The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive: Systems of Marriage and the Family in the Pre-Industrial Societies of Eurasia

Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Hardcover. VG-/VG- (ex-library with labels and stamps on spine, block, inside front and rear covers and title page verso. Light shelfwear to boards and block. Pages are otherwise clean and clear.). Blue cloth boards with gilt spine lettering; red dj with bw illustration; xix, 542 pp; bw maps. In The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive one of the world's most foremost anthropologists looks in depth at kinship practice in Asia, and continues the comparative survey of pre-industrial family formation undertaken in The Development of Family and Marriage in Europe (1983) and elsewhere. Professor Goody's findings cause him to question many traditional assumptions about the 'primitive' east, and he suggests that, in contrast to pre-colonial Africa, kinship practice in Asia has much in common with that prevailing in parts of pre-industrial Europe. Goody examines the transmission of productive and other property in relation both to the prevailing political economy and to family and ideological structures, and then explores the distribution of mechanisms and strategies of management across cultures. He concludes that notions of western 'uniqueness' are often misplaced, and that much previous work on Asian kinship has been unwittingly distorted by the application of concepts and approaches derived from other, inappropriate, social formations, simple or post-industrial. -- Back cover. Contents include: Machine derived contents note: List of illustrations -- List of tables -- Preface -- 1. The nature of the enterprise -- Part I. China: 2. The incorporation of women -- 3. The lineage and the conjugal fund -- 4. Differentiation, hierarchical and regional -- 5. Land, polyandry and celibacy in Tibet -- Part II. India: 6. Marriage and the family in Gujarat (with Esther Goody) -- 7. The high and the low -- 8. The North and the South -- 9. Kinship and modes of production -- Part III. The Near East: 10. The abominations of the Egyptians -- 11. Jacob's marriages -- 12. Marriage and property in the Arab world -- Part IV. Greece and Rome, Yesterday and Today: 13. The heiress in ancient Greece -- 14. Monogamy, property and control in Rome -- 15. Dowry, continuity and change in the eastern Mediterranean -- 16. Asia and Europe -- Notes -- References -- Index.