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A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT AND ILLEGITIMACY USING AN EVOLUTIONARY MODEL

Mara D. Giles

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Giles, Mara D., "A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY USING AN EVOLUTIONARY MODEL" (2004). Nebraska Anthropologist. 65. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nebanthro/65

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Mara D. Giles

The rules for legitimacy and illegitimacy are not universal, yet every culture classifies its children into valid and invalid A review of the literature, including Teichman, Hendrix, and Davis, has indicated that legitimacy is a status of . This status is determined by several factors including race, class, patterns, lineage systems, the role offathers, and the position of women. European and sub­ Saharan African cultures use these factors differently to validate the boundaries separating the legitimate from the illegitimate. Until as recently as thirty years ago, English culture asserted that a man had to be proven to be the legal father of a in order for it to be considered legitimate and the most successful way to prove legitimacy was through marriage. In comparison, Evans-Pritchard's research on the Nuer has shown that as a patrilineal group the legitimacy of their children is based not only on marriage but on the strong sense ofpaternal felt in the culture as well. Another contrast is Malinowski's study ofthe Trobriand Islanders, a matrilineal society that has a much simpler concept of legitimacy, for all children born to a belong to her line, yet there is still a preference for marriage. Thus it was through the institution of marriage that the concept of illegitimacy was formed The focus of this paper is to examine illegitimacy as directly related to marriage in three distinct cultures.

The concepts of legitimacy and But in order to get a clearer idea of what illegitimacy are prevalent cross­ illegitimacy is, one needs to consider culturally, whether one examines them those rules: what are they? Are they in a matrilineal society, a patrilineal one, similar in different societies or do or a modem state system. We use the cultures have widely varying rules terms legitimate and illegitimate with an pertaining to illegitimacy? intuitive understanding of the definition; In this study, the notions of yet how complete is that insight? legitimacy and illegitimacy will be Teichman (1978: 54) provides a broad examined in three distinct cultures: the definition of illegitimacy that helps our Trobriand Islanders who are a understanding: matrilineal society, the Nuer who are a patrilineage, and , a modem An illegitimate child is one state system. Additionally, the impact of whose conception and birth did fatherhood, marriage, children's not take place according to the resource-use rights and a child's socially rules which, in its ' accepted inclusion into its society will be community, govern reproduction. investigated with regards to legitimacy and illegitimacy in the aforementioned groups. This analysis will be placed within the framework of Engles's bond in order to "[specify] the father's evolutionary model of the creation of claim over the child and his obligations fatherhood leading to the concept of to it." O'Brien (1981) also makes the legitimacy. argument that paternity creates "a right ijendrix (1996: 6) argues that to a child." There is a link then between marriage is a function of the father-child fatherhood and marriage. Using Engles's

The Nebraska Anthropologist, vol. 19,2004, pp. 4-15 4 6 THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST [vol. 19,2004] evolutionary theory Hendrix (1996) one of supreme value. In other words, as states that when men recognize a result of the control of the distribution biological paternity, they view their of resources to women and their children as part of their own bodies and children, men established control over see that they, too, have a role in the sexuality of women in order to reproduction. This in turn leads to the reduce the chances of their supporting creation of fatherhood, so men will other men's children. The main way to invest in the child by contributing do this was through the invention of resources to it and its mother. This is not monandrous marriage: the socially as direct an involvement in rearing a recognized union of a woman to one child as the mother has with man (Hendrix 1996). In the case of and nursing, but it does provide the matrilineal societies, it is the mother's mother with safety and nourishment, brother who has the role of social father: which she passes on to the offspring. he is the child's link to the rest of the "Resulting from the decision to make an community, acting as teacher, guardian, investment of energy and resources in and guide. Although in these societies the mother and child, men want to make there seems to be less restriction sure it is their own offspring in which regarding women's sexuality, there are they are investing. Paternity assurance is still rules pertaining to the distribution of more difficult to determine when a resources to men's sister's offspring, as woman has more than one male sexual well as the presence of monandry. This partner and a man may be less willing to will be illustrated subsequently in the impart his resources to her if