AN101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Incest Taboo, Human Sexuality
Document Summary
Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, only in recent years have anthropologists really studied human sexuality. They document the immense cultural variations in how human sexuality is perceived, practiced, and controlled and in the meanings associated with those variations. Marriage is the relationship between two or more people who are recognized as having continuing claims of sexual access to each other. Monogamy, or the taking of a single spouse, is the dominant form of marriage, but many cultures practice marriages in which more than one spouse is involved. Throughout the world, past and present, different forms of marriage are found. The levirate is a system in which the wife of a deceased man may marry one of the brothers of the dead man. Other forms exist, such as the ghost marriage, the cross-cousin marriage, and the sororate, where a man marries the sister of his deceased wife. All these forms of marriage are linked to underlying economic practices.
