Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

10.1 Discuss the general components of social structure, including status, the family, and marriage.

10.2 Discuss how anthropologists understand incest avoidance and the incest taboo.

10.3 Discuss how anthropologists understand age as an aspect of social structure.

10.4 Describe the social structure, family, marriage, and age in foraging societies.

10.5 Describe the social structure, family, marriage, descent groups, and age for tribal societies.

10.6 Discuss how status differences, the family, and age are related in chiefdom societies.

10.7 Discuss the family, kinship, marriage, and age patterns in agricultural states.

10.8 Discuss the type of stratification characteristic of agricultural states.

10.9 Discuss the social structure, family, marriage, and age patterns in industrial and postindustrial societies.

10.10 Compare the class structures of Britain, the United States, Japan, and the former Soviet Union.