there is the paper by a look at the Trobriand chance that he is helping her to raise Islanders. Though there are exceptions another man's child, for in essence this of polyandry as well, they are too rare to would mean that he is not really a part of be considered for these purposes. These the procreative process and is only being exceptions are often ecological used as a material provider. Marriage adaptations that, given another option, stems, in part, from this new role of would not be observed in their society. fatherhood and the passing of resources For instance, the Inuit have practiced to the mother and her child. O'Brien ecologically based polyandry. Because (1981) adds that the control men have the harsh environment in which they live over the resources they provide to a made survival of a woman and her mother and her child gave rise to sexual children difficult, it sometimes to more inequality and men's control over than one man pulling in resources to women and their children which helped supply a household. Both men would to institutionalize marriage. Hendrix have sexual access to the woman, but the (1996) supports this by stating that men amount of conflict that created made that circumvented women and enhanced their type of union both unstable and less than role of father by claiming that without ideal. When the resources of both men their direct .support of the mother were no longer needed, or when the through provisioning she would not be conflict led to violence, the polyandrous able to properly or fully care for her situation dissolved immediately (Balikci child, thus reducing the woman's 1970). function to mere carrier of the child. A socially acknowledged union Therefore the father's role evolved into is important because it announces the [Giles] A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY 7

claim a man has to a specific woman and have legitimate access to the wealth or the offspring they produce. Men use status because of inclusion and those marriage to legally or socially lay claim who do not because of their exclusion to their children because they put in from the group to which the distributor effort and resources into their of resources belongs. Some may argue maintenance. Inheritance becomes a that there are societies that have factor to keep the link between child and exogamous and still produce social father known. whether the legitimate children, but there are cultural inheritance is in the form of wealth, adaptations that allow for these land, or status, what results is the circumstances. Consider the Nuer and recognition that the child is the their capture of Dinka children. The legitimate child of said father because it abducted Dinka is considered at the very was the product of the socially least to be the child of the captor and if acknowledged union. adopted by the captor then the Dinka But what is socially acceptable belongs to the father's lineage. If the marriage? Another way of asking this is Dinka is not adopted then he "attaches do all marriages create legitimate himself to his 's people or to the offspring? For as Teichman (1978: 53) people who have married his sister or writes, daughter" (Evans-Pritchard 1951: 20) and his children, "having no lineage on From the fact that the children of the father's side, seek affiliation to the a forbidden sexual union are mother's lineage" (Evans-Pritchard illegitimate, it does not follow 1951: 25). So it is that the members of that children of a sanctioned the captor's household may not marry sexual union must necessarily be the captured Dinka and if he is adopted legitimate. he may not marry any girl from his Nuer pater's lineage. Conversely if he is not The answer lies III the intrinsic link adopted, then he may marry a girl from between resource control and who has his captor's lineage because he does not legitimate access to those resources. Kin, legally belong to it. Thus while the Nuer meaning direct descendants (offspring) practice "clan exogamy" (Evans­ and close relatives (siblings), of the Pritchard 1951: 29) they still look for distributors of resources are the first other Nuer, or people assimilated into group to have legitimate access to those Nuer culture. Therefore it is still a resources because of their close social cultural endogamy, falling into the and biological bonds to the distributor. description of endogamous marriage just The next legitimate group regarding presented. resource-use rights is those living Additionally marriage, when endogamously. Here endogamy means used as a distributive force of wealth, is people living in the same region, or another way to create status and belonging to the same culture, race, statuslessness, thus legitimacy and , class, or the like. This is the illegitimacy. Recall that socially beginning of the classification of people accepted marriage is not only a way to and the existence of status (those who claim rights over women's reproduction belong) and statuslessness (those who do but to claim rights over the children not belong); in other words, those who produced. The advantage for a man is 8 THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST [vol. 19,2004] not only to be a part of the reproductive type of system, claiming a right to a process but also to have someone to child incites that child to claim use of inherit from him and to continue his line, land or inheritance of assets