Matrilocality
Encyclopedia
In social anthropology
, matrilocal residence or matrilocality (also uxorilocal residence or uxorilocality) is a term referring to the societal
system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents, thus the female offspring of a mother
remain living in (or near) the mother's house
, thereby forming large clan
-families, typically consisting of three or four generation
s living in the same place.
is being practiced, meaning that husband
and wife
are living apart in their separate families, seeing each other in their spare time. The child
ren of such marriages are raised by the mother's extended matrilineal clan. The father does not have a significant role in the upbringing of his own children; he does, however, in that of his sisters' children (nieces/nephews
). In direct consequence, property
is inherited
from generation to generation, and over all, remains largely undivided.
Matrilocal residence is found most often in horticultural
societies.
Examples of matrilocal societies include the people of Ngazidja, the Ancient Pueblo Peoples
of Chaco Canyon, the Nair
community in Kerala
in South India
, the Moso
of Yunnan
and Sichuan
in southwestern China
, the Siraya
of Taiwan
, and the Minangkabau of western Sumatra
. In native Amazonia, this residence pattern is often associated with the customary practice of brideservice
, as seen among the Urarina
of northeastern Peru
. In contemporary mainland China
, uxorilocal marriage has been encouraged by the government
(Wolf 1985) in an attempt to counter the problem of unbalanced male-majority sex ratio
s caused by abortion and infanticide and abandonment
of girls. Because girls traditionally marry out in virilocal marriage
they have been seen as "mouths from another family" or as a waste of resources to raise. During the Song Dynasty
in medieval China, matrilocal marriage became common for wealthy, non-aristocratic families.
In other regions of the world, such as Japan
, during the Heian period
, a marriage of this type was not a sign of high status, but rather an indication of the patriarchal authority
of the woman's family (her father or grandfather), who was sufficiently powerful to demand it (Ramusack and Sievers 1999).
Another matrilocal society is the !Kung San of Southern Africa. They practice uxorilocality for the bride service period which lasts until the couple has produced three children or they have been together for more than ten years. At the end of the bride service period the couple has a choice of which clan they want to live with.
Early theories explaining the determinants of postmarital residence (e.g., Lewis Henry Morgan, Edward Tylor, or George Peter Murdock) connected it with the sexual division of labor. However, for many years cross-cultural tests of this hypothesis
using worldwide samples failed to find any significant relationship between these two variables. On the other hand, Korotayev's tests have shown that the female contribution to subsistence does correlate significantly with matrilocal residence in general; however, this correlation is masked by a general polygyny
factor. Although an increase in the female contribution to subsistence tends to lead to matrilocal residence, it also tends simultaneously to lead to general non-sororal polygyny
which effectively destroys matrilocality
. If this polygyny factor is controlled (e. g., through a multiple regression
model), division of labor turns out to be a significant predictor of postmarital residence. Thus, Murdock's hypotheses regarding the relationships between the sexual division of labor and postmarital residence were basically correct, though, as has been shown by Korotayev, the actual relationships between those two groups of variables are more complicated than he expected (see, e.g., Korotayev A. Form of marriage, sexual division of labor, and postmarital residence in cross-cultural perspective: A reconsideration., Korotayev A. Division of Labor by Gender and Postmarital Residence in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Reconsideration. Cross-Cultural Research. 2003, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 335–372 DOI: 10.1177/1069397103253685).
In sociobiology
, matrilocality refers to animal
societies in which a pair bond
is formed between animals born or hatched in different areas or different social groups, and the pair become resident in the female's home area or group.
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
, matrilocal residence or matrilocality (also uxorilocal residence or uxorilocality) is a term referring to the societal
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents, thus the female offspring of a mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
remain living in (or near) the mother's house
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
, thereby forming large clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
-families, typically consisting of three or four generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
s living in the same place.
