Adoption and Kinship in Oceania in American Anthropologist Volume 82, Number 4

799-820 pages with charts and tables. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 1/4") Volume 82, number 4 complete bound in original publisher's wrappers. First edition.

The frequency and form of adoption practices in Oceania recently have been cited as evidence that human behavior is inconsistent with prediction derived from sociobiological theory (Sahlins 1976). Ethnographic data reviewed here, however, suggest otherwise. In Oceania kinship is an important factor in the selection and treatment of adopted children as adoption occurs almost exclusively among close relatives. Natal children often ally against their adopted siblings over the division of their common parents' estate while adoptive parents themselves frequently apportion their land unequally among their natal and adopted children. These patterns and other data are consistent with predictions generated by a sociobiological model of adoptive decisions. The model illustrated how kinship facilitates adoption as a means of modifying extreme family sizes, and how asymmetries in the degrees of relatedness between parents and their adopted and natal children provide the basis of differential treatment of them. Adoption in Oceania provides an example of a clearly cultural behavior which is consistent with sociobiological predictions, and suggests that both culture and biology are relevant to an understanding of human behavior.

Condition: Pervious owner's name to front wrapper, spine sunned, else Very good.