from the whether socially or biologically, father. acknowledging the less obvious link of Legitimacy pertains to only child to social father. This is the case certain children being able to lay claim whether it is the mother's brother who on the father though. Because resources has the important role of socializing the are limited to a certain extent in all child in the Trobriand Islander's and societies, accordingly, want to other matrilineal societies, or the pater in retain as much control over the land and the Nuer and similar patrilineages, or the material goods and status as possible. patriarch in the English or other dowry­ Therefore creating endogamous based household. This passmg of classifications keeps those resources resources gives a man a sense of closer to the distributor by stating only contribution to the well-being of the those who fall into his particular child in his care. It acknowledges the category can inherit available wealth. inclusion of the child into his lineage or Socially acceptable marriage is a as well as announces to the derivative of endogamous classifications community the man's responsibility to because marrying endogamously retains socially prepare the child for its own role the wealth in a particular group. Since in society. All of this also resonates the both a child's parents belong to the urge for a man's self-continuity and his endogamous group, so does the child, connection to procreation, whether thus it is considered a legitimate through direct or inclusive fitness. The inheritor. Consider an example, advantage for the child of having a man claim rights over him or her is to have In early times the Church always someone from whom the child can demanded that the parties to a inherit and to benefit his or her potential Christian marriage both be children. For instance, in lineage Christians. Marriages of systems where resources belong to a Christians to Jews or infidels corporate descent group and cannot be were illegal. .. Any children of directly devolved, the use of the such a union would of course be resources, such as land, can be passed on illegitimate (Teichman 1978: 35). (Goody 1976). Fathers and lineages that have worked hard to socially establish Although exogamous unions, whether themselves by increasing their wealth they are inter-religious, inter-caste, inter­ have higher status, thus pass on a greater racial, etc. do take place, as stated above right to use the land to their children they are often considered socially illegal (Weiner 1979) or more control over who and the products of such unions are not uses what part of the land. By contrast, recognized as legitimate, i.e. within the inheritance systems that have personal rules. Prescribing endogamous marriages property pass the land and capital helps to prevent mixing of groups and to directly to children. Men that have reduce illegitimacy. One defense for this worked harder to make capital gains, way of thinking may have been the have more wealth to impart to their difficulties in trying to decide to which offspring (Goody 1976). Thus in either group did the child belong, for being of [Giles] A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY 9 both groups it was a "misfit in the status product child may be illegitimate for system" (Hendrix 1996: 29). But in other reasons though.) On the other reality, these rules are used "to organize hand, mother-son_ and sister-brother and limit claims against the family will always produce illegitimate estate" (Hendrix 1996: 84) or the group offspring. These relationships are taboo to which the distributor of resources because since both parties of the union belongs. Consequently, legitimacy is a belong to the same lineage, it is social status of marriage, but not just any type incest. of marriage. It is the status of the For the Trobriand Islanders, all socially acceptable marriage and is a forms of illegitimacy stem directly from way to create rules of inclusion and the incest taboo. Although Malinowski exclusion for resource and status reported that the Trobriand Islanders did distribution. not understand the connection between Illegitimacy of children in its and pregnancy, the simplest form is a child born of incest. reality is that they have a very complex But incest as viewed in our culture, i.e. mythological explanation for pregnancy sexual relationships (and children born to accommodate their cultural forms of thereof) between near-related kin or inclusion and exclusion (Montague persons fulfilling those roles, is not so 1971). Since the Trobrianders are a viewed in all cultures. Near-relatedness matrilineal people, lineage passes begins with the nuclear family: ­ through the mother, but rank and land­ child and sibling-sibling, and spreads out use rights pass through the father. from there to the next most closely However this society also practices blood-related family members. Most avunculocality. The maternal uncle is societies do in fact forbid sexual socially responsible for the children of intercourse between relatives in the his sister; as Weiner (1979: 329) nuclear family (Murdock 1965). While explains: "the avuncular relationship some cultures, such as our own, extend replaced the paternal, and the authority the prohibition to non-genetically related of descent superceded the primacy of the individuals performing roles of the nuclear family." In order to understand