Description
Frequently, visiting marriageMarriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
is being practiced, meaning that husband
Husband
A husband is a male participant in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the husband regarding his spouse and others, and his status in the community and in law, vary between cultures and has varied over time...
and wife
Wife
A wife is a female partner in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the wife regarding her spouse and others, and her status in the community and in law, varies between cultures and has varied over time.-Origin and etymology:...
are living apart in their separate families, seeing each other in their spare time. The child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
ren of such marriages are raised by the mother's extended matrilineal clan. The father does not have a significant role in the upbringing of his own children; he does, however, in that of his sisters' children (nieces/nephews
Cousin
In kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom one shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in one's immediate family where there is a more specific term . The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of...
). In direct consequence, property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
is inherited
Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
from generation to generation, and over all, remains largely undivided.
Matrilocal residence is found most often in horticultural
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
societies.
Examples of matrilocal societies include the people of Ngazidja, the Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo Peoples
Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado...
of Chaco Canyon, the Nair
Nair
Nair , also known as Nayar , refers to "not a unitary group but a named category of castes", which historically embody several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom bore the Nair title. These people historically live in the present-day Indian state of Kerala...
community in Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
in South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
, the Moso
Moso
Moso can refer to:* MoSo, an abbreviiation for Missouri Southern State University* Moso , a species of bamboo* Moso, Eritrea* Moso , an island in Vanuatu* Mosuo, an ethnic minority in the People's Republic of China...
of Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
and Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
in southwestern China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Siraya
Siraya
The Siraya are an indigenous people of Taiwan. The Siraya settled flat coastal plains in the southwest part of the island and corresponding sections of the east coast; the area is identified today with Tainan City and Taitung County...
of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, and the Minangkabau of western Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
. In native Amazonia, this residence pattern is often associated with the customary practice of brideservice
Brideservice
Bride service has traditionally been portrayed in the anthropological literature as the service rendered by the bridegroom to a bride's family as a bride price or part of one ....
, as seen among the Urarina
Urarina
The Urarina are an indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon Basin who inhabit the Chambira, Urituyacu, and Corrientes Rivers. According to both archaeological and historical sources, they have resided in the Chambira Basin of contemporary northeastern Peru for centuries. The Urarina refer to...
of northeastern Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
. In contemporary mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, uxorilocal marriage has been encouraged by the government
Government of the People's Republic of China
All power within the government of the People's Republic of China is divided among three bodies: the People's Republic of China, State Council, and the People's Liberation Army . This article is concerned with the formal structure of the state, its departments and their responsibilities...
(Wolf 1985) in an attempt to counter the problem of unbalanced male-majority sex ratio
Sex ratio
Sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. The primary sex ratio is the ratio at the time of conception, secondary sex ratio is the ratio at time of birth, and tertiary sex ratio is the ratio of mature organisms....
s caused by abortion and infanticide and abandonment
Abandonment
The term abandonment has a multitude of uses, legal and extra-legal. This "signpost article" provides a guide to the various legal and quasi-legal uses of the word and includes links to articles that deal with each of the distinct concepts at greater length...
of girls. Because girls traditionally marry out in virilocal marriage
Patrilocal residence
In social anthropology, patrilocal residence or patrilocality is a term referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband's parents. The concept of location may extend to a larger area such as a village, town, or clan area...
they have been seen as "mouths from another family" or as a waste of resources to raise. During the Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
in medieval China, matrilocal marriage became common for wealthy, non-aristocratic families.
In other regions of the world, such as Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, during the Heian period
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...
, a marriage of this type was not a sign of high status, but rather an indication of the patriarchal authority
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
of the woman's family (her father or grandfather), who was sufficiently powerful to demand it (Ramusack and Sievers 1999).
Another matrilocal society is the !Kung San of Southern Africa. They practice uxorilocality for the bride service period which lasts until the couple has produced three children or they have been together for more than ten years. At the end of the bride service period the couple has a choice of which clan they want to live with.
