Exogamy - Cultural Exogamy

Cultural Exogamy

Cultural Exogamy is the custom of marrying outside a specified group of people to which a person belongs. In addition to blood relatives, marriage to members of a specific totem, clan(s) or other groups may be forbidden. Different theories are proposed to account for the origin of exogamy. Edvard Westermarck said it arose in the aversion to marriage between blood relatives or near kin: that is, in horror of incest. From a genetic point of view, aversion to breeding with close relatives results in fewer congenital diseases, because, where one gene is faulty, there is a greater chance that the other - being from a different line - is of another functional type and can take over. Outbreeding thus favours the condition of heterozygosity, that is having two non-identical copies of a given gene. J. F. McLennan holds that exogamy was due originally to scarcity of women, which obliged men to seek wives from other groups, including marriage by capture, and this in time grew into a custom. Émile Durkheim derives exogamy from totemism, and says it arose from a religious respect for the blood of a totemic clan, for the clan totem is a god and is especially in the blood. Morgan maintains that exogamy was introduced to prevent marriage between blood relations, especially between brother and sister, which had been common in a previous state of promiscuity. Frazer says that exogamy began to maintain the survival of family groups, especially when single families became larger political groups. Lang, however, argues against Howitt's claim of group marriage and claims that so-called group marriage is only tribe-regulated licence. Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the "Alliance Theory" of exogamy, that is, that small groups must force their members to marry outside so as to build alliances with other groups. According to this theory, groups that engaged in exogamy would flourish, while those that did not would all die, either literally or because they lacked ties for cultural and economic exchange, leaving them at a disadvantage. The exchange of men or women therefore served as a uniting force between groups.