nuclear family, such as step-patents and the Trobrianders' sense of illegitimacy, stepsiblings, other societies sanction we must first understand the relationship some biologically incestuous sexual between sister and brother. Because of relationships because they are not the nature of the matrilineal-avuncular socially incestuous. For example, relationship, a brother and sister have a Montague (1971) noted that the strong social bond with one another that Trobriand Islanders do acknowledge leads to physical proximity and sister-brother, mother-son, and father­ emotional closeness. In context of child daughter incest. But the latter is often rearing they are much like husband and overlooked because technically the wife. However, because of the strict father is of a different lineage than the incest taboo between sister and brother daughter and is not considered either they must perform avoidance behaviors social or biological incest. Any offspring constantly. resulting from such a union are not If an unmarried Trobriand classified as illegitimate solely based on woman gives birth to a child, any the father-daughter relationship. (The married couple that lacks or desires a 10 THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST [vol. 19, 2004]

child can adopt it. If there is no one else uniquely human employment. At this to adopt the infant the responsibility falls point rank becomes very complex and upon the mother's brother since he is since inter-rank-class unions are possible also the child's main male authority because legitimization is still figure. However, by adopting it, this consummated by the husband (Montague indicates that the child's maternal uncle 1971), I will not examine the various is also its father. But since the infant's rank systems. mother is also the uncle's sister, this Thus the two most basic forms of implies incest, albeit social incest. Trobriand child legitimacy are attained However, this is taboo and thus the child through a husband. The first form of would remain illegitimate. Yet legitimization is that a husband, in Malinowski had claimed that the passing land use and possession rights to Trobrianders had no concept of the link a child, classifies it as legitimately between sex and procreation so why human as opposed to animal, for animals should this concept of illegitimacy exist? do not own or work land as humans do. Montague (1971: 365) refutes this idea The second form of legitimization is that arguing that "[t]he Trobriand Islanders the presence of a husband, and hence a are, and apparently always have been, man from a different lineage than the fully aware of the correlation between mother, makes a child a culturally sexual intercourse and pregnancy." The acceptable human, implying that the Trobrianders believe in spirits of child is not the. product of incest, at least ancestors that desire to reincarnate social or terminological incest. Thus we themselves, and so they take on a child­ see that marriage is important because it spirit form called a waiwaia that inserts symbolizes the legitimacy of the child itself into the woman through her head produced. or vagina, the latter of which can be Leaving the genetic and opened in ways other than sexual psychological effects of incest aside, intercourse (Montague 1971). Once the why should products of incest be waiwaia is housed in the woman's body, socially problematic? What would lead it needs the menstrual blood for them to be illegitimate? For one thing, nourishment. A man's semen, but not there is the complex matter of necessarily the husband's, is needed to classification: who is this individual in keep the blood from flowing out of the relation to its kin? With lineage systems mother's womb. The waiwaia enters this in particular, a confusion of this sort substance and uses it to take on would make it difficult to categorize the physicality, which is then molded into child into its separate marriageable and human form by the husband's proximity non-marriageable groups. In societies to the mother during pregnancy. When where there are already limited numbers the infant is born, the husband of the of marriageable people to choose from, woman legitimizes the child through the it is necessary to classify people properly ritual "exchanges of objects ... which in order to avoid incestuous unions, establishes a relationship of equality" whether they are biologically or socially (Montague 1971: 361) between the incestuous. For another thing, there is husband as father and the child. This act the issue of breaking the incest taboo gives the child rank and if the child is a that exists in the society, for as noted son, the use of the lineage's land, a above, these definitely exist for the [Giles] A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY 11 nuclear family in most societies, if not and this in terms of illegitimacy makes for all classificatory , daughters, "social control of sex and fathers, and sons. By virtue of the fact reproduction ... more repressive" that the taboo, i.e. cultural law, would (Hendrix 1996: 77). So if a Nuer child is have been broken would make the born out of wedlock, not only is it using offspring of the union illegitimate resources that the mother's family needs because of its illegality. Marriage then compensated by the genitor's lineage, seems to be an acceptable and effective but it also has not been classified