Definition:
A form of marriage transaction in which both the boy’s kin and the girl’s kin make payments or exchange gifts with each other the boy’s kin making bride-price payments, and the girl’ s kin making dowry payments, is called gift exchange(Paddington 1953; William N.Stephens 1963).
Explanation:
Gift exchange takes place between the kin groups of the bride and groom. It is not either bride-price alone or dowry alone; it is a combination of both. As goods from one group flow to the other group, the goods from the other group flow towards the first group.
Gift exchange may be a short-time process or a long-time process. In a small marriage ceremony; but in a vast majority of the societies, the gift exchange starts even long before the commencement of marriage and stop only several years after concluding the marriage ceremony, Thus in a vast majority of the societies, gift exchange is a complicated continuous process.
Gift exchanges range from a competitive attempt to out give the new kin group to a token exchange of customary gifts commensurate with those received on previous occasions. Everywhere specific gifts are offered only for obtaining specific rights over the bride. In many societies, the gifts exchanged have symbolic significance;the different times represent different stages in the process of gift-giving.
Frequency:
According to Murdock’s “world Ethnographic Sample” (1975), 15 out of542 (2.77%) societies practice gift exchange. But according to Schelegel and Elcul ‘ s survey (1988), 1136 out of 186 societies practice gift exchange.
Examples:
The societies which practice gift exchange may be food-gatherers, horticulturalists and agriculturalists; however, a vast majority of the mare horticulturalists like Alor, Ifaluk, kwoma, and pukapuha, Trobrianders, Tikopia, Samoa, Hopic and Siriono. The Murngins and Andaman islanders are food – gatherers (Stephens 1963).
Among the Andaman Islanders, as soon as a boy and a girl indicate their intentions to marry, their respective parents cease all communication and begin sending gifts of food and other objects to each other through a third party. This arrangement continues until the marriage is completed and the two kin groups are united (Radcliffe Brown 1922: Page, 73).
In Samoa, the gifts exchanged by both the sides are of equal value. In Trobriand Islands, the bride’s people give more than the groom’s people. In Alor, Kworna, Muria, Murngin and sirionothe groom’s people give more gifts than the bride’s’ people (Mead 1939; Malinowski 1922; Cora du Bois1944 ; Stephens 1963).
Reasons:
According to Lowie (1920) , Malinowski (1922) , Radcliffe-Brown (1922) , Marcel Mauss (1924, 1954), Keesing (1928) and so on the reasons for exchanging the gifts are as follows:
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950), a student and nephew of Emile Durkheim. Wrote a book called “The Gift” (1925; translation 1954) which demonstrates the importance of gift exchange.
According to Mauss, gift exchange links up scattered families and kin groups in prolonged relationships of ‘’debtor” and “creditor”. This brings in the principle of elementary morality in terms of “reciprocity” and “solidarity”. Reciprocity involves three obligations namely to give, to receive and to repay. This obligation structures the relations between individuals and groups.
According to Radcliffe-Brown (1922) , Fortes (1949) , Malinowski (1922) and Keesing (1968), gift exchanges symbolically signify social status, prestige and identity of the groom and the bride and their respective kin groups, The gifts may symbolize the equality with which at least theoretically, a man and a woman enter the marriage. Sometimesthe gifts given to the kin group of the woman may be of no more than a token value, in surrendering the woman herself, the bride’ s kin group is partingwith the most valuable commodity.
According to Malinowski (1922), Murdock (1957) and others, gift exchange helps the newly weds off to a comfortable start and establish the domestic life in a phase manner over weeks, months or years.
Prestation in tribal societies:
Definition:
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) propounded the “theory of gift” and the related concept of “prestation”. According to him, “The totality of relations embedded in the process of exchange” is prestation (Mauss 1954: The Gift. London).
Explanation:
Mauss’ work “The Gift” (1954} highlights the importance of gift exchange and the elementary morality in terms of reciprocity in social structure, organization and function. In this context, he employed the term “prestation”, to refer to the “total social phenomena constituted by gift giving and reciprocity”. In prestation, “all kinds of institutions find simultaneous expression”. Prestation is, thus, more than gift-giving. Gift-giving highlights how the things are repaid, but prestation highlights the social , economic , political , religious , educational recreational and moral implications of gift-giving.
According to Mauss, gift-giving is a universal custom. Mostly it occurs in the context of life-cycle rituals and ceremonies of all societies, it also occurs in the context of Kula trade of Trobriand islanders; and it occurs in the politico-economic context like the “potlatch” among the North west Coast Red Indians; and everywhere giving of gifts in connection with the marriage is a common practice, In the boy’s kin as well as the girl’s kin exchange gifts, The gift exchanging is not mere transfer of material items from one group to another. It highlights more than this: it reveals the principle of reciprocity between individuals and groups. It creates “prestations”. What happens is that gift-giving involves a principle of reciprocity, Reciprocity gives expression to three obligations: to give, to receive and to repay. All these three obligations involve social, economic, political, religious and other institutions of society. As these institutions involve, they give expression to the corresponding relations among individuals and groups. All these relationships among the individuals and groups comprise “prestation”. In “prestation”, all kinds of institutions find simultaneous expression” The obligation to repay is linked to the belief that the gift relation is a relationship where the “parts are persons”, “social identity”, “status” and “prestige”. Elements of this morality are present in gift exchange but they are largely eclipsed by the market type of exchange which dominates the modern economy. Thus “prestation” is a totality of institutionalized relationships centering round the principle of reciprocity embedded in gift-giving, gift-receiving and gift- repayment in a society.