A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Marriage in Small-Scale Societies

Abstract

In our species mating, reproduction, and pair-bonding are inextricably linked to the cultural institution of marriage. Across societies marital norms influence sexual and economic activity, the recognition of and investment in offspring, the duration and quantity of reproductive unions, residential patterns, social networks, and transfers of wealth, among other dynamics. As such, the analysis of marital norms has proven crucial to understanding human behavior, biology, and psychology. In this dissertation, I explore three aspects of marriage in small-scale societies that have to this point received limited academic attention: cross-cultural variation in men’s age at marriage, rules governing the marital eligibility of young men and women, and changes in men’s work activity at marriage. In the first chapter, I review ethnographic accounts, historical documents, and unpublished anthropological data to construct and analyze an extensive cross-cultural dataset of men’s age at first marriage, finding that young men’s economic contributions are a primary determinant of age at marriage and the onset of the reproductive career. In the second chapter, I identify and discretely characterize marital eligibility rules for young men and women across the 60 societies of the Probability Sample File. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of this dataset and related ethnographic texts, I identify distinctions between eligibility rules for men and women and suggest that the criteria of these rules are shaped in part by cultural group selection. In the third chapter, I analyze time allocation data from several small-scale societies to investigate the relationship between commercial market integration and men’s behavioral change at marriage. In addition to finding empirical support for a general causal effect of marriage on men’s work activity, I conclude that integration into commercial markets tends to reduce the difference in time spent working between unmarried and married men. Combined, all three chapters suggest a centrality of men’s economic production to marital dynamics, highlighting the important role that male provisioning plays in the human reproductive pair-bond.