Exogamy

Definition:

  •  The “social rule that one must marry someone from outside one’s own group” is called exogamy (Hicks and Gwynne 1994: 393)
  • Exogamy (exo = outside, gamy = marriage) is a rule that requires an individual to marry outside of a culturally defined group of which he or she is a member. (Hoebel and weaver 1973)

Explanation:

 All societies prohibit marriages between individuals of the same group because they consider that members of the same group are brothers and sisters. For this reason they stipulate that an individual must seek a wife not from his own group but from another group, this especially there with regard to descent groups, Each descent group is a collectivity of people who arose from a common ancestor. Thus exogamy favors marriage outside one ‘ s own group. It is culture which decides the exact limits of one’s own group.

Forms of exogamy:

    Anthropologists identified the following forms of exogamy on the basis of their researches in a number of societies

  1. Village exogamy: It is prevalent in North India Members of the, same village do not intermarry, People of a village consider themselves as brothers and sisters, Therefore, people of one village take bride from another village. For example, in RaniKhera a village in Aligarh District of Uttar Pradesh, 266 married women had come from about 200 different villages averaging between twelve and twenty-four miles away; 220 local women had gone to 200other villages to marry, AS a result of these exogamous marriages, Rani Khera, a village of 150 households, was linked to 400 other nearby villages (William 3. Goode 1970; World Revolution and Family Patterns, New York: Free Press Glencoe, Page 210).
  2. Lineage exogamy: several tribes besides Hindus and Chinese practice lineage exogamy. Members of the same lineage are brothers and sisters, hence avoid marriages
  3. Clan exogamy: There are several tribes which practice clan exogamy -They consider a clan as a kin group whose members are brothers and sisters .The Muria Gonds of Chhattisgarh and the Murngin of Australia, for example, practice clan exogamy.
  4. Moiety Exogamy: For the Korkus of Madhya Pradesh have two moieties namely Raj and Pallari which are exogamous. Likewise, the Bondos of Orissa have two moieties namely Ontal (cobra) and Killo (tiger) which are exogamous. The Tlingit Red Indians in North America have two moieties the Ravan and the wolf which are exogamous.
  5. Gotra Exogamy: The Hindus have gotra which are exogamous. People of the same gotra believe that they have descended from a particular sage and- hence blood relatives. So they do not intermarry „
  6. Pravara exogamy: Hindus avoid people of the same “pravara” to marry. ‘‘Pravara” is a kind of religious and spiritual bond. All those who utter the name of a common saint at religious functions are believed to be members of the same “Pravara”.
  7. Sapinda exogamy: This again exits among the Hindus. It indicates the prohibition placed on the inter-marriage between certain sets of relatives. Sapinda represents common parentage. There is no uniform definition of “sapinda”. in one sense the term “sapinda” means: those who share the practices of the same body, and the people who are united by offering “pandas”(balls of cooked rice)to the same dead ancestor. In another sense “sapinda” means: a body of relatives spread over seven generations on the father ’s side and five generations on the mother ’s side and A body of relatives spread over five generations on the father’s side and three generations on the other’s side.
  8. Hypergamy and Hypogamy

Theories of origin:

   Anthropologists have proposed several reasons for practicing exogamy

  1. Edward Burnet Tylor argued that Palaeolithic hunting and gathering bands in all probability exchanged women in order to live at peace with each other. They might have entered into a system of marital exchange between bands. This arrangement was a positive outcome of need for survival. That means, early human populations practiced exogamy in order to live at peace with them and exogamy continued as a custom since those early times (Stephens: 1963).
  2. Herbert Hope Risley proposed that probably humans had a desire to have variety in their life This desire might have influenced human beings to seek marital ties with strangers, unfamiliar and unknown to them, AS a result exogamy had come into existence (Majundar and Madan: 1964).
  3. Edward westermarck asserted that children growing in the same Village may not have sexual attraction for each other. Familiarity breeds contempt. Such an aversion for the familiar may be responsible for the origin and continuity of exogamy (Wester marck: 1894).
  4. Audrey Isabelle Richards argued that in hunting and food gathering society’s food is difficult to obtain and women and children become a burden to such societies. To relieve themselves from this burden, societies eliminate females by. Killing them young. This leads to female infanticide. Female infanticide leads to scarcity of women and influences the Societies to get women from other societies. The best way to get women from other societies. The best way to get women from other societies is to fight with other societies and capture women from those societies and marry them. This resulted in bride capture. Many tribal societies have proverbs saying “we marry those we fight out”, “we marry our enemies”. Those proverbs reveal the custom of bride capture, Thus food scarcity is probably responsible for the origin of exogamy (Richards 1939)
  5. John Ferguson Me Lennon said that female infanticide and estimate scarcity of women among the primitive gave rise to bride capture and exogamy. According to him, primitive Societies practiced female infanticide to enhance fighting efficiency of males within the group. This practice reduced the number of non-fighting efficiency of males within the group. This practice reduced the number of non-fighters who had to be supported. At the same time. It created imbalanced sex ratio and reduced the number of potential mates available within the group. Therefore, they were forced to find their mates in other groups. This created marriage by capture and bolstered the exogamic commitment (McLennan 1865: Primitive Marriage , Edinburgh Adam and Charles Black}
  6. Several anthropologists argue that exogamy is more associated with unilineal descent groups like lineage, clan, phratry and moiety and since the members of various descent groups believe that they are related through blood, marriage is for bidden within the descent group hence exogamy arose. Emile Durkheim said that primitive belief about blood and life gave rise to incest taboo and exogamy, According to him primitive believed that loss of blood leads to loss of life. Since sexual relations initially involve some loss of blood, early humans had avoided close relatives for sex congress. This resulted in seeking the women for marriage from other groups and the emergence of exogamy (Durkheim 1898: incest prohibition )
  7. Bronislaw Malinowski argued that repression of sexual attraction for primary kin is the source of exogamy (Malinowski 1927: Sex and Repression in a Savage Society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).
  8. Yonina Talmon, Arthur wolf and Burton Pasternak proposed that certain adaptive advantages are the causes of exogamy. The adaptive advantages are:
    • creation of alliance avoiding scope for cheating;
    • inducting new blood and fostering cultural innovations;
    • village exogamy among the Chinese averting frequent movements of daughters-in-law in case of ill-treatment;
    • exogamy working as a mechanism for forming peaceful alliances between neighboring groups 

Advantages of exogamy:

  Malinowski (1922) , Levi-Strauss (1949), Forth (1981) , Hicks(1990) , Podolefsky (1984) and several others have given the advantages of exogamy as:

  • In societies in which exogamy creates ties between the families of a married pair , these ties can serve subsistence , political , legal , economic , and social functions, to the mutual benefit of everyone concerned (Tylor 1889 ; Malinowski : 1922).
  • One common obligation of the groups involved in exogamy is to provide affine with subsistence necessities. For example , gifts of food might be required at the time of a marriage , a birth , a death , or other occasions the custom can be highly functional if one affinal group has suffered a poor harvest region its partner group living in another region has not , gifts of food may tide the hungry group over its period of famine (Hicks: 1990)
  • Exogamy favours mutual political support between the groups concerned to their mutual advantage (Malinowski 1922).
  • Exogamy influences the affines to perform essential ritual services for one another. Among the Rindi of eastern Indonesia, wife-givers are considered the source of life and spiritual well-being. A man with a long-term illness may move into the house of one of his clan’s wife-givers, place himself symbolically under the spiritual protection of the ancestor of the wife-given, and stay there until he recovers. By contrast, wife- takers are associated with death. If someone dies away from home, his clan’ s wife-taker may be called upon to transport the corpse, These customs show how exogamy, alliance, descent, religion and symbols came together in a thoroughly holistic way in Rindi society (Forth)
  • Exogamy also favours the groups involved in matters of mutual defense. Among the Tetum of Indonesia, the affines have an obligation to offer mutual assistance when they face attacks by enemy (Hicks 1990).
  • Exogamy and the resultant affinal alliances are very important. Alliances are very important. Due to modernization they may break down. The consequences can be as extreme as they are unexpected. For example, the tribes in New Guinea Highlands used stone axes for various purposes. Christian missionaries extended the area and started proselytizing activities; the missionaries introduced steel axes in the place of stone axes. Before the missionaries entered the area, the tribes used to pick up suitable stones and prepare the stone axes, they distributed the stone axes through inter- regional trade. At the same time, inter-tribal marriages created affinal links that tribal marriages created affinal links that made trade easier between these groups, but after steel axes were introduced from the missionaries, local production -of stone axes ceased. AS trade declined, so did the opportunity to contract marriage and create affinal alliances between tribes. Eventually, as older people died and fewer marriages were arranged between tribes, the network of affinal ties decayed and conflict and full-scale warfare increased.
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