into its solution for controlling this form of framework of interlineage relationships illegitimacy, for it gives people (Evans-Pritchard 1951) and its culturally appropriate sexual access to marriageable and non-marriageable one another in order to produce children categories to avoid incest. For this that can be classified into marriageable reason, although is not and non-marriageable groups frowned upon, premarital birth is. themselves. Additionally, the Nuer are a The Nuer also abide by an incest brideprice society and though they taboo to determine legitimacy and comprehend paternity certainty and have illegitimacy and have very strict rules as land-use rights and status inheritance, to who is non-marriageable based on children are also valued as resources both social and biological incest. These themselves. To understand then how the include, Nuer determine child legitimacy, one the clan kinship of the common must look at the objectives brideprice spear; the buth kinship of accomplishes. Firstly, it legitimizes the collateral lineage an of ; marriage union as proof that it is not uterine kinship; kinship through incestuous; secondly, it creates affinal the genitor; the kinship of bonds that are important for alliance as cognation; kinship which the well as for kinship categorization of birth of a child creates between marriageable and nonmarriageable; affines; the kinship thirdly, it provides a family with acknowledged by acceptance of economic replacement of female labor. bridewealth; and the kinship by Through payment of brideprice, children analogy of the age-set (Evans­ are included in their father's lineage, but Pritchard 1951: 34). as Evans-Pritchard (1951: 98) explains it does not necessarily have to be the These are the result of the link biological father that makes a claim on a to the paternal line as well as the child for "[t]he man in whose name the maternal. Since the Trobriand Islanders cattle were paid is always their pater, the have a matrilineal system, they are legal or lineage father, whether he is concerned with incest and illegitimacy their genitor or not." So when a Nuer only in relation to the mother's line. But woman has a baby out of wedlock, it is the Nuer, being a patrilineal society, still cared for and belongs to her lineage understand that socio-biological link of until a man pays her brideprice and father to child in addition to the mother's legitimizes her child by making a claim connection. Consequently their non­ on it, allowing the child then to make marriageable rules become more claims back on him (Hendrix 1996). intricate since more factors are involved, However, if the legal husband, the one 12 THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST [vol. 19, 2004J who paid the brideprice, dies and his status are achievements of power and widow becomes sexually involved with social dominance, there will be less a man not of her dead husband's lineage, inclination by families to share that any children she bears to the lover are power with illegal members of their still born to her husband's lineage unless group. the lover selects to pay the brideprice to In hierarchical societies like wed her and claim his children legally. England, "[l]egitimacy is relative to the Thus it is again through the transaction legal system" (Teichman 1978: 3) which of marriage that rights of inclusion over makes both illegitimacy and legitimacy a child are claimed and that enables. a legal statuses based on legal marriage. child to inherit resources from its father. According to , a legal Davis (1939a : 224) states that marriage is one that is not voidable, "[a] universal rule is that the illegitimate where void means the law does not child does not acquire full membership acknowledge the marriage. For example, in the family group or family line of his a in England would be a parent" because it is not the product of polygynous union for the law does not the socially sanctioned union and not recognize that as a legal form of legally bound to the lineally significant . marriage and any children born to such a parent. Since in the majority of all union would be illegitimate. societies it is the woman who is Because of the nature of the economically dependant on her husband dowry system described by Goody for reasons already shown, inheritance is (1976), English marriages are passed down from the father to the child, monogamous. The fact that there is land or in the case of matrilineal systems tenure means there are limited resources from the mother's brother to the child. to pass on to offspring. The combination But an illegitimate child, not being a full of monogamy and scarcity of assets member of a family and thus not a legal leads to fewer descendants and less successor of a social father also cannot spreading of wealth. Goody (1976) inherit from him. Davis puts this very discusses the idea of diverging succinctly: devolution in which both sons and daughters received inheritance to keep [s ]ince the child does not them at their level in the hierarchy and descend from the father and does thus in the socially dominant positions. not bear his name, it follows that (For those families that were poor this the father's family ... will scarcely would not have mattered much, but laws wish, as a family, to see property are often written to benefit those who inherited by a filius nullius ... thus have wealth and power to