Marriage strategies as strategies of social reproduction

Pierre Bourdieu
Abbreviations used:
Anthros:- anthropologists
p.o.v.- Point of view

General Intro from class notes

Bourdieu had a problem with how other scholars had looked at social life. One was the
structuralist approach which overemphasized the structure, and the other was
phenomenological- which overemphasized the individual experience. He found both of these
unsatisfactory. His own Theory of Practice draws from both structuralist and
phenomenological approaches. It focused on how individuals are instituted in to structures.
Example of gift exchange:
A phenomenological point of view would focus on his gift exchange is experienced by
individuals.
A structurlaist view would look at it from outside
What both these miss out on is the element of time. This is important from the p.o.v. of
practice because without it, gift giving won’t make much sense.
Bourdieu believes that strategies are more important than rules because they entail mastery
over rules, as well as use of rules. Rules cannot explain the ground reality or practice.
Bourdieu also distinguished between official and practical kinship.
Official kinship refers to the representations of kinship in certain ways by using diagrams and
specific terminology. This method is preferred by anthros.
Practical Kinship accounts for the real nuances of kinship—of how it actually operates.
Map analogy to explain the difference between official and practical kinship- map shows
formal paths and routes, not the path people actually take.
Coming to the actual reading
According to Bourdieu, the role of societies is to ensure social reproduction. They maintain
cultural patterns, though not without change. His case study is of the marriage strategies of
the French Pyrenees.
Marriage negotiations are like a game of cards—each side deals their best hand, and the value
of this round is measured by the rules of the game.
Marriage strategies are conducted to maximize economic and symbolic gains and therefore
carry out a “good marriage”, rather than just a marriage.
The two most important functions of marriage strategies are:
 1) Reproducing the lineage and therefore the work force
2) Safeguarding the patrimony in a context of scarcity of money. (Patrimony is the
property inherited generally from the father).
Marriage strategies are influences by the sex and order of birth of the person getting married.
The most important principles are of
1) Male supremacy (surprise surprise!)
2) Primogeniture (1st born child)
Discussion of adot and the eldest son
The share of property a descendant is entitled by tradition, is the same as the compensation
paid at the time of marriage. Therefore the value of the property determined the value of adot
which is the dowry. The size of dowry demanded by fam of future husband was determined
by the size of their own property. Due to the mediation of adot, marriage negotiations take an
economic character and become a matter of “cost analysis” and economic exchange. Due to
the feature of adot, marrying too high or too low was not permitted. An eldest son shouldn’t
marry too high because some day he may have to return the adot (this was called the
tournadot—the return of dowry, which could be demanded if husband of wife dies before the
birth of a child), and that might cause a problem. Many did not touch the dowry in fear that
one of the spouses may die before children were born.
Also, marrying too high would threaten his position in the domestic power structure—he will
not have the upper hand. It would also be difficult for the mother of the boy to exert her
power over her daughter in law if she came from a very rich background.
He also shouldn’t marry too low because that would dishonour him and make it difficult to
dower younger siblings.
Marriage of the eldest son (heir), determined the size of adot that could be given to younger
siblings, hence the kind of marriage they could make. Therefore the strategy followed was to
obtain from the bride, an adot large enough to pay for adots of all other younger sons and
daughters without having to mortgage the property. Yet, the size of the adot should not be too
large because of tournadot.
Fertility strategies go hand in hand with marriage strategies. Parents could manipulate their
“hand” by limiting the number of cards, if they were satisfied with those which had been
dealt.
Marriage strategies related to a Girl
The birth of a girl represented a bad card. Due to male bias, every marriage was judged from
the male p.o.v. Girls were legally allowed to marry above their station.
If she was an only girl (heiress—v rare though), or the eldest of many sisters, the continuity
of the patrimony would come at risk to lineage. Because:
1) If she married an eldest son then the “house” would be annexed by another
2) If she married a younger son, domestic power fell to a stranger after the death of her
parents
If she was a younger daughter, only option was to marry her off because unlike boys, she
could not be sent away or kept unmarried since cost of her labour was not commensurate with
the cost of her upkeep.
Imbalance and political authority
Imbalance is greatest when the eldest son marries a younger daughter of a v large family. The
adot may not be much larger than that of an eldest girl from a modest family who had just
one brother.
Questions of political authority became most acute when eldest son married an heiress—
specially if she was richer. This led to either an open or hidden conflict over the place f
residence. This type of marriage could create a permanent back and forth between the two
homes or even maintenance of two separate households because none wanted to give up their
lineage or lead to extinction of a “house” and its name.
Bearn (pg 554) suggested that sociology of the family is often premised on sentiment, but
might be an aspect of political sociology.
In Max Weber’s language, the competition between spouses for authority over the family, i.e.
for monopoly of legitimately exercising power in domestic affairs, are related to the material
and symbolic capital they bring into the marriage.
Marriage strategies for younger sons
If he married into a family of same rank, bought a good adot, and made a good mark in terms
of his fertility and work, he was honoured and treated as the true master.
If he married upward, then he would sacrifice everything to the new house where his parents
in law remained in charge of everything—his adot, his work, even his family name.
Hardly any young sons were willing to marry younger daughters.
Those who were unable to marry an heiress, owing to their low adot, had two options:
1) Move away to another city or America, and learn a new craft and establish
themselves.
2) Could become servants to own family (rarely to other fams)—he supplied his labour
to his fam without adding to expenses of household or detracting from the property.
They therefore helped preserve the patrimony.
For these reasons, it was better to have sons than daughters.
Conclusion—Relation between strategies, rules and habitus
The constraints surrounding every marriage choice are numerous and complex and not
reducible for individual conscious choice. Therefore they cannot be expressed by a set of
mechanical rules. Numerous rules would have to be invented to account for the various
strategies employed.
Fams carry out “parries” and “moves” like in fencing or chess, to deal with potential threats
the marriage poses to property and fam. These are not at all simple procedures reducible to
explicit laws, but are infact products of the habitus, which implies: the practical mastery of a
small number of implicit principles that have spawned an infinite number of practices and
follow their own pattern, although they are not based on obedience to any formal rules.
“Hence these patterns emerge “spontaneously”, and it is unnecessary to make them explicit or
impose any rules. Habitus is the product of the very structures it tends to reproduce. It is
predicated upon a “spontaneous” compliance with the established order and with the will of
the guardians of that order, namely, the elders, habitus is the principle that will generate he
different solutions which individuals, depending on their position in the social hierarchy, their
place in the family’s order of birth, their sex, and so forth, can bring to the practical dilemmas
created by the various systems of exigencies that are not necessarily mutually compatible.”
Marriage strategies must be seen as one element in the entire system of biological, cultural,
and social reproduction by which every group endeavours to pass on to the next generation
the full measure of power and privilege it has itself inherited.