Adolescence Anthropological Inquiry

ADOLESCENCE
An Anthropological Inquiry
Alice Schlegel
Herbert Barry III
lffil
THE FREE PRESS
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Collier Macmillan Canada

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Maxwell Macmillan International

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Copyright © 1991 by Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry III
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schlegel, Alice.
Adolescence : an anthropological inquiry / Alice Schlegel, Herbert
Barry III.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-02-927895-3
1. Adolescence-Cross-cultural studies. I. Barry, Herbert.
II. Title.
HQ796.S4139 1991
305.23'5-dc20 90-25216
CIP
Contents
Preface vii
1. The Anthropological Study of Adolescence 1
2. An Ethological Approach to Human Social
Organization 18
3. Looking at Adolescent Socialization Across Cultures 32
4. Adolescents and Their Families 44
5. Peer Groups and Community Participation 67
6. Marriage, Mating, and the Duration of Adolescence 92
7. Adolescent Sexuality 107
8. Violating Cultural Norms 133
9. The Adolescent Self 157
10. Gender Differences: Final and Proximate Causes 182
11. Review and Prospect 198
Notes 209
References 215
Appendix I: Societies in the Sample 229
Appendix II: Variables Relating to Adolescence 244
Appendix III: Techniques for Analyzing the Coded
Information 252
Index 255
Preface
In spite of years of anthropological research on child socialization, adoles-

cence has received little attention from anthropologists. (Margaret Mead's
work described in Coming of Age in Samoa is one of the few exceptions to
such a generalization.) The study on which we draw in this book is a response
to the previous neglect. At the time we collected our data, we had to rely for
the most part on brief, or even incidental,mention of the treatment and be-
havior of adolescents in reports devoted to other issues. It is not unusual for
an ethnographic monograph to contain three or four pages about weddings
and only a couple of paragraphs or a few scattered sentences about adoles-
cent life. Nevertheless, we were able to retrieve a good deal of information
about a number of issues. An increasing number of reports are being pub-
lished to fill this gap in the socialization literature.
Our work is unique, we believe, because of its scope. A broad range of
measures of adolescent behavior and treatment were coded and assessed in a
worldwide representative sample of preindustrial societies. With few excep-
tions, studies of adolescence by psychologists and sociologists have been
conducted in modern, industrial (or modernizing, industrializing) societies.
There is no way of knowing how widely applicable their findings are. We take
a cross-cultural approach and treat adolescence as a universal social and cul-
tural phenomenon. Single-society studies, whatever the culture under inves-
tigation, can be assessed vis-a-vis the general patterns we have traced.
This is an anthropological inquiry. We have looked for regularities in
behavior in societies across the world; at the same time, we have searched for
cultural differences and their concomitants.While our concern is human be-
havior, we remember that Homo sapiens is a species of primates. Where ap-
propriate, we have drawn from the research of ethologists and primatologists
to enlarge our understanding of humankind.
Anthropologists have, over the years, been integrating the theoretical
positions, methods, and research findings of other social scientists into their
corpus of knowledge. We have drawn on the works of sociologists and psy-
vii
viii Preface
chologists in our development of hypotheses and our interpretations of the

statistical analyses. We have looked to historians to provide case studies out
of the European and American past to complement the ethnographic reports
on non-Western peoples.
We came to this research project from different directions. The first au-
thor, an anthropologist, had written about traditional Hopi adolescence and
was fresh from experiencing the adolescence of her son and daughter. The
second author, a psychologist, had participated in a number of cross-cultural
studies coding and analyzing data on infancy and childhood. Our work to-
gether began with a study of adolescent initiation ceremonies. A cross-
cultural study of adolescence seemed to be the logical next step.
The code consists of 341 variables coded separately for girls and boys.
Only a portion of the code was tested and used for this study. The variables
that we selected were those related to our different theoretical interests.
Schlegel 's research on kinship, social organization, and gender are most
apparent in Chapters 2, 4, 5, 6, and 10. Barry's work on deviance and on
personality constitute an important resource for the planning and writing of
Chapters 8 and 9.
