1. The most important belief underlying the practice of having a widow marry one of her brothers-in-law is that:
a. her family should not have to return the bride price
b. the rights of the deceased husband must be preserved
c. all men should have more than one wife
d. widows should never have to live alone
2. The most common form of polyandry is ________, in which brothers share a wife.
a. risk taking
b. sibling polyandry
c. fraternal polyandry
d. levirate
3. When a married couple goes to live in the house of the brother of the husband's mother, the post-marital residence pattern is referred to as:
a. avunculocal
b. matrilocal
c. patrilocal
d. fratrilocal
4. In most tribal societies, rules of descent, marriage, and residence are:
a. flexible and often subject to lengthy discussion and negotiations
b. strictly enforced and rarely changed
c. known only to village elders, who are consulted whenever a decision must be made
d. unconscious, and therefore defined mostly by outsiders (such as ethnographers)
5. In general, divorces are most common among societies that are:
a. patrilineal and patrilocal
b. matrilineal and matrilocal
c. organized into bilateral descent groups
d. polyandrous and avunculocal
6. Deborah Gewertz, who has re-examined Mead's interpretations of the Tchambuli (Chambri), arrived at the conclusion that:
a. Chambri women are among the most aggressive in all human societies
b. Mead's interpretations failed to take specific historical circumstances into account
c. Chambri men were submissive due to frequent defeats in warfare
d. cultural values do not influence gender roles
7. The Kula, described by Malinowski in Argonauts of the Pacific, refers to:
a. a type of outrigger canoe used for long-distance travel by island chiefs
b. a ceremonial dance performed by the indigenous Hawaiians
c. a ritual in which red shell necklaces were traded for white armbands
d. a sacred beverage whose use was restricted to Tahitian chiefs
8. The Kula is an example of what type of exchange?
a. redistribution
b. balanced reciprocity
c. hypergamy
d. market exchange
9. The term "barter" is used to refer to:
a. the agreement on a certain price for a specified product
b. a system of unbalanced reciprocity in which goods of unequal value are exchanged
c. the direct exchange of one commodity for another
d. the redistribution of goods in a marketplace
10. The potlatch feasts of the northwest coast societies are usually interpreted as a form of:
a. long-distance barter
b. resource conservation
c. ritualized warfare
d. redistributional exchange
11. Which of the following might be interpreted as a modern example of the potlatch?
a. A local politician gives away hundreds of frozen turkeys at a campaign rally.
b. A special interest group pays the salary and expenses of a lobbyist.
c. A former president makes speeches in favor of his party's new candidate.
d. Delegates at a national convention trade buttons and other campaign memorabilia.
12. A major difference between redistributional and reciprocal economies is that:
a. reciprocal economies are more common in societies with inequalities in social status
b. redistributional economies tend to make certain individuals wealthier than others
c. reciprocal economies always involve the exchange of a recognized form of currency
d. only redistributional economies involve transfers of goods among related villagers
13. From a cross-cultural study, Jack Goody learned that bridewealth occurs more frequently in horticultural societies, whereas the dowry system is most frequently found in agricultural states. He further hypothesized that one function of the dowry system was to:
a. consolidate property in the hands of elite groups, thus increasing their wealth and status
b. spread wealth out over a larger area so that everyone in the society had about the same level of affluence
c. counteract the practice of bridewealth, non-adaptive in an agricultural state, because it allowed certain families to accumulate too much wealth by selling their daughters to the highest bidder
d. create an egalitarian society
14. Since wealth and status determine the type of marriage patterns found in agricultural states, the primary form of marriage for all but the elite was:
a. polygyny
b. polyandry
c. polygamy
d. monogamy
15. Monogamy is the primary form of marriage in most agricultural states. The probable reason this pattern is so prevalent is:
a. most agricultural states have laws against polygamous marriages of any kind because they disrupt the normal flow of the agricultural cycle
b. in agricultural societies, where land is a scarce commodity, peasants cannot afford the luxury of polygyny
c. polygyny is impossible because there are fewer women than men in agricultural states
d. most peasants can only afford to accumulate enough wealth for one dowry
16. Divorce was rare in agricultural states because of a number of factors. Which of the following is not one of the factors discussed in the text?
a. Both the corporate character of the extended family and the necessity for cooperative labor among family members usually lead to normative constraints against divorce.
b. Marriage was the most important way that land was transferred, and marriages were the basis of alliances between families and kin groups.
c. In some societies, marriage became a sacred institution and there were laws against divorce.
d. Divorce was not allowed in many, if not all, agricultural states because of the emotional disruption it caused to the family members, often making them unfit for agricultural labor.
17. In many agricultural states, women were restricted to domestic activities while men were permitted to engage in public (outside) endeavors. Women were often not allowed to own property, engage in politics, or pursue educational goals. These restrictions were reflected in a number of cultural practices such as:
a. purdah and foot binding
b. caste system
c. idiographic mediation
d. dowry and bridewealth
18. Social inequality is exemplified in the __________ of India. These social units are endogamous groupings into which a person is born and dies.
a. purdah system
b. shogun scheme
c. caste system
d. slavery system
19. Capitalist societies share three basic ideals. Which of the following is NOT one of these ideals?
a. The elements of production are privately owned.
b. Companies are free to maximize profits and accumulate wealth.
c. Land and resources should be owned and controlled by the state government, while production and services are in the hands of free enterprise.
d. Free competition and consumer independence are basic to all economic activities.
20. Anthropologists have found that kinship in industrial states:
a. often becomes solidified and molded into large descent groups called oligoclans
b. becomes much more important and clearly defined than in preindustrial societies
c. becomes less important as new structures and organizations replace and begin to perform many of the functions associated with kinship in preindustrial societies
d. tends to remain about the same as is found in chiefdom societies
21. With industrialization, the functions of the family changed, and one of the major transformations was the:
a. increase in the frequency of polyandrous marriages, especially those involving brothers
b. decrease in the mobility of members of the family since they were all tied to industrial production
c. increase in matrilocal residence and a reduction in patrilocal residence
d. diminishing importance of the extended family and the emergence of the nuclear family
22. As nuclear families replace extended families in industrial societies, older people no longer reside with their adult children. The role of the elderly in retaining and disseminating information has diminished in industrial societies. The elderly have lost much of their economic power. Sociologist Donald O. Cowgill has hypothesized that:
a. The status and role of the elderly in the future will increase because the birthrate has dropped to an all-time low.
b. There will be an elderly revolution, termed the "silver-haired rebellion," which will place much of the lost power and status back into the hands of the older segment of society.
c. As the rate of technological change accelerates, knowledge quickly becomes obsolete, and this decreases the status and role of the elderly (they are no longer the storage houses of technological knowledge; libraries and databanks have taken over this role).
d. In the future, there will be a major reorganization of kinship and the family, which will restore power to the elderly.
23. Chiefdoms and agricultural states are classified as __________ because they provide little opportunity for social mobility. Industrial states, on the other hand, are considered ___________ because social status can be achieved through individual effort.
a. oppressive; free
b. hierarchical; egalitarian
c. closed societies; open societies
d. caste cultures; kindred cultures
24. The House of Lords in Great Britain differs from the House of Commons because membership in the House of Lords is:
a. based on intellect
b. inherited through families
c. limited to those individuals who have already served in the house of commons
d. based on religious affiliation and achieved status
25. The primary mode of social mobility in Japanese society is:
a. education
b. luck
c. inheritance
d. what is called burakumin and eta