lose.) In the rule of noninheritance is a monogamy, the birth or survival of sons corollary of the rule of is not guaranteed so wealth is often nondescent, both being part and passed to a daughter. Originally the parcel of .the reproductive property remained her father's until she structure. (1939a : 225) married when it passed to her husband. "In law, in lineage, and in matters This is especially true as societies having to do with property, a woman, become more highly stratified, for as until modem times, was a kind of increase of inheritance of wealth and nullity" (Teichman 1978: 83). As this [Giles] A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY 13 was the case, children also did not because of the available resources. But legally belong to the mother since this in itself did not legitimate it. And what of the poor, who had no means to [t]he rearing of children is a task support their illegitimate children? In which requires a considerable pre-Roman times through the 16th amount of money and cannot be century, the illegitimate child was put to successfully undertaken by an death and sometimes the mother was individual who is herself in a too, especially if the illegitimacy was the state of financial dependence result of adultery. In the 1600s the (Teichman 1978: 18). church began to care for many of the illegitimate children, using them as labor Reasons for. this non-legal status of resources. But when the church "began women had to do with the power to pass to feel overburdened by the large on inheritance and retain status and number of illegitimate in [its] care" power in the man's name, whether the (Teichman 1978: 25), it looked for a way father or the husband. However, as a to get financial help from the putative result of the stratified society, upper fathers. This was not always successful class women were able to voice their and in the 1800s the parish grew tired of political and social opinions more freely the work involved in maintaining because of the financial contributions illegitimate children and passed the they made to their marriage. Resulting burden on to the mother. This action from this, over the centuries there were changed the way women were viewed in legal changes in which women were society because until this time allowed to own property and petition for "unmarried mothers had no legal rights on their own. This implies that at all in regard to their children" they were financially less dependent on (Teichman 1978: 28) and now with the their husbands than previously and could church demanding the responsibility be support themselves without their removed from it and put on the woman, husbands' capital assistance. In 1839 there was the idea that an illegitimate legislation was passed that legally child could even have a parent: the recognized women as mothers and mother. Removing the label of filius guardians of their own children nullius from the child changed the status (Teichman 1978), because of the ability of women from null to parents, thereby for them to own property and wealth and opening the door for them to petition for maintain their children themselves. rights of custody and adoption of their However, this new law pertained own offspring born out of wedlock. As to legitimate children only. Because the already stated, wealthier families did not illegitimate child was not born under a have such difficulties for they had legal contract and therefore had no legal resources to provide. But poor women father, it was considered filius nullius, were limited in their options and no-one's child. In fact, as late as 1958 severely stigmatized until they too could English law stated "only a man can own property and participate in the legitimate a child" (Teichman 1978: 33). workforce. An illegitimate child of the wealthy Adoption, not for the sake of could be cared for by its mother and her finding an heir, but to remove the shame family or maintained by its father of illegitimacy posed a problem for it 14 THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST [vol. 19,2004]

was one thing to maintain an illegitimate No child shall be brought into the child and quite another to legalize it. world without a man, and one Several Adoption Acts from the first part man, assuming the role of of the 20th century gave an adopted child sociological father ... the male the same rights as a legitimate child link between a child and the rest (Teichman 1978). While this was of the community (Malinowski, acceptable when a man (whether the 1930: 134). biological father or not) adopted a child because of his long-standing legal power Kingsley Davis (1939a ) also asserts that and tradition to pass on inheritance, a father is paramount for giving full there was fear amongst lawmakers that social status to the child and its mother. illegitimacy would be abolished should But as just indicated, legal adoption of a women be allowed to adopt their child by an unmarried woman is possible illegitimate offspring for the purpose of for legitimization in the modem state legitimization, even if they had the society. Teichman (1978) introduces the financial freedom to do so. What concept of the family, whatever the lawmakers objected to was the potential societal concept may be, as criteria for disappearance of the institution of inclusion or exclusion. As we saw with marriage, for if women could legitimize the Trobriand Islanders