Exogamy
Exogamy – from the Greek “exō”, meaning “outside” or “external,” and gamos, meaning “marriage”; literally, “external marriage” – refers to sexual relations or the custom of entering into marriage with members of other clans, lineages, or social groups, that is, outside one’s narrow kin or social group.
There are many theories that seek to explain the transition from endogamous to exogamous relations. These include McLennan’s theory of the custom of killing girls and, as a consequence, the need to abduct women from neighbouring tribes; Spencer’s theory, according to which an abducted woman was regarded as the most successful and durable trophy of the primitive warrior; Morgan’s view that primitive peoples became aware of the harmful consequences of incestuous relations; Kautsky’s “sympathy” theory, according to which close relatives, because they encountered one another too often in everyday life, did not arouse intense sexual attraction in one another; Starcke’s view that primitive men sought wives as subordinate beings or servants, whereas women of their own clan were regarded as equals; Frazer’s and Durkheim’s theory of totems, based on the taboo of the blood of the totem, since the blood of one’s own clan was considered sacred; and Tylor’s theory, which explained exogamy through primitive peoples’ conscious striving for peace, largely guaranteed by exogamous marriages.
Despite the diversity, and sometimes the polarity, of these theories of the origin of exogamous relations, they emphasize one common point: exogamy is the exclusion of incestuous relations.
Exogamy may be regarded as a historical boundary between the pre-marital condition of society, in which people’s sexual life was determined only by natural factors, and marriage as a socially regulated form of relations between the sexes.
In earlier anthropological schemes, the first historical form of exogamous marriage was considered to be matriarchal marriage, corresponding to the period of matriarchy. The following types of matriarchal marriage are distinguished:
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matrilocal marriage, in which the husband moves into the wife’s clan or kin group;
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dislocal marriage, in which the woman and the man, after entering into marriage, each remain living in their own clan or tribe;
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neolocal marriage, in which the newly married couple begins to live separately from their respective kin groups.
Matriarchal marriage is characterized by matrilineality, that is, kinship ties are established through the maternal line, since the figure of the father remains unknown. The anonymity of the father is explained by the fact that matriarchal marriage is understood here as a form of group marriage, in which both men and women may have several marital partners at the same time.
The second historical form of exogamous marriage is associated with the formation of sexual relations in the period of patriarchy, when patriarchal marriage emerged. The woman, together with her children, begins to move into the husband’s clan. Patriarchal marriage is characterized by patrilineality, and the figure of the father of the children ceases to be anonymous.
It is during this period that simple and complex families begin to take shape, creating the preconditions for modern forms of marriage, including monogamy and polygamy.
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