Evolution of kinship structures driven by marriage tie and competition
- PMID: 31964846
- PMCID: PMC7007516
- DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1917716117
Evolution of kinship structures driven by marriage tie and competition
- PMID: 31964846
- PMCID: PMC7007516
- DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1917716117
Abstract
The family unit and kinship structures form the basis of social relationships in indigenous societies. Families constitute a cultural group, a so-called clan, within which marriage is prohibited by the incest taboo. The clan attribution governs the mating preference and descent relationships by certain rules. Such rules form various kinship structures, including generalized exchange, an indirect exchange of brides among more than two clans, and restricted exchange, a direct exchange of brides with the flow of children to different clans. These structures are distributed in different areas and show different cultural consequences. However, it is still unknown how they emerge or what conditions determine different structures. Here, we build a model of communities consisting of lineages and family groups and introduce social cooperation among kin and mates and conflict over mating. Each lineage has parameters characterizing the trait and mate preference, which determines the possibility of marriage and the degree of cooperation and conflict among lineages. Lineages can cooperate with those having similar traits to their own or mates', whereas lineages with similar preferences compete for brides. In addition, we introduce community-level selection by eliminating communities with smaller fitness and follow the so-called hierarchical Moran process. We numerically demonstrate that lineages are clustered in the space of traits and preferences, resulting in the emergence of clans with the incest taboo. Generalized exchange emerges when cooperation is strongly needed, whereas restricted exchange emerges when the mating conflict is strict. This may explain the geographical distribution of kinship structures in indigenous societies.
Keywords: incest taboo; kinship structure; multilevel selection; social physics.
Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no competing interest.
Figures
Fig. 1.
Examples of kinship structures. Each…
Fig. 1.
Examples of kinship structures. Each symbol A, , ,…
Fig. 2.
Schematic of the model. ( …
Fig. 2.
Schematic of the model. ( A ) Life cycle in the model. Communities…
Fig. 3.
Example of clan separation. ( …
Fig. 3.
Example of clan separation. ( A – C )
Fig. 4.
Time series of …
Fig. 4.
Time series of . ( A ) Time series of
Fig. 5.
Phase diagrams on the emergence…
Fig. 5.
Phase diagrams on the emergence of the incest taboo against the parameters
Fig. 6.
Examples of emergent structures.
Fig. 6.
Examples of emergent structures. values for lineages in a community…
Fig. 7.
Phase diagrams of kinship structures…
Fig. 7.
Phase diagrams of kinship structures against the parameters and …
Comment in
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Reply to Read and Parkin: Our model correctly expresses the ethnographic nature of the cultural incest taboo and kinship structures.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Apr 28;117(17):9167-9168. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2003300117. Epub 2020 Apr 21. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020. PMID: 32317378 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
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Simulation model for kinship structures is ethnographically invalid.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Apr 28;117(17):9166. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2002389117. Epub 2020 Apr 21. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020. PMID: 32317379 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
References
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- Maddock K., Alliance and entailment in Australian marriage. Aust. J. Anthropol. 7, 19–26 (1969).
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- Malinowski B., Sex, Culture, and Myth (R. Hart-Davis, London, UK, 1963).
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- Murdock G. P., Social Structure (Macmillan, New York, NY, 1949).
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