Research Paper Abstracts for Social Structure (2007)

Balancing Act: Sex Ratio and Fundamentalist Mormon Polygyny

Cynthia Wiley

Cultural anthropologists have primarily studied polygyny and its accompanying phenomena in distant exotic lands, among stateless societies.  However, polygamy – spiritual and practical – has existed in the United States since the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church) first began in the mid-nineteenth century.  In 1890 the Church officially renounced polygamy, but a portion of the membership splintered to begin the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and continue the practice of polygyny.  Communities of Fundamentalist Mormons continue to operate to the current day, secretively dispersed throughout western states.  However, serious differences exist between these enclaved polygamists in a state-level industrial society and many of the polygynous societies studied through traditional anthropological fieldwork.  In this paper, I will compare methods and circumstances which balance the sex ratio in commonly-studied polygynous societies with those manifesting in Fundamentalist Mormon groups.  The issue of securing enough females to provide Fundamentalist Mormon males Mormons with multiple wives has been blamed in recent media for the expulsion of teenage boys from these communities.  I will explore whether this is a viable conclusion due to the lack of other balancing mechanisms traditionally present or if the “Lost Boys” of Fundamentalist Mormon polygyny are being expelled for other reasons.

Warfare and Lineage

Eli Rodriguez

Population density, resource competition, aggressive child rearing, subsistence activities, residence patterns and lineage systems are some of the proposed causes of warfare between stateless societies. Although correlation is found with some of these factors, segmented lineage has been found to be the determining factor most correlated to the presence of war. Why do segmented lineages develop and how are they related to the above mentioned characteristics? Examining cultures across the globe and through time to find the presence or absence of war and of what type (internal or external) will help answer these questions.

Adoption among Sedentary and Nomadic Great Plains Groups

 Albert LeBeau

The Adoption ceremony of the Northern Plains tribal groups is as unique as the cultures that practice them.  This paper will look at the phenomenon of this social action between four tribal groups in the Northern Plains.  Two of the Tribal groups are sedentary and agriculturally based and two are nomadic hunter and gather based.  This paper discusses the need for social adoption in the family group.  Why is there a need to extend the family?  How does the extended family benefit or add distress to, the nuclear family? And lastly the paper looks at what are the similarities and differences in the adoption practices, and are these attributes related to the life style of the Tribes?  The research shows that conclusions can be made with respect to the life ways of the Tribes.   

Once Upon a Time: Fairy Tales and their Reflection of Society

Courtney Cope

Fairy and folk tales can be found in a wide range of societies, dealing with many different topics throughout history. Many elements of social structure can be found throughout these tales, such as economic roles, factors of attraction, marriage and gender role differences. In my paper, I plan to examine the similarities and differences found in the fairy tales of separate societies, especially those between males and females. I will explore whether or not the ideals found in a society’s fairy tales accurately reflect the known practices and beliefs of its culture and I will also look at the use of literary Darwinism as a mode of analysis when dealing with psychology and culture in literature. In doing so, I will determine if fairy and folk tales can be used as a reliable resource in anthropological research when studying and determining a society’s social structure.
 

Technological Introductions and Social Change:  Euro-American Technology on the Great Plains" by Andrew LaBounty

Andrew LeBounty
 

According to dual inheritance theory, culture evolves by innovation and the introduction of new traits.  This paper will explore the changing structure of Native American society with the advent of Euro-American technology and practices on the plains—in other words, what are the cultural effects of the technological changes wrought by Euro-Americans on the plains?  These technologies include horses and firearms, as well as new forms of trade.  I intend to compare and contrast social aspects of Native Americans before and after contact, including the presence and intensity of bride price, marriage locality, levels of exogamy, the intensity of polygyny, and degree of stratification among native groups.  In addition, I hope to show how these changes were logical or even adaptive under the circumstances.  For example, firearms make certain members of a hunter-gatherer society more prosperous by allowing the capture of more food.  This prosperity may lead to increased bride price because the wealthy can afford it, but also because poor families with daughters require more “startup capital” than ever before to obtain a gun and build wealth themselves.  Although this paper deals with material differences within a diverse culture, it will stress basic underlying social changes as opposed to immediately apparent behavioral changes.  As such, the scope will be broad, encompassing many different native groups and spanning a large period of history, as these technologies are introduced and become more common.

The Witching Hour: Why, how and when women accuse their co-wives of witchcraft

Elizabeth Green

Relationships in any family are complex and difficult; a particular issue in polygamous families is paternal investment and husband’s attention to all of his wives. The competition between co-wives can result in accusations of supernatural influence. I am interesting in knowing if these accusations result in censure against the accused, if they escalate pre-existing conflicts or if they serve as a catalyst for problem resolution. I will examine when women make accusations of witchcraft and also if other women attempt to use sorcery against their co-wives. I would also like to examine how the accusations are made, are they public or private, made to the wife or made to husband or made to the senior wife.  And finally, as stated above, in investigating the circumstances I would like to understand why women accuse each other, and what effects an accusation can have on a woman’s livelihood and the well-being of her children.

