Goody and Schneider: the problem of definition

Goody and Schneider: the problem of definition

Titre de l'ensemble: Incest

This chapter discusses the theories on incest by Goody and Schneider. Definitions have been a major problem of incest theory. Goody and Schneider attack the problems of definition. Goody's approach is basically social, and Schneider's approach is cultural. Goody argues with Murdock about the state of anthropology as a science. Goody found three categories of interdictions among the Ashanti: (1) sexual intercourse with a woman of the matriclan; (2) intercourse with a woman of the patrician; and (3) intercourse with a married woman (adultery). Schneider minutely describes the theories of Tylor, Fortune, White, Malinowski, Seligman, Murdock, and Parsons, and points out the efforts toward synthesis by Parsons and Murdock. Schneider also notes the confusion of incest regulations with exogamous rules and points out that alliance theory is untenable because it fails to account for mother-son prohibitions in patrilineal systems and father-daughter prohibitions in matrilineal ones, and for various cases of divergence between prohibited marriage and permitted sexual relations.