The coding for the study, under our joint direction, was done at the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh. We were assisted by five coders: Ehsan M. Fahim,Gra-
tia L. Meyer, Caterina Provost, Thomas C.H. Scott, and Janet Shuster. We
are indebted to the National Institute of Mental Health for supporting this
part of the project.
Barry arranged the data for statistical analysis, conducted analyses at
the University of Pittsburgh, and prepared the tables. Schlegel wrote the text
at the University of Arizona; she conducted additional analyses with the help
of Rohn Eloul. Margaret St. John and Judith Werner provided references for
Chapter I to works on adolescence in the fields of psychology and sociology,
respectively. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for its sup-
port of this phase of the project.
Colleagues and friends listened, read sections, provided references, and
gave sound advice and criticism. Susan Milmoe, our editor at The Free Press,
rescued us from many infelicitous phrases. Doris Sample prepared the manu-
script. We thank all of these, and our able assistants, for their valuable con-
tributions.
Alice Schlegel
Tucson, Arizona
Herbert Barry III
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
I
The Anthropological Study
of Adolescence
TODA Y'S adolescent is easy to define as the teenager. The adolescent in

preindustrial societies is more elusive. Does social adolescence even exist in
societies or social strata in which children marry young, in some cases before
puberty? Is adolescence extended when full adulthood is not achieved until
the mid-twenties or even older? All peoples-and all families-have to deal
with biological and social changes as their children transform into adults. In
differences across cultures in the treatment and behavior of persons aged 11
to 17 or so, are there common features? If so, on what are they based? How
can we account for the variability?
When G. S. Hall (1916) discovered adolescence, so to speak, he assumed
that its age-specific features were behavioral consequences of physiological
drives (Muus 1975). He emphasized the Sturm und Drang of adolescence, the
emotional turbulence beginning at puberty that would inevitably be out-
grown when the person moved into full adulthood in the early twenties. Be-
cause the social and psychological characteristics of adolescence have a
physiological basis, he argued, an adolescent stage is an inescapable feature
of human development. Although this thesis has been countered by many,
including Mead (1928) in her work on Samoan adolescents, and his theory
that individual development recapitulates the cultural history of the species is
no longer taken seriously, the issues he identified are still being debated. His
work on the peer group prepared the ground for numerous studies of peer
relationships (e.g., Hollingshead 1949; Coleman 1961); and his identification
of adolescence as a period of emotional }ability received further attention
from psychologists (e.g., Kandel and Lesser 1972).
Whether or not adolescence is a universal social stage of life is another
question. All peoples recognize the biological changes that occur with repro-
ductive maturation, but is an adolescent social stage common across cultures
or only a product of industrialization?
1
2 ADOLESCENCE
The view of life as comprising a series of stages has a long history in the
West. It dates at least as far back as the 6th century B.C. and continues
throughout the Middle Ages, as one element in those cosmos-ordering sche-
mas that so engaged the attention of our ancestors. The concept was repre-
sented iconographically in many "Ages of Life" sculptures and paintings;
later, it was di ff used as a theme in popular art through widely distributed
prints. Not until the late 19th century did the "Ages of Life" theme begin to
seem provincial and out of date (cf. Aries 1962, Chapter 1). In these classifi-
catory representations, adolescence stood along with infancy, childhood,
and the various stages of adulthood and senescence. The adolescent was
often depicted at sport or in courtship, as Aries (1962:24) wrote: "feasting,
boys and girls walking together, a court of love, and the Maytime wedding
festivities or hunt of the calendars.'' It may be that medieval adolescents en-
tertained their elders through mock combat on the playing field as they still
do in high school sports events, and that adults found as much amusement or
annoyance in the romantic adventures of adolescents then as they do today.
