Bride priceBride price, bride-dowry (Mahr in Islam, Cai Li (彩礼) in chinese, kanya shulkam in ancient India), bride-wealth, or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dowry is equivalent to dowry paid to the groom in some cultures, or used by the bride to help establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage.
Coefficient of relationshipThe coefficient of relationship is a measure of the degree of consanguinity (or biological relationship) between two individuals. The term coefficient of relationship was defined by Sewall Wright in 1922, and was derived from his definition of the coefficient of inbreeding of 1921. The measure is most commonly used in genetics and genealogy. A coefficient of inbreeding can be calculated for an individual, and is typically one-half the coefficient of relationship between the parents.
AvunculateThe avunculate, sometimes called avunculism or avuncularism, is any social institution where a special relationship exists between an uncle and his sisters' children. This relationship can be formal or informal, depending on the society. Early anthropological research focused on the association between the avunculate and matrilineal descent, while later research has expanded to consider the avunculate in general society. The term avunculate comes from the Latin avunculus, the maternal uncle.
NepotismNepotism is the act of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives or close friends in an occupation or field. These fields may include but are not limited to: business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion, and other activities. The term originated with the assignment of nephews to important positions by Catholic popes and bishops. Nepotism has been criticized since ancient history by several philosophers, including Aristotle, Valluvar, and Confucius, condemning it as both evil and unwise.
Darwinian anthropologyDarwinian anthropology describes an approach to anthropological analysis which employs various theories from Darwinian evolutionary biology. Whilst there are a number of areas of research that can come under this broad description (Marks, 2004) some specific research projects have been closely associated with the label. A prominent example is the project that developed in the mid 1970s with the goal of applying sociobiological perspectives to explain patterns of human social relationships, particularly kinship patterns across human cultures.
SiblingA sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separately (such as foster care), most societies have siblings grow up together. This causes the development of strong emotional bonds, with siblinghood considered a unique type of relationship unto itself.
Matrifocal familyA matrifocal family structure is one where mothers head families and fathers play a less important role in the home and in bringing up children. The concept of the matrifocal family was introduced to the study of Caribbean societies by Raymond Smith in 1956. He linked the emergence of matrifocal families with how households are formed in the region: "The household group tends to be matri-focal in the sense that a woman in the status of 'mother' is usually the de facto leader of the group, and conversely the husband-father, although de jure head of the household group (if present), is usually marginal to the complex of internal relationships of the group.
Parallel and cross cousinsIn discussing consanguineal kinship in anthropology, a parallel cousin or ortho-cousin is a cousin from a parent's same-sex sibling, while a cross-cousin is from a parent's opposite-sex sibling. Thus, a parallel cousin is the child of the father's brother (paternal uncle's child) or of the mother's sister (maternal aunt's child), while a cross-cousin is the child of the mother's brother (maternal uncle's child) or of the father's sister (paternal aunt's child). Where there are unilineal descent groups in a society (i.
HaplogroupA haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the ἁπλοῦς, haploûs, "onefold, simple" and group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single-nucleotide polymorphism mutation. More specifically, a haplotype is a combination of alleles at different chromosomal regions that are closely linked and that tend to be inherited together. As a haplogroup consists of similar haplotypes, it is usually possible to predict a haplogroup from haplotypes.
