This book investigates peaceful societies and the social and ecological conditions that discourage war. The author uses ethnographic examples, cross-cultural findings, primatology, and archaeology to examine war, social organization, human evolution, and conflict management.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on extramarital sexual relations pertaining to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

The author attempts to test the "Oedipus-complex" hypothesis--the psychoanalytic idea that under certain conditions (such as the long-post partum sex taboo) males are sexually attracted to their mothers and as a consequence certain fears and anxiety are generaated. The hypothesis is tested at the societal-level using ethnographic data.

This book investigates the origins of supernatural and religious beliefs. The author tests associations between various types of beliefs (e.g. witchcraft, monotheism) and various societal characteristics (e.g. mobility, class stratification). Many hypotheses are supported. Theoretical discussion is included, and the author posits that “the belief in a particular kind of spirit springs from experiences with a type of persisting sovereign group whose area of jurisdiction corresponds to that attributed to the spirit” (175).