Kinship

One of the first concepts taught in anthropology is that of kinship.  It is the bane of most undergrads.  As taken as I was with the discipline, I could not bear to sit through the endless charts and could not, for the life of me, grasp what was so riveting about Hawaiian descent patterns.  After years of study, I realized what my professors were so excited about:

It doesn't have to be like this.

The idea that there is one correct way to be related to people is bullshit.  People all over the world, in different times, have defined their relatives differently.  What is really interesting is that these definitions are not willy-nilly but reflect the material circumstances of particular societies.  When I hear politicians holding forth on the "traditional" family or "traditional" marriage, I want to scream.  This always means they are promoting the one-man-one-woman model.  There are some cute graphics illustrating how the Bible defines marriage in the hopes of demonstrating how fallacious this notion of a traditional marriage is.  I think it is the height of ethnocentrism to limit a discussion of traditional marriage to the dogma of one particular faith.

According to Haviland, "While monogamy is the most common marriage form worldwide, it is not the most preferred.  That distinction goes to polygamy (one individual having multiple spouse) - specifically to polygyny, in which a man is married to more than one woman.  Favored in about 80 to 85 percent of the world's cultures, polygyny is practiced in parts of Asia and much of sub-Saharan Africa."  This also includes the splinter group of Mormons who practice polygyny in the United States.

That seems to be an overwhelming argument against the "naturalness" of monogamy.  As a feminist, however, I feel compelled to point out that the 80-85% figure is probably male preference, as many women in polygynous societies prefer to be the only wife.  Entering a marriage as a second or third wife is less prestigious, although generally preferable to spinsterhood.  

Much rarer is the practice of polyandry, where a wife has multiple husbands.  The best known example of this comes from Tibet, where arable land is scarce and passed down through the male line.  By practicing fraternal polyandry (brothers marrying the same woman), land is not repeatedly subdivided.  

On top of these variations, there are other combinations.

Co-marriages - several men and women have sexual access to one another

Ghost marriages - a woman is married to a man who died without heirs and the man's brother acts as his proxy.  Any resulting children are considered the dead man's offspring, with the rights and obligations thereof.

Female husbands - in parts of Nigeria, a woman who has been married for a number of years without having children is sometimes allowed to marry another woman, making the first woman a husband and the second a wife.  The wife's children are considered descendants of the husband.

Polyamory - in certain parts of the US, there is a movement to accept multiple, simultaneous, long-term romantic and sexual relationships.

Although this may be the exact argument that some conservatives are making, women generally have more autonomy in sexually permissive societies.  Where divorce is easier to attain, women have more rights.  The hegemonic ideal of heteronormativity (one man, one woman, engaged in procreation) as the only appropriate sexual, generative relationship has a lot to do with material circumstances of inheritance and power rather than some divine dictate.  

I just read that Mitt Romney refused to alter the birth certificate form in the state of Massachusetts after same-gendered marriage was recognized in the state to reflect the fact that some children are born to same-gendered parents.  If other societies can grapple with the fact that a dead man can sire children, how hard is it to come to grips with the idea that both (or all) parents have the right to declare their legal relationship to a child?  Isn't it a good thing to have people willing to accept responsibility for a child?

After becoming sufficiently self-righteous, I find myself fondly remembering Linda Stone's (one of my WSU profs) obsession with Tibetan descent groups and the anthropological truth that there is no one, absolute, irrefutable way to make a meaningful life.  My family is my own and politicians do not get to define it.  They still have the power, however, to impact the material and cultural circumstances of non-"traditional" families.  So go vote.