Inalienable Possessions - Godelier On keeping-for-giving and Giving-for-keeping

Godelier On keeping-for-giving and Giving-for-keeping

Maurice Godelier has further elaborated on Annette Weiner's ideas on inalienable possessions in The Enigma of the Gift. He derived two theses from Weiner, to which he adds a third.

First Thesis: As discussed above, even in a society that is dominated by a gift-giving economic and moral code, the interplay of gift and counter-gift doesn't completely dominate the social sphere, as there must be some objects which are kept and not given. These things, such as valuables, talismans, knowledge, and rites, confirm identities and their continuity over time. Moreover, they acknowledge differences of identity of individuals or groups linked by various kinds of exchanges.

Second Thesis: Women or the feminine element also exercise power by providing legitimation and redistributing of political and religious power among groups in a society. Godelier contends that Weiner refocuses attention on the role of women in constructing and legitimizing power. While women, as wives, are frequently lowered in status, as sisters, they frequently retain equal status to their brothers. For example, in Polynesia, the woman as a sister appears to control those goods associated with the sacred, the ancestors, and the gods.

To this, Godelier adds a third thesis.

Third thesis: The social is not just the sum of alienable and inalienable goods, but is brought into existence by the difference and inter-dependence of these two spheres of exchange. Maintaining society thus requires not keeping-while-giving, but "keeping-for-giving and giving-for-keeping."