Joseph Shepher

Mate selection among second generation kibbutz adolescents and adults: Incest avoidance and negative imprinting

Premarital sexual behavior and marriage patterns were investigated in Israeli kibbutzim. All adolescents and adults of the second generation (N =65)in one kibbutz were studied. There were no cases of heterosexual activity between any two native adolescents of the same peer group and no cases of marriage between any two members of the same peer group. The avoidance was completely voluntary. Among 2769 marriages contracted by second generation adults in all kibbutzim, there were no cases of intra—peer group marriage. These findings could represent a case of negative imprinting whereby collective peer group education which includes an incessant exposure to peers from the first days of life and an unimpeded tactile relationship among the peers between ages 0–6 results in sexual avoidance and exogamy.

Psychological androgyny and sexual adequacy

This study investigated the hypothesis that individuals with androgynous personalities would be more competent sexually than individuals with sex-typed personalities. Scores on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory were compared for a patient group and a control group. The data revealed a higher percentage of androgynous subjects in the control group than in the patient group. Even when only one spouse was androgynous, the chances of sexual competence within the couple increased. In addition, there was more sex typing among the longer married patient couples and more stereotyped femininity in both men and women in the patient group. The results were taken to support the view that the androgynous persons flexibility and adaptability is conducive to a satisfactory sexual relationship. Some cultural differences between Israeli and American samples were noted. Findings contradicted the cultural stereotypes of the macho Israeli male and the nonfeminine Israeli woman.

Reflections on the origin of the human pair-bond

Abstract Review of well-known explanations of the origin of the human pair-bond reveals that different causative variables have to be combined. An attempt at such a combination is presented, using the model of autocatalytic processes. Causative factors such as hunting-gathering adaptation, the evolution of the brain, sexual division of labor and demorphism seem to fit the theory of parental investment when they are combined in an autocatalytic process.

Familism and Social Structure: The Case of the Kibbutz.

One of the most controversial problems caused by the familistic trends in the kibbutz is the aspiration to change the generally accepted collective housing system of the children. The largest kibbutz federation decided on a research project in order to investigate the extent of the association between the change of the housing system of the children and some attitudes generally considered as negative from the point of view of kibbutz values. A comparative research in two groups of kibbutzim of different housing systems revealed a positive association between the familistic system and (a) polarized division of labor between the sexes in housework and public activity, (b) less social activity-formal and informal-and (c) anticollectivistic trends in consumption patterns.

GOODY AND SCHNEIDER: THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION

This chapter discusses the theories on incest by Goody and Schneider. Definitions have been a major problem of incest theory. Goody and Schneider attack the problems of definition. Goodys approach is basically social, and Schneiders approach is cultural. Goody argues with Murdock about the state of anthropology as a science. Goody found three categories of interdictions among the Ashanti: (1) sexual intercourse with a woman of the matriclan; (2) intercourse with a woman of the patrician; and (3) intercourse with a married woman (adultery). Schneider minutely describes the theories of Tylor, Fortune, White, Malinowski, Seligman, Murdock, and Parsons, and points out the efforts toward synthesis by Parsons and Murdock. Schneider also notes the confusion of incest regulations with exogamous rules and points out that alliance theory is untenable because it fails to account for mother-son prohibitions in patrilineal systems and father-daughter prohibitions in matrilineal ones, and for various cases of divergence between prohibited marriage and permitted sexual relations.

THE ALLIANCE SCHOOL

This chapter discusses the theories of alliance schools. The alliance school is completely group oriented. Its basic argument is that incest prohibitions serve the social function of compelling the young to look for mates outside the nuclear family. Such marriages create alliances between family groups, a network that constitutes basic social order. Although Tylor was not concerned with incest, he is widely quoted by his successors as the originator of the alliance theory of incest. Tylor finds only one problem with his explanation—that alliance does not always prevent strife or bloodshed. In its implicit assumption that incest regulations coincide with regulations governing exogamy, Tylors initial statement differs significantly from the theories developed by his successors. Because incest was culturally created, it is culturally variable, with each culture defining incest differently. White repeatedly emphasizes that incest must be culturally defined. However, White himself claimed that incest prohibitions preceded the recognition of paternity.

FREUD AND THE FAMILY–SOCIALIZATION SCHOOL

The corporal leach his soldiers to shooting training. Their performance is horribly inept. The corporal angrily scolds his recruits, then, after one of them again misses the target, he takes the rise from the soldiers hand and yells:

THE KIBBUTZ AND THE SIM-PUA: FOOLING MOTHER NATURE

The best opportunity for the use of hypothesis testing is on the occasion of the “natural experiment.” Ttie difficulty with the use of fiypothesis in field studies is the inability to determine causal relationships with any definiteness, since most of our measures are not taken with respect to systematic changes in some ascertained independent variable. Now, a natural experiment is a change of major importance engineered by policy makers and practitioners and not by social scientists. It is experimental from the point of view of the scientist rather than of the social engineer. But it can afford opportunities for measuring the effect of the change on the assumption that the change is so clear and drastic in nature that there is no question of identifying it as the independent variable, at least at a gross level.

4 – EDWARD WESTERMARCK

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the views and studies of Edward Westermarck. Westermarck stands nearly alone in his belief that incest is instinctually avoided. Although Westermarck was repeatedly attacked by leading anthropologists, he stood behind his ideas until he died. His late papers were published in 1934 as Three Essays on Sex and Marriage. Westermarck was considered the enfant terrible of European social science at the turn of the century. Coming to London in 1887 from the University of Helsingfors, Finland, to work on his doctorate, Westermarck jumped into the stormy sea of academic inquiry into the human family and its origin. Westermarcks basic theoretical framework is Darwinian. He claims that marriage and the family evolved as natural selection channeled the human male to invest heavily in his offspring. Westermarck, like many of his contemporaries, did not distinguish between sex and marriage. Relying heavily on Darwin and Wallace, Westermarck explains the hazardous consequences of inbreeding.

THE SOCIOBIOLOGICAL THEORY OF INCEST

Man is a product of evolution. Much that is puzzling about man can be understood only when man is considered as evolved and evolving. A thorough knowledge of the principles and mechanisms of evolution is therefore a prerequisite for the understanding of man.