descent and thus their own children born out of a family, was traced back through the sanctioned union, why have marriage to mother's lineage. The Nuer trace descent begin with? The segregation of patrilineally, which defines the family. legitimate and illegitimate was necessary England, too, traces family through in order to draw a distinct line between males, the traditional guardians of the legal and the illegal. This generated "names, property-rights and power" another whole set of arguments trying to (Teichman 1978: 62). In essence then, an maintain an ideology of legitimacy. If illegitimate child is excluded from the women could now pass inheritance to family as a social unit, not allowed to their own offspring, then that potentially partake of the social advantages of being made marriage obsolete. But lawmakers, included. Teichman herself argues as voices of the powerful in society, against this point saying this is not believed the sanctity of marriage and of enough of a definition for illegitimacy, the family were what separated the but taking the three facets together, moral from the immoral, and they used fatherhood, marriage, and family and all these ideas to defme legitimacy and the rewards stemming from them, we see illegitimacy instead. Today the debate from where the concept of illegitimacy regarding illegitimacy in many modem came. state systems is an issue of immorality We still return to the issue of over illegality. adoption by women in modem state But if at this point marriage is no societies. As has been demonstrated, it is longer a criterion for legitimacy, at least· with the increase of the status and power in some places, what then creates the of women that the concept of illegitimate? Malinowski's Principle of illegitimacy comes into question. Indeed Legitimacy states, punitive measures against transgressors become more egalitarian in societies where women have more power, but [Giles] A TRI-CULTURAL LOOK AT LEGITIMACY AND ILLEGITIMACY 15 they never disappear (Hendrix 1996). already greatly removed from it, desire But as women are able to take more to find ways to be a part of it and ensure control over their lives, they become less their social connection to the child. We dependent on men for their existence, have seen this with the Trobriand and so do their children from a fmancial Islanders whose concept of fatherhood is perspective. To be sure the combination social and not completely biological, and of resource scarcity and paternity with the Nuer who value children as certainty created marriage, and while resources and continuance of lineages, fatherhood, marriage, and the family are and with the English who found that cross-cultural determinants for when men were no longer the proverbial legitimacy and illegitimacy, if those breadwinners they advocated still for commonalities are not necessary when marriage so they could remain connected women are financially independent, socially and biologically to their what answers for the persistence of children. So perhaps the concept of legitimacy and illegitimacy? legitimacy is the result of a given man Perhaps all the rules for deterring acknowledging his care for a child as a illegitimacy, such as early marital age means to demonstrate his inclusion in for girls in some societies, or severe that child's, and thus his society's and punitive action taken against the life's, existence. Or perhaps it is as individuals for their indiscretion, or even Hendrix (1996) claimed, a power issue the ability of women to adopt their own men enjoyed having over the sexuality child are adaptive responses to a bigger of women and the children they picture. Perhaps the ultimate cause for produced, and they are loath to give that having the separation between the up. legitimate and the illegitimate is a way Whatever the ultimate causes for to reduce the number of births so illegitimacy are, whether resource resources are not used so quickly. For by distribution, fatherhood, or family, limiting the number of children born surely marriage is the defining factor. In within a framework ofmIes, the number all three societies at which were looked, of people claiming resource-use rights is marriage was used as the determinant of also limited. Early marital age for girls legitimacy and the exclusion of the generally results in fewer illegitimate illegitimate from perquisites of the births. Punishment of offenders deters legally sanctioned union. Having just many others from having illegitimate looked at three cultures, though vastly children. Adoption of children by their different, one might question the own mothers is a solid legal solution assertion that marriage and legitimacy of making the illegitimate legitimate, and if children go hand in hand. But marriage the mothers are fmancially responsible is a cross-cultural phenomenon, as are for their offspring they may be less legitimacy and illegitimacy. likely to have other children unless they can maintain them. Perhaps then the References Cited concept of illegitimacy is a method of popUlation control used worldwide. Balikci, Asen Or perhaps it is that need that 1989. The Netsilik Eskimo. Waveland most people have to feel included in the Press, Inc, Prospect Heights. procreative process. Many men, who are 16 THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST [vol. 19,2004]

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