The Extra-Marital Affair and the Responses it Evokes in Mates
 

Allison Formanack
 

Cross-culturally, it has been shown that both men and women engage in extra-marital affairs, even in societies where such activities are punished under penalty of death. It has also been proven that in everyculture, both men and women have found ways to prevent their mates from having affairs with individuals outside of the marriage. The purpose of my paper is to examine both the reasons why individuals pursue extra-marital affairs, including the conditions in which they occur at higher or lower rates, as well as to inventory several different ways that men and women can prevent their mates from having an extra-marital affair. I will also attempt to incorporate how different cultural situations, from the level of modernization to the allowance of polygamy (particularly polygyny) may affect the rate of occurrence as well as detail how severe the punishment for such activities is for both men and women.

Female Status and Social Complexity in Three Societies

Ryan Thomas

The author cross-culturally examines the status of women relative to men and examines mechanisms which have positive and negative effects on women’s status.  The author conducts a review of relevant literature and elucidates the workings of these mechanisms while judging their viability within societies of varying complexity.  Some mechanisms have greater effects than others and vary depending on other societal pressures. The author then illustrates specific instances of status alteration within three cultures of low, middle, and high complexity, respectively. 

Exceptions to the Incest Taboo

Mikael Walter

My paper is an exploration of the near-universal incest taboo. I will take an in-depth look into the ideas and applications of the Westermarck effect by discussing Israeli kibbutz and Taiwanese sim pua marriages. My primary focus, however, will be on the exceptions to this “rule:” cases of royal and noble sibling incest in Roman and pre-Roman Egypt and scattered other societies. I will discuss how economic and political factors made exceptions to this social rule and attempt to discover, despite a startling lack of scholarly writings on the subject, whether or not the Westermarck effect was actually overcome, or whether the general lack of documentation simply makes it impossible to determine. I hope to conclude, through extensive research (which will, I hope, reveal more information on the subject of royal incest) that there is a clear exception to the universal incest taboo that is based partially on societal rules, and discover whether or not the Westermarck effect was ignored in these situations.

Sexy Shamans: Social Status and Mate Choice among Hunter Gatherers

Dan Foy

In egalitarian societies where material wealth is limited there are relatively few non-physical traits that can enhance an individual’s attractiveness to potential mates.  In such settings, achieved status or prestige is perhaps the only route to establishing a reproductive advantage over one’s rivals.  Assuming the duties of a shaman is one reliable strategy for augmenting personal status and as such shamans on average should enjoy higher degrees of reproductive success relative to their competitors.  This paper investigates the prediction that shamans are more likely to engage in polygynous unions, which in turn results in having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners and more total offspring than their social counterparts.  Data attained from mate choice models, studies of polygyny and reproductive game theory are used to establish shamanism as a highly successful reproductive strategy in egalitarian societies.  These findings have important implications for the evolution of religious behavior especially if it can be shown that there is a heritable genetic component to the traits associated with shamanic aptitude.

Reexamining the Adaptive Behavior of Human Pair Bonding

Dustin Gonzales

A growing body of anthropological literature is questioning the position that male provisioning through big game hunting for co-habitant female and offspring is the behavioral catalyst in human pair bonding and the social contract of marriage.  In particular, ethnographic research conducted among Hazda hunter-gatherers of Tanzania does not support the assertion that such activity substantially contributes to the survivability of offspring, reinforcing the adaptive behavior of human pair bonding.  Researchers cite the contributions of the mother through nursing and food gathering as having a much greater impact in reducing infant mortality rates than the ultimately inefficient and unpredictable dietary returns associated with big game hunting. In the wake of such evidence, male-male competition for females through big game hunting has been offered as new a perspective in analyzing human pair bonding as an adaptive strategy in enhancing the inclusive fitness of individuals.  However the particular do not represent the whole of hunter gatherer societies; such that ethnographic research among the arctic Netsilik has shown seasonal variability in cooperative hunting as essential to group survival in the absence of vegetal food options.  The social structure of hunter gather societies has been the key focus in understanding the environment from which human adaptive behavior was fostered and reinforced.  As such, the ethnographic evidence for either male provisioning or male-male competition for females through big game hunting must be reexamined with respect to the origin and evolution of human pair bonding as an adaptive strategy.

Inter Country Adoption

Sam Mathew

According to the 2006 World Almanac, the number of intercountry adoptions brought into the United States has been steadily increasing over the past two decades. In 2005 alone, Americans adopted more than 20,000 foreign children. This trend has been heightened in the media as celebrities have begun to make high profile adoptions.  I will begin by looking at a person or couple’s initial motivations for choosing to adopt, for choosing to adopt outside as opposed to inside of the United States and how they choose from where the child will come.  From there I will highlight the process the parent(s) will go through to adopt internationally, which is generally more hands-on and expensive than local adoption.  I will also examine the process of integrating the adopted child into the family and the community, paying close attention to the possible language barrier, schooling, behavior, development, mental health and cultural differences of the child, with the understanding that the process of integration for the child being adopted internationally will be quite different than that of a child adopted locally. With all of this information I will do a cost-benefit analysis to understand what compels potential parents to opt for intercountry as opposed to local adoption.  One would expect for the benefits to outweigh the costs, however the benefits are largely intangible in this particular situation.