This tradition seems to have been forgotten, so that it is now common-
place to assume that adolescence as a stage did not exist until extended
schooling, which prolonged dependence upon parents, created it. Those who
believe that adolescence is an artifact of contemporary conditions find sup-
port in Aries ( 1962), whose comprehensive study of childhood was one of the
first ripples in the new wave of intimate history of daily life. After discussing
the variable terms applied to young people in French, Aries (1962:29) con-
cluded: "People had no idea of what we call adolescence, and the idea was a
long time taking shape.'' (For a recent statement of this position, see Sebald
1984.)
We believe that Aries misapplied contemporary usage and understand-
ing to earlier historical periods. First, terms such as adolescens (L.) referred
more to dependency status than to age, and thus were not restricted to people
in the teenage years. Variability in the use of terms, therefore, does not imply
that people had no concept of this stage of life. Second, most of Aries's his-
torical data come from the nobility, who married their children early for dy-
nastic reasons, thus propelli~g them abruptly into adulthood. In this class,
high social status overrode age status in determining how the child was
treated. In other classes, young people were socially midway between child-
hood and adulthood. Other historians (Roubin 1977; Davis 1971) illumi-
nated the age-specific customs of European adolescents and youths for the
early modern period, some of them, such as the charivari or "rough music"
(mocking of inappropriate marriages [cf. Chapter 51), still practiced until
fairly recent times. While adolescents as we know them-kept in the natal
home under the authority of parents, attending school, and bedeviled by a
bewildering array of occupational choices-are a modern phenomenon, ad-
olescence as a social stage with its own activities and behaviors, expectations
and rewards, is well recorded in the history and literature of earlier times.
The Anthropological Study of Adolescence 3
Shakespeare's works alone give ample evidence that some of the behavioral
dispositions we expect to find in contemporary adolescents were recognized
in the 16th century: the rebellious "son" (Caliban) and dutiful daughter of
The Tempest, the hell-raising Price Hal of Falstaff, and the hopelessly ideal-
istic romantic lovers of Romeo and Juliet all have their present-day counter-
parts.
Social scientists generally agree that adolescence is a period intervening
between childhood and full adulthood, during which preparation for adult
occupational, marital, and social class statuses and roles is initiated or inten-
sified. Coleman (1980) summed up adolescence as including biological and
affective reorganization, severance of early emotional ties to parents, and
experimentation with social roles. While anthropologists have made a few
extended studies of adolescence in particular societies (Mead 1928; Elwin
1947), the great bulk of research on adolescence has been conducted by psy-
choanalysts and developmental psychologists, with sociologists contributing
a fair amount.
Researchers in recent years have been examining adolescence in an up-
dated "Ages of Man" framework, variously called life stages, the life span,
or the life course (Bush and Simmons 1981 ). Emphasis is placed on the rela-
tion of proximate stages or the problems of stage transition somewhat more
than on the stages themselves; when attention is paid to a particular stage,
e.g., adolescence, it is often viewed explicitly as bearing the fruits of preced-
ing stages and sowing the seed for following ones (cf. Erikson 1950; Newman
and Newman 1976).
However, the approaches differ somewhat among disciplines. Psycho-
analysts tend to look at adolescence as the time when childhood conflicts are
resolved and the person learns to control sexual and aggressive impulses (cf.
Blos 1979). Developmental psychologists also deal with the movement out of
childhood, focusing on cognitive reorganization (cf. Petersen 1988). Sociol-
ogists, on the other hand, emphasize adolescence as a period of socialization
for adult social roles (Bush and Simmons 1981 ). Putting it simplistically, so-
ciologists view adolescence from the perspective of adulthood, whereas psy-
choanalysts and developmental psychologists treat it as part of child
development.
These differing perspectives of the disciplines lead to somewhat differ-
ent conclusions about the universality of an adolescent social stage. The de-
velopmental psychologist and psychoanalyst look for some period of
transition between childhood and adulthood that allows affective resolution
and cognitive restructuring to occur, making adolescence a psychological im-
perative.
To the sociologist, however, adolescence may appear unnecessary in so-
cieties in which adult social roles can be learned or anticipated in childhood.
