This article reviews interpretations of an established relationship between matrilocal residence, sedentarism, and local endogamy. The author offers an interpretation focused on succession of leadership in matrilocal societies: exogamy will be associated with achieved status while endogamy will be associated with a matrilineal succession of authority.

This article investigates residence, descent rules, and family structure. Empirical analysis suggests that they are associated with settlement patterns, particularly economic and demographic variables.

This article uses ethnographic reports on a world wide sample of societies for rating frequency of participation by children in adult activities and degree of permissive treatment of children.

This article reviews psychological, sociobiological, and cultural materialist theories on male homosexuality. The author tests hypotheses focusing on parent-child relations, the gender of childhood companions, and residence patterns. Only the gender of childhood companions was significantly associated with homosexuality.

This paper investigates two mechanisms of cultural evolution: peaceful diffusion and warlike migration. Two societies, one for each mechanism, were compared to a base society on 11 culture traits. Eight of the 11 traits diffused more readily through peaceful borrowing than through warlike migration. The authors conclude that eliminating warlike migration would slow cultural evolution but that peaceful borrowing is a favored mechanism for culture contact and change.

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 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 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.

This article uses factor analysis to identify the key variables underlying the many cross-cultural associations reported by Textor (1967). Twelve factors are identified.

This article investigates whether trade with a world-system influences descent and residence rules in non-state societies. Data suggest that involvement in the capitalist world economy is associated with matrilineal forms of descent and residence, likely because men will be encouraged to leave their communities to participate in trade labor.