A Cross-Cultural Test of the Proximity Hypothesis

Abstract

This paper tests the proximity hypothesis, which asserts that residential propinquity influences the possession by a society of certain kin avoidance and kin terminological practices. The hypothesis is shown to be invalid, and the results for classical theories of kinship organization are sketched. Briefly these are that Murdock's theoretical claims in Social Structure (1949) are called into question, as is "Main Sequence" kinship theory, which postu lates that residence, descent, and kinship terminology form a typical devel opmental sequence.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Chilton, Roland 1966 "Computer-generated data and the statistical significance of scalogram," Sociometry 39: 175-81.

Diebold, A. Richard 1966 "The reflection of coresidence in Mareño kinship terminology ," Ethnology 5: 37-79.

Driver, Harold E. 1956 "An integration of functional, evolutionary, and historical theory by means of correlations," Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics 12: 1-36.

1966 "Geographical-historical versus psycho-functional explanations of kin avoidances," Current Anthropology 7: 131-60, 176-82.

Eggan, Fred 1960 "The Sagada Igorots of Northern Luzon," in Social Structure in Southeast Asia, George Peter Murdock, ed., Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 29: 24-50.

Goodman, Leo A. , and William H. Kruskal 1954 "Measures of association for cross classifications," Journal of the American Statistical Associaton 49: 732-64.

Harris, Marvin 1968 The rise of anthropological theory, New York, Thomas Y. Crowell.

Jorgensen, Joseph G. 1966 "Geographical clustering and functional explanations of in-law avoidances: an analysis of comparative method," Current Anthropology 7: 161-69.

Murdock, George Peter 1949 Social Structure, New York, Macmillan.

10.

1957 "World ethnographic sample," American Anthropologist 59: 664-87.

11.

1967 Ethnographic atlas: a summary, Pittsburgh , University of Pittsburgh Press.

12.

1968 "World sampling provinces," Ethnology 7: 305-26.

13.

1970 "Kin term patterns and their distribution," Ethnology 9: 165-207.

14.

1971 "Cross-sex patterns of kin behavior," Ethnology 10: 359-68.

15.

Murdock, George Peter , et al. 1965a "Ethnographic Atlas 13," Ethnology 4: 114-22.

16.

1965b "Ethnographic Atlas 14," Ethnology 4: 241-50.

17.

1966 "Ethnographic Atlas 20," Ethnology 5: 442-48.

18.

1968 "Ethnographic Atlas 26," Ethnology 7: 327-29.

19.

Murphy, Robert F. 1967 "Tuareg kinship," American Anthropologist 69: 163-70.

20.

1971 The dialectics of social life, New York , Basic Books.

21.

Naroll, Raoul 1970 "What have we learned from cross-cultural surveys?" American Anthropologist 72: 1227-88.

22.

Stephens, William N. , and Roy G. D'Andrade 1962 "Kin avoidance," in The Oedipus Complex: Cross-Cultural Evidence, William N. Stephens , New York, Free Press of Glencoe: 124-50.

23.

Sweetser, Dorrian Apple 1966 "Avoidance, social affiliation, and the incest taboo," Ethnology 5: 304-16.

24.

Titiev, Mischa 1943 "The influence of common residence on the unilateral classification of kindred," American Anthropologist, n.s. 45: 511-30.

25.

1956 "The importance of space in primitive kinship," American Anthropologist 58: 854-65.

26.

'ryler, Stephen A. 1965 "Koya language morphology and patterns of kinship behavior ," American Anthropologist 67: 1428-40.

27.

Tylor, Edward B. 1889 "On a method of investigating the development of institutions: applied to laws of marriage and descent," Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 18: 245-72.

28.

Witkowski, Stanley 1971 A universalist account of kinship semantics, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa.

29.

1972 "Guttman scaling of semantic distinctions," in Kinship Studies in the Morgan Centennial Year, Priscilla Reining , ed., Washington, D.C., Anthropological Society of Washington: 167-88.