For example, Friedenberg ( 1973: 110) averred that in most primitive cultures,
"one is either a child or an adult and adolescence is absent" because "ado-
4 ADOLESCENCE
lescence is conceived as a distinct stage of life in societies so complicated and

differentiated that each individual's social role and function takes years to
define and learn." In other words, adolescence is identified as a training pe-
riod, which can be dispensed with when no special training is needed. How-
ever, most sociological studies of adolescence deal with modern society and
do not concern themselves with the question of universality. The definition
of adolescence given by Elder ( l 975a:3), for example, explicitly confines it-
self to contemporary adolescence:
Despite a lack of consensus among social scientists on the social bound-
aries of contemporary adolescence, the clearest marker for entry into ad-
olescence is the transition from primary to secondary school (from sixth
to seventh grade). Entry into one or more adult roles (marriage, parent-
hood, full-time employment, financial independence) is commonly re-
garded as the upper boundary.
Another consequence of the differences among the sister disciplines in-
fluenced our thinking. Looking at adolescence as a time of preparation for
adult life, to be studied through age norms, roles, and the context of roles,
sociologists tend to emphasize sociogenic, or situational, causes of behavior.
To the sociologist, for example, contentment or stress and their behavioral
expressions are the consequences of environmental influences rather than of
success or failure in resolving psychic conflict (cf. Pearlin 1975). The causes
of disaffection in adolescence lie within frustrations associated with present
or anticipated role failure rather than the adolescent's psyche (Stinchcombe
1964; Finestone 1976). The psychoanalyst and the developmental psycholo-
gist, however, are generally more concerned with psychogenic factors, such
as the ways in which the conflicts of early develo_pment are reactivated by
present conditions to affect self-image and behavior (cf. Howard 1982;
Shweder 1979).
Until the 1970s, anthropologists, influenced by psychoanalytic and
learning theory, tended to look at antecedent conditions of socialization as
the determinants of adult behavior, the intervening variable being personal-
ity. Noteworthy exceptions are Nadel (1967, orig. 1952), who accounted for
differences in witchcraft beliefs by sociogenic rather than psychogenic fac-
tors, and Young (1965). Although a social psychologist, Young dealt with a
topic dear to the hearts of anthropologists, initiation ceremonies, as a re-
sponse to situational needs of the society rather than to psychological needs
of the initiates or the initiators-quite a departure from the psychogenic ap-
proaches of some other investigators (e.g., Whiting, Kluckhohn, and An-
thony 1958). 1
More recently, anthropologists have responded to the direction set by
sociologists and psychologists of the interactionist or phenomenological ap-
proach (cf. LeVine 1973:46-48; Howard 1982) by including situational re-
sponses as determinants of behavior. The work of Roberts and his collabora-

tors (e.g., Roberts and Sutton-Smith 1962) combined psychogenic and
sociogenic theory in the conflict-enculturation theory of involvement in
games; Schlegel and Barry ( 1989) utilized this theory in their study of adoles-
cent games.
Much of the work of the last 20 years in anthropology assessing the be-
havior of children leans heavily on situational explanations. Ember (1973)
reported that the ''masculine'' behavior of boys is modified when they per-
form tasks conventionally assigned to girls because the settings promote
"feminine" behavior. Bolton et al. (1976) found that children who herd are
more independent and self-reliant than children in the same community who
do not. Howard (1982) cited his research among Hawaiian children as an
example of the interactional approach. Munroe and Munroe's (1989) work
on birth order and behavior of children was sensitive to the situational fea-
tures of child experience. A strong assertion of the sociogenic position was
made by B. Whiting. Drawing on the work of Whiting and Whiting (1975),
she stated their conviction that parents' "greatest effect is in the assignment
of the child to settings that have important socializing influences" (Whiting
1980:97).
