patrilineal parallel cousin marriage
Or, The New York Times science section meets last year's Social Anthropology of the Middle East exam:
If you've ever taken a course in anthropology, you'll have heard of patrilineal parallel cousin marriage (say that three times fast!)--a kinship structure common among some Mediterranean societies that favors endogamy (marriage within the group), and most highly values marriage with a first cousin on the father's side of the family. An earlier generation of anthropologists was obsessed with such kinship structures, and published lots of articles endlessly diagramming family trees. In more recent decades, scholars have emphasised that cousin marriage is often more of an ideological preference than a widely-implemented practice (see Lila Abu-Lughod's Veiled Sentiments for a good discussion) but in many Bedouin communities it is still common for people to marry close relatives, whether from the matrilineal or patrilineal side of the family. The NYT has an interesting story on the resulting high incidence of birth defects among the Bedouin in the Negev, and the efforts of three doctors--an Israeli, a Palestinian from Gaza, and a member of the Bedouin community--to address the problem via genetic counseling and testing.
If you've ever taken a course in anthropology, you'll have heard of patrilineal parallel cousin marriage (say that three times fast!)--a kinship structure common among some Mediterranean societies that favors endogamy (marriage within the group), and most highly values marriage with a first cousin on the father's side of the family. An earlier generation of anthropologists was obsessed with such kinship structures, and published lots of articles endlessly diagramming family trees. In more recent decades, scholars have emphasised that cousin marriage is often more of an ideological preference than a widely-implemented practice (see Lila Abu-Lughod's Veiled Sentiments for a good discussion) but in many Bedouin communities it is still common for people to marry close relatives, whether from the matrilineal or patrilineal side of the family. The NYT has an interesting story on the resulting high incidence of birth defects among the Bedouin in the Negev, and the efforts of three doctors--an Israeli, a Palestinian from Gaza, and a member of the Bedouin community--to address the problem via genetic counseling and testing.
posted by kitabet at 8:48 PM
2 Comments:
Thought you might be interested to know that patrilineal parallel cousin marriage exists amongst Hindus in southern India as well. In the old days, it used to be acceptable for a woman (let's call her A) to marry the son of her mother's brother, because the incest taboo is broken since A's mother has left her father's family when she herself married. The practice is not very common these days, however.
Actually what you describe is cross-cousin marriage rather than parallel-cousin marriage. This promotes mixing between different families. By contrast, parallel-cousin marriage is when you marry your father's brother's child, i.e. somebody else within your (patrilineal) family. This practice is common among Sunni Muslims, and is also described in the Bible (Numbers 36).
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