Marriage
Ego (the subject from whose perspective the kinship is based) is encouraged to marry his cross cousins but discouraged from marrying his parallel cousins. New genetic material is constantly brought into the pool via Ego's father's sister's (Aunt's) husband or Ego's mother's brother's (Uncle's) wife. The system also is useful in reaffirming alliances between related lineages or clans.
Read more about this topic: Iroquois Kinship
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“Worst, when this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, and withers the hope and affection of human nature, by teaching that marriage signifies nothing but a housewife’s thrift, and that woman’s life has no other aim.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)