This book is an attempt to see the development of domestic institutions,
the family, marriage, conjugal roles, in relation to changes in the mode
of productive activity, and specifically with the change from hoe to
plough agriculture. These differences are related to societies in Africa
on the one hand, and in Asia and Europe on the other. The author tries
to do this in two ways. He compares information derived from a range of
human societies, historical as well as contemporary, employing the
impressionistic techniques of the social scientist and comparative
historian. But in addition, he has tried to make systematic use of
material on a range of world societies, coded in the Ethnographic Atlas.
In the main chapters of the book, the author examines general features
of the network of traditional social roles found in these two
continental areas of the Old World. He discusses the reasons why Europe
and Asia should stress marriage within the social group, monogamous
unions as well as the roles of concubine, step-parent, spinster and
adopted child, whereas in Africa, the emphasis is on marriage outside
the group, polygyny and co-wives. Similar differences emerge in a range
of other features, including the division of labour by sex. Behind all
these lie differences in the systems of agriculture and the nature of
the social hierarchies which they support. Professor Goody is firmly
committed to the idea that the social sciences have no alternative but
to be comparative and explicitly historical if they are to contribute to
the serious causal analysis of fundamental features of social
organisation and development. His broad and ambitious book will appeal
to anyone with a professional interest in social sciences - historians,
anthropologists, sociologists, geographers and economists.