Early theories explaining the determinants of postmarital residence (e.g., Lewis Henry Morgan, Edward Tylor, or George Peter Murdock) connected it with the sexual division of labor. However, for many years cross-cultural tests of this hypothesis
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
using worldwide samples failed to find any significant relationship between these two variables. On the other hand, Korotayev's tests have shown that the female contribution to subsistence does correlate significantly with matrilocal residence in general; however, this correlation is masked by a general polygyny
Polygyny
Polygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist...
factor. Although an increase in the female contribution to subsistence tends to lead to matrilocal residence, it also tends simultaneously to lead to general non-sororal polygyny
Polygyny
Polygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist...
which effectively destroys matrilocality
Matrilocality
In social anthropology, matrilocal residence or matrilocality is a term referring to the societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents, thus the female offspring of a mother remain living in the mother's house, thereby forming large clan-families, typically...
. If this polygyny factor is controlled (e. g., through a multiple regression
Linear regression
In statistics, linear regression is an approach to modeling the relationship between a scalar variable y and one or more explanatory variables denoted X. The case of one explanatory variable is called simple regression...
model), division of labor turns out to be a significant predictor of postmarital residence. Thus, Murdock's hypotheses regarding the relationships between the sexual division of labor and postmarital residence were basically correct, though, as has been shown by Korotayev, the actual relationships between those two groups of variables are more complicated than he expected (see, e.g., Korotayev A. Form of marriage, sexual division of labor, and postmarital residence in cross-cultural perspective: A reconsideration., Korotayev A. Division of Labor by Gender and Postmarital Residence in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Reconsideration. Cross-Cultural Research. 2003, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 335–372 DOI: 10.1177/1069397103253685).
In sociobiology
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...
, matrilocality refers to animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
societies in which a pair bond
Pair bond
In biology, a pair bond is the strong affinity that develops in some species between the males and females in a pair, potentially leading to breeding. Pair-bonding is a term coined in the 1940s that is frequently used in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology circles...
is formed between animals born or hatched in different areas or different social groups, and the pair become resident in the female's home area or group.
List of matrilocal societies
- BribriBribriThe Bribri are an indigenous tribe from Costa Rica. They live in the Talamanca Canton in Limón Province of Costa Rica. They speak the Bribri language and Spanish. There are varying estimates of the population of the tribe. According to a census by the Ministerio de Salud, there are 11,500 Bribri...
- FilipinosFilipinosFilipinos is the brand name for a series of biscuit snacks made by Kraft Foods. In Spain and Portugal they are produced and sold under the Artiach brand name. Under license to United Biscuits, in the Netherlands they are sold and produced locally under the Verkade brand...
– (both matrilocal and patrilocal) - GaroGaro (tribe)See also Garo for other uses.The Garos are a tribal people in Meghalaya, India and neighboring areas of Bangladesh, who call themselves A·chik Mande or simply A·chik or Mande...
- HopiHopiThe Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
- IbanIban peopleThe Ibans are a branch of the Dayak peoples of Borneo. In Malaysia, most Ibans are located in Sarawak, a small portion in Sabah and some in west Malaysia. They were formerly known during the colonial period by the British as Sea Dayaks. Ibans were renowned for practising headhunting and...
– (both matrilocal and patrilocal) - IroquoisIroquoisThe Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
- Jaintia
- KarenKaren peopleThe Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
- Khasi
- MarshalleseMarshallese cultureUnder Marshallese culture land is a focal point for social organization in this island nation.All Marshallese have land rights as part of a clan, or jowi, that owes allegiance to an Iroij , is supervised by the Alap , and supported by the Rijerbal...
- MosuoMosuoKnown to many as the Mosuo , but known often to themselves as the Na, the Mosuo are a small ethnic group living in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces in China, close to the border with Tibet...
– (separate residence; each lives in mother's household) - SirayaSirayaThe Siraya are an indigenous people of Taiwan. The Siraya settled flat coastal plains in the southwest part of the island and corresponding sections of the east coast; the area is identified today with Tainan City and Taitung County...
- Tlingit
- VanatinaiVanatinaiVanatinai or Tagula is a volcanic island in the south-east of the Louisiade Archipelago within Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The reef fringed island is approximately south-east of New Guinea. With an area of , it is the largest island of the archipelago. Vanatinai town, the main...
- SinixtSinixtThe Sinixt are a First Nations People...