essay
Affines and the rituals of kinship
Religion and ritual in Chinese society • Stanford, Calif. • Published In 1974 • Pages: 279-307, 358
By: Martin, Emily.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In contrast with the contradictory findings of other research conducted in Taiwan, Ahern describes rites of betrothal and marriage and relations between affines in a village where wife-givers appear 'distinctly superior' in ritual status to wife-takers' (p. 279). Ahern explains the presiding over of 'rituals of kinship' by powerful affines by their status as outsiders who are believed capable of fostering desirable social changes. Ahern suggests that the authority of affines and the great deference shown them stem from their inherent jural weakness in patrilineal society. Paradoxically, this weakness empowers them to aid those who have taken their daughters in marriage to make necessary transitions from one life-cycle role to another.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Place names
- Culture summary
- Kin relationships
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Taiwan Hokkien
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1995
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Asia
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- East Asia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- M. A. Marcus
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1969-1970
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- not specified
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Ch'i-nan village, Taipei hsien, Hai-shan region, Taiwan
- NotesAdditional notes
- Emily Martin Ahern
- Includes bibliography
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Taiwanese