In
social anthropologySocial anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies how currently living human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular people: customs, economic and...
,
patrilocal residence or
patrilocality (also
virilocal residence or
virilocality) is a term referring to the
socialSociety or human society is the manner or condition in which the members of a community live together for their mutual benefit. By extension, society denotes the people of a region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole....
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
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in...
,
townA town is a type of settlement ranging from a few hundred to several thousand inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries and is not always a matter of legal definition...
, or
clanA clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by actual or perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor...
area. This practice is found in about 69 percent of the world's cultures that have been described ethnographically; yet, it is not prevalent in the modern world any more.
In a patrilocal society, when a man marries, his wife joins him in his father's home or compound, where they raise their children.
In
social anthropologySocial anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies how currently living human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular people: customs, economic and...
,
patrilocal residence or
patrilocality (also
virilocal residence or
virilocality) is a term referring to the
socialSociety or human society is the manner or condition in which the members of a community live together for their mutual benefit. By extension, society denotes the people of a region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole....
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
villageA village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, but smaller than a town or city. Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in...
,
townA town is a type of settlement ranging from a few hundred to several thousand inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries and is not always a matter of legal definition...
, or
clanA clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by actual or perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor...
area. This practice is found in about 69 percent of the world's cultures that have been described ethnographically; yet, it is not prevalent in the modern world any more.
In a patrilocal society, when a man marries, his wife joins him in his father's home or compound, where they raise their children. These children will follow the same pattern: Sons will stay, and daughters will move in with their husbands' families. Families living in a patrilocal residence generally assume
joint ownershipJoint ownership refers to:* Housing equity partnership.* Jointly-owned photovoltaic plant....
of domestic sources. The household is led by a senior member, who also directs the labor of all other members.
Matrilocal residence may be regarded as the opposite of patrilocal residence. However, since the majority of societies exhibit at least some degree of patriarchy, in most matrilocal groups the brothers (or mothers' brothers) are the authority figures, not the wives or mothers themselves.
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, to date,
cross-culturalcross-cultural may refer to*cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis*any of various forms of interactivity between members of disparate cultural groups *the discourse concerning cultural interactivity, sometimes...
tests of this
hypothesisA hypothesis is a proposed explanation for an observable 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 have failed to find any significant relationship between these two variables. However, Korotayev's tests show that the female contribution to subsistence does correlate significantly with matrilocal (as opposed to patrilocal) 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
polygynyPolygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time." It is distinguished from a relationship where a man who has a sexual partner outside marriage, such as a concubine, casual sexual partner, paramour, or other culturally recognized secondary partner...
which effectively destroys
matrilocalityIn 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...
, and pushes a social system toward patrilocality. If this polygyny factor is controlled (e. g., through a multiple
regressionRegression could refer to:* Regression , a defensive reaction to some unaccepted impulses* Regression analysis, a statistical technique for estimating the relationships among variables...
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. Journal of anthropological research ISSN 0091-7710. 2003, Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 69-89, 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).
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