Family, marriage and kinship, gender, and age are the key principles of social organization in foraging societies. The Btsisi kinship or social and family relationship’s are at the core of the Btsisi culture. They are classified as a horticultural society. In this short paper we are going to discuss how the Btsisi find marriage, how their thoughts and their belief’s in population control, and why their kinship is as strong and long lasting as it is has been and continues to be.
Relationships that people hold in the world are very different, but that of the Btsisi people are very united. They are a lot like the relationships that our culture holds with one another. The married ones have a special relationship in the sense that they enjoy one another and value the time spent with one another. They share activities such as hunting, cooking, and fishing. The part of the culture I think is neat and a lot like ours is that if one or both of the married couples decide that they can no longer be “best friends” then they will get a divorce and find new spouses to become their new companions (Nowak & Laird, 2010). When the Btsisi culture decides that they no longer have a connection in the marriage then it is time to divorce and move on. It is a lot like we have today in our own culture.
Polygamy marriages are legal in the Btsisi culture. Pologamy or plural marriages is when a man has more than one wife at the same time. The Btsisi culture does not face the legal aspects of being a polygamist as you would here on our own culture. Sororal polygyny which is also very common in this culture is when a man marries sisters. These marriages seem to last due to the fact since they have grown up together it may reduce some of the jealousy between them (Nowak & Laird, 2010). The amount of wives a man has shown others in the tribe how wealthy he is. If a man can support many wives’ including himself this proves and shows he is wealthy to other members of the tribe. Polygamy in the United States is illegal and is considered a felony offense and is punishable by either a fine or imprisonment.
Marriage is the point a Btisi person enters adulthood (Nowak & Laird, 2010). But as it is in many other cultures, the females can be prearranged marriages before they are even born. Girls as young as 12 years old are allowed to marry, they can even marry men as old as 30, 35 and 40 years old. The only good that I can see coming out of that is that sex is withheld until the female has reached a mature age. The strange part of this is that it is almost like a catch 22 because of the fact that if you have a