Avoidance, social affiliation, and the incest taboo

Ethnology • Vol/Iss. 5 • Published In • Pages: 304-316 •
By Sweetser, Dorrian Apple

Hypothesis

"Women avoid their parents-in-law in the same type of situation [as men do], and in addition they are likely to avoid if the mother's brother has no role to play" (313)

Test

Test NameSupportSignificanceCoefficientTail
Fisher’s exact testSupportedp<.05UNKNOWNUNKNOWN

Variables

Variable NameVariable Type OCM Term(s)
Avoidance Of Parents-in-lawDependentParents-in-law And Children-in-law
Family TypeIndependentFamily
LinealityIndependentKin Groups
Mother's Brother Has Jural Or Close RoleIndependentAvuncular And Nepotic Relatives

Related Hypotheses

Main AuthorHypothesis
Sweetser, Dorrian Apple"Men avoid their parents-in-law in societies with a strong lineal emphasis but which have fragmented and impermanent family groups" (313)
Sweetser, Dorrian Apple"Residence proved to be unrelated to avoidance [of parents-in-law] by either husband or wife" (313)
Sweetser, Dorrian Apple"[In patrilocal societies, and also in matrilocal societies,] the proportion of societies with a distinctive role for the mother's brother . . . increase[d] as the lineal-emphasis scale scores increased . . ." (1012)
Sweetser, Dorrian Apple"[In societies where] jural authority [is] in the hands of the father or his lineage . . . mother's brother [will have] an unequivocally male-mother role [indulgent]" [This hypothesis is taken from Homans and Schneider] (1010)
Sweetser, Dorrian Apple"The role of the mother's brother toward [ego] ought to vary with that of the mother's brother toward the mother. Assuming that the mother is to some degree superior to the boy, then if the mother's brother has some authority over the boy, one would expect him to have some authority over the mother. If he has none over the son, being close and indulgent, he should have no authority over the mother" (292)