Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Family Values 437a spouse for my child. Thus dowries and bride-prices are ubiquitous inhuman cultures, though goods like status and allegiance in conflicts withthird parties are also factored into the deal. Like all business transactions,the successful sale or trade of an offspring proves the good faith ofthe parties and makes them more likely to trust each other in the future.So in-laws are both genetic partners and business partners.For future-minded parents, in-laws should be chosen carefully. Notonly should parents assess the assets and trustworthiness of prospectivein-laws, but they should size up whether the dollop of good will thatcomes free with a common genetic interest in the grandchildren wouldbe put to the best use. It might be wasted on an already secure ally or animplacable foe, but could make all the difference for a clan whose sympathiesare somewhere in between. Strategic matchmaking is one outcomeof the psychology of kinship; another is rules about who can marrywhom. In many cultures people are encouraged to marry their crosscousins and forbidden to marry their parallel cousins. A cross cousin isthe child of your mother's brother or of your father's sister; a parallelcousin is a child of your mother's sister or of your father's brother. Whythe distinction? Consider the most common arrangement, in whichdaughters are traded among clans of related males, and imagine yourselfcontemplating marriage with various cousins (it doesn't matter whetheryou are male or female). If you marry your cross cousin, you are consummatingan exchange with a proven trading partner: a clan with whichyour own family (presided over by your paternal grandfather) has tradeda bride in the past (your mother or your aunt). If you marry your parallelcousin, either you are marrying within the clan (if your father and thefather of your betrothed are brothers) and bringing in no external goods,or you are marrying someone from a clan of strangers (if your mother andthe mother of your betrothed are sisters).These intrigues have spawned two of the modern myths of kinship:that in traditional societies, people have no voice in whom they marry, andthat kinship has nothing to do with genetic relatedness. The grain of truthin the first myth is that parents everywhere wield as much power as theycan to influence whom their children marry. Children do not, however,passively accept their parents' choice. People everywhere have powerfulemotions about whom they want to marry—that is, romantic love—andengagements are often fierce battles of wills between parents and children.Even when parents have the final say, the children lobby day andnight to make their feelings known, and the feelings almost always enter