The Metamorphoses of Kinship. Maurice Godelier
exchange. The men make long speeches, while the pork from a certain number of pigs brought by the groom’s family is redistributed and eaten. The woman’s family gives the couple a number of live pigs to start the herd they will later raise and which will enable the couple to present the woman’s lineage with pigs.
FOR THE WOMAN’S HEAD AND VAGINA
In the course of these ceremonies, a number of shells are exchanged between the two groups, while others are presented to the bride’s family as a one-way gift. Several of these shells are called peng pokla, which means ‘to cut off the (girl’s) head’, in other words separate her from her lineage; but this separation is never complete. A number of pigs are also given with no expectation of reciprocity. Several of these pigs are described as kem kng, ‘for the girl’s vagina’. A particularly large pig is called mam peng kng, ‘the pig for the (girl’s) mother’s head’. Another is given to the bride’s father as a present from the groom’s family.
If we analyze these exchanges, we see that they have three components. Reciprocal exchanges of shells and pigs – approximately equivalent in quantity and quality (before the Europeans arrived, a living pig exchanged for two pearl-shells) – between the two parties designed primarily to seal their alliance. A second series of shells and pigs are given to partially detach the woman from her own lineage and from that of her mother, and to transfer rights to her sexual services and reproductive capacities to her husband’s lineage. Last of all, the woman’s family presents the couple with a number of pigs that constitute the beginnings of a herd whose eventual size depends primarily on the labour of this woman, but the product of which will be used by the husband to take part in moka and to fulfil his responsibilities in various situations (funerals, initiations, etc.) which require contributions of pork. By endowing their daughter with this ‘productive capital’, the members of her lineage establish themselves as the future couple’s primary moka partner.
This third component is not a dowry, in the sense of having been given by the bride’s lineage to ensure her material autonomy in her new family and which she could take with her in the event of divorce, as was the case with dowries in societies around the Mediterranean Basin. Lastly, it is to be noted that land never features in these endowments. Lineage land is indivisible. When land is divisible and part of a family’s land is detached and included in a daughter’s dowry when she marries, we are dealing with an altogether different logic and other marriage strategies, as shown by Jack Goody and S. J. Tambiah in their work on dowry and devolution of goods in Europe and the East22 as well as by the discussions23 sparked by their hypotheses.
Two remarks are called for here. It is clear from the Melpa example that the circulation of goods entailed in a marriage alliance can be imbedded in much broader exchange systems based on competition for prestige and renown, in short, on winning status in a political configuration. The intention behind some of these gifts is not only to repay the gift of a woman with wealth, but to make affines into moka partners. The Melpa marriage is actually fully concluded only when the groups and individuals involved become partners in the moka and enter into competition with each other even as they cooperate. Marriage alliances and kinship relations are therefore subordinated to the perpetuation of a far-flung network of competitive political-ceremonial exchanges, following a potlatch logic, and made to serve the expansion of this network, which entails many dozens of clans and thousands of individuals. In short, these relationships are of another order than kinship: they are political.
This example tells us why, with a few exceptions, marriage in potlatch societies cannot be based on the direct exchange of women. Such a system would risk short-circuiting the competition between groups in the exchanges of wealth that give access to titles, ranks and functions – whose number is limited – as well as to power and renown.24
More important still, the equivalence between the terms of exchange in the case of wealth for a person has nothing in common with the equivalence postulated when exchanging a person for another person. Even though societies may strive to limit the amount of wealth given for a woman (or a man) and to set an average exchange rate, there is no objective criterion that can justify giving six big pearl-shells and three pigs for a woman’s ‘vagina’ rather than four shells and two pigs. The nature and the quantity of the ‘things’ given are primarily indicative of the rank and status of the groups contracting a marriage alliance. Today in New Guinea, marrying the daughter of a Big Man or of a regional member of the National Assembly can entail dowries and redistributions of several hundred live or slaughtered pigs (some of which are bought from industrial pig farms with money from the sale of coffee25), to which are often added a Toyota or Nissan truck and tens of thousands of kina in cash.
The inflation of dowries, observed not only in Oceania but also in Africa and Asia, is the direct consequence of the growing involvement of these societies in the local and global market economy. This inclusion results in the generalization of the use of money in traditionally non-economic social exchanges (e.g. rituals) and accentuates and multiplies the differences of wealth between individuals and between kin groups, which are still an important component of local territorial groups’ social structure. In this shift, we see the development of a genuine traffic of women, a phenomenon that did not exist in the case of sister exchange between two men and their lineages.26
A dowry payment at the time of the wedding does not mean that the debt of the wife-taking lineage is extinguished at the end of the ceremony, if there is one. Other ‘payments’ will come due, for example, each time the couple has a child. This is the case among the Wiru and the Daribi of New Guinea, societies that do not take part in regional competitive systems like the moka, but where the bride’s father and her lineage are supposed to exercise ritual control over their daughter’s fertility throughout her life. Each child she bears is seen as a new gift made to her husband’s lineage, which is added to the initial gift of its mother. Based on this (imaginary) representation of the process of reproducing life, a flow of gifts thus accompanies the birth, marriage and death of all individuals. The dowry in this case is merely the first of a series of gifts inaugurated by a marriage alliance, which will punctuate the life of the individuals that will be born from this marriage, from their birth to their death – and beyond.27
THE CASE OF INDIA, WHERE WIFE-TAKERS ARE SUPERIOR TO WIFE-GIVERS
In a great number of societies the wife-takers are superior to the wife-givers. So that the marriage may take place, the givers offer the groom’s parents, in addition to their daughter, a dowry (and not bridewealth), the amount or the nature of which the groom’s parents can accept or reject. It is often stipulated that the girl must be a virgin. This ‘value’ attached to women’s virginity is not universal, but it prevails in the Euro-Asian zone and can be found in various forms as a principle of Christianity, of Islam, of Hinduism – but also of traditional Chinese society. In this case, the woman’s body is the vessel of the family honour and status. We will take the example of Brahmin India.28
In India the superiority of takers over givers is connected with the form of marriage practised by the purest, highest caste in Indian society,29 the Brahmins. In an ideal Brahmin marriage, a father gives his virgin and richly endowed daughter to a family of superior or equivalent rank to his own. And for this gift to be a source of merit, in the present life and beyond, it must be freely given, with no expectations or reciprocity, with no counter-gift on the part of the groom and his family.
This type of marriage was already described in the Manava-dharma-sastra, a set of normative Sanskrit texts known as the ‘Laws of Manu’, written over a period of several centuries (probably between the second century bce and the second century CE, in other words, at a time when Buddhism was spreading through India and driving the Brahmins to set their traditions down in writing). This form of marriage – the gift of a virgin with a dowry – subsequently became a norm that spread to other castes as Indian society became Sanskritized,30 and many local tribal societies adopted Hinduism, little by little entering the caste system or continuing outside it but under its influence.31
The Dharma-sastra mentions seven other forms of marriage as well, and classifies them into two groups of four. The first are entitled Dharmya, in other words ‘according to dharma’, and are therefore virtuous, adding to the merits of those who practise them. The second group uses terms referring to evil spirits,