Schlegel (1975) adduced both pychogenic and situational explanations
of attitude and behavior in a study of girls' adolescence among the Hopi, a
Pueblo Indian people of Arizona; her findings are summarized here:
Conflict with the mother results from abrupt role changes, and anxiety
over future marriage is attributed both to family structure and to child-
hood anxieties over relations with the father. At puberty, the girl who in
childhood had few responsibilities and great freedom of movement is
suddenly kept within the house most of the time, where she is expected to
spend long hours grinding corn and learning cooking techniques in seri-
ous preparation for marriage. This is a tense time for mothers and daugh-
ters, exacerbated by parental pressures to find a good husband. The
burden of attracting a spouse rests with girls, for in this society, men
marry into their wives' homes. Fathers want the assistance a son-in-law
gives in farming and herding; the girls' mothers and maternal uncles are
eager for them to marry and bear children who will perpetuate the matri-
lineal clans; and the girls themselves look forward to the adult status that
becomes theirs upon marriage. Boys, however, are not so eager to give
up their carefree bachelor lives; and their reluctance to marry intensifies
the anxiousness some girls may already feel about the prospect of marry-
ing, in spite of the fact that every normal woman marries.
Schlegel located the origin of this anxiousness in the early relations with fa-
thers who were loving but unpredictable. She maintained that neither present
circumstances nor past events alone were sufficient to account for the strong
6 ADOLESCENCE
emotion older women still exhibit when talking about these matters, or the
parents' fear, which had little objective basis, that an adolescent daughter is
liable to fall into depression and die if a hoped-for suitor rejects her.
In the study reported in this book, we rely on both antecedent and situ-
ational explanations of adolescent behavior. We relate various features of
adolescence to the current situation and to parental socialization practices in
infancy and early childhood. However, we cannot provide a clear answer to
the question of which is primary, nor do we feel that it is necessary to try. We
will attempt to outline complexes of related variables, antecedent and situa-
tional, that combine in meaningful ways. In some cases, personality (inferred
from infant and early child-rearing techniques) may take precedence. In oth-
ers, the influence of the social situation may appear stronger. In still others,
the interaction of variables may make such an attempt meaningless as well as
impossible.
The anthropological approach is distinctive in being holistic, placing its

object of study within social and cultural systems (cf. Cohen 1964). Anthro-
pologists study whole cultures, even when their particular interest is in one
institution or a single cultural domain. For anthropologists, adolescence is
not only a time for learning adult roles, as sociologists tend to see it, but also
a time during which young people are often making important contributions
to society: observations from many societies indicate that adolescents are
useful to their families and communities, an impression one rarely gets if one
studies only Western adolescence. Adolescence can be studied as a stage sui
generis rather than as simply a marginal or transitional period.
In the light of comparative data that adolescence may be as short as one
year, particularly for girls, the psychological view of adolescence as a time
for resolution of earlier conflicts is called into question. When sexual gratifi-
cation is delayed long past puberty and socially meaningful status is with-
held, as it is in modern society, the revival of earlier conflicts may be a
function of social adolescence rather than the reverse: these conflicts over
authority and inappropriately directed sexual desires would be muted if not
prevented by the elimination of an adolescent stage, if at puberty all young
people were given the full sexual gtatification and adult status of marriage.
Sociologists and psychologists can tell us much about what happens to ado-
lescents in modern society, but their models may not always be applicable
across cultures.
Anthropologists study adolescence as a contributing part of a larger sys-
tem of social organization. Whereas the sociologist or social psychologist
might ask, "How does society affect the adolescent?" the anthropologist
will ask, in addition, "How do adolescents affect society?" With social
power vested in adults, particularly in adult males in most places, an anthro-
pological question would be, "How do adults use adolescents in the further-
ing of their own ends-as laborers, pawns in marriage negotiations, per-
formers in dance or sports, or other ways?" The uses to which adolescents
are put will, in turn, determine many of their activities.
Up to now, we have discussed anthropology as a human science and re-
lated it to other sciences of human behavior. One of the fruitful develop-
ments of recent years has been the incorporation of the research of
ethologists and primatologists into anthropological theories of human be-
havior. Homo sapiens is a unique species, the only one with language and
culture, but it belongs to the order of mammals and the family of primates.
