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In the Image of God He Created Man
Exogamy: "Marry Out"!
1. Exogamy: A Rule which Shapes Human Existence
"Exogamy provides the only means of maintaining the group as a group." --Claude Lévi-Strauss
How important is a social rule called “exogamy,” a rule which requires an individual to marry outside of one’s “family”? I can hardly think of a rule in life that more determines and shapes who we are as individuals than the rule of exogamy. The universal rule not only determines what comprises a "family," as Lévi-Strauss correctly points out, "exogamy provides the only means for maintaining the group [the social construct called "family"] as a group."
2. Exogamy, the First Rule?
Most Christians would be surprised to know that since anthropologists are fascinated by the existence of social rules and values, they have asked: What was the first rule and the first sin? According to the materialist, the first rule was: One shall not marry a member of one's "family." One must Marry Out. The universal rule to "marry out" was called the "Rule of Exogamy." The first sin occurred when someone broke the rule and committed incest
3. Marriage and the Rule of Exogamy
There exist hundreds of types of families in the world, but only two types of marriages, functional and covenantal. Each family type is protected by the rule of exogamy which says: "Marry out!" The universal rule protects both the nuclear family tethered to a covenantal meaning of marriage, as well as family types tethered to meanings shaped and moulded by SOCIAL EXISTENCE in a particular environment.
4. The Practice of Band Exogamy on the Great Plains
As tribes from the East moved into the Great Plains to hunt buffalo, they all submitted to environmental forces and created a family type called the "bands" This meant, a bachelor looking for a wife was compelled to "marry out," that is, someone from another band lest he commit incest. From a concept-innatist's perspective, their definition of "family," manifested in history a misrepresentation of a Divine Norm aka ETIC DIVERGENCE.
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5. A Life-way Protected by the Rule of Exogamy, the Kiowa-Apache
For the Kiowa-Apache of the Great Plains, “Kinship is [was] the idiom in which political interests are advanced and economic goals are maximized.” Economic goals were maximized by creating a function-based social order grounded in the merging of mutually exclusive status positions. The result? Rejection of the Law of Identity and the creation of a super-family.
6. The Miccosukee Concept of Marriage
The Miccosuikee concept of marriage goes something like this: In exchange for conjugal right to your daughter, all my offspring will become members of your "family," i.e., the matrilineal clan, not mine. The children a father sires do not belong to him.
7. The Practice of Linguistic Exogamy
"My wives speak a different language"
The Miccosuikee concept of marriage goes something like this: In exchange for conjugal right to your daughter, all my offspring will become members of your "family," i.e., the matrilineal clan, not mine. The children a father sires do not belong to him.
8. The Practice of Village Exogamy
By classifying all persons living in the same village of approximately the same age as “siblings,” villages of the district of Uttar Pradesh were able to compel young people to find spouses in other villages. Marrying an unrelated schoolmate would be classified as being an “incestuous act” worthy of death. Note what happened when the rule to Marry out! was violated.
9. The Chácobo Marriage Contract
In non-literate societies there exists no written contracts. All contracts are verbal. For example, before a Chácobo bachelor marries, he must make a contract, not with his potential wife, but with his potential "in-laws." When the verbal contract is sealed and concluded, they call each other "raisi." There existed no status positions called "son-in-law" nor "father-in-laws" nor "mother-in-law." The new status position means one has certain rights and duties, rights and duties which are determine by environmental pressures.
10. Fatherless Families: the Trobriand
Becoming a Trobriand husband means a number of things, many of which are very strange to a Westerner and for most of the cultures of the world. One significant difference is their firm belief that no husband can a father and every birth is a virgin birth. This means no nuclear family can have a "father."