Cross-species comparisons allow human behavior to be understood within
the broader spectrum of animal behavior generally, by testing for regularities
that go beyond culture. Such comparisons have expanded the meaning of
holistic for anthropology. The systems within which behaviors are located
can be extended beyond a single society and the domain of human societies
to the domain of primate or even mammalian social organization. We have
borne this in mind as we designed our questions and interpreted our analyses.
A sense of the relation of adolescence to larger systems is the major con-
tribution anthropologists can offer here. Empirical field research requires
the anthropologist to be both a participant and an observer in a culture for a
limited period. The anthropologist observes and records behaviors and con-
versation, measuring as closely as possible the cultural features under inves-
tigation. These data are then recorded and analyzed to describe culture and
social organization at a particular point in time. The shortcoming of this
method is one well known to life-course sociologists, who have drawn atten-
tion to the cohort effect, or behavior due not to abiding norms or patterns
but rather to conditions specific to a particular time (Mannheim 1952; Riley
et al. 1972; Elder 1974). The observer often cannot separate the age effect-
being at a particular age or stage in life with its institutionalized norms-
from the cohort effect, particularly when behaviors rather than informant
generalizations about the culture are used as indicators of cultural features.
For example, if the anthropologist determines that delinquency is pervasive
among the adolescents of a particular society, is that a cultural norm related
to long-standing patterns of family structure or child socialization? Or is that
fact the consequence, say, of a random spurt in population growth, resulting
in a decline in anticipated access to resources and a realization that the path
to successful adulthood is blocked? In recognition of this possibility, anthro-
pologists try to elicit the cultural interpretation of present behavior, in order
to disentangle traditional norms and patterns from behavior due to situa-
tional factors. 2 Nevertheless, cohort effect has to be considered in the analy-
sis of data across cultures. It introduces an element of randomness that can
produce deviant cases, societies whose data are not in accord with the statis-
tically significant pattern established for a set of variables.
8 ADOLESCENCE
An Anthropological Definition of Adolescence
An anthropological definition of adolescence, in common with psycho-

logical and sociological definitions, recognizes adolescence as a social stage
intervening between childhood and adulthood in the passage through life.
(We will have more to say about a second stage, youth, in some but not all
societies.) Adolescence can be seen as a period of social role learning and
restructuring: not simply a period in which early learning is crystallized, but
rather one in which unlearning and new learning take place. Along with
training for specific roles, there is learning in the sense of cognitive and affec-
tive reorganization away from the behavioral modes of childhood and to-
ward adult modes. The child is characterized by dependency, subordination,
and social asexuality, even as these vary across cultures. As his social scope,
responsibilities, and expectations enlarge, the adolescent assumes greater au-
tonomy, more of a peer relationship with same-sex adults, and an interest in
sexual activities. Such unlearning and relearning is unlikely to be without
cost to adolescents or to their families, who must also undergo changes in the
ways they respond to their maturing children.
To be successful, socialization must be both responsive and anticipa-
tory, that is, it must help the individual both to operate in the present and to
prepare for the future. Anticipatory socialization becomes accelerated some-
time after about age 10, when major changes are propelling the individual
toward biological adulthood; yet the young person is not a full adult and
does not receive whatever respect and deference are due to adults of the same
sex and social status. There is a certain ambiguity to the conflicting goals of
adolescent socialization, which seek to maintain some of the subordination
and dependency of childhood while moving the adolescent toward adult-
hood. Possibly this ambivalence accounts for the social awkwardness so typ-
ical of adolescents around the world. Much of their psychological
discomfort and lack of social poise may result from these conflicting social-
ization goals.
Unlearning and relearning are necessary because of the particular bio-
logical and social characteristics of our species. One consequence of the long
period of immaturity is that dependency, necessary for survival, is deeply
engrained in the child. The child's strongest bonds are to the family, yet the
incest taboo and customs that militate against incest direct the adolescent to
consider or actively pursue the formation of an intimate bond with someone
outside this close circle. The fact that human beings live in socially integrated
communities rather than as social isolates or in isolated families means that,
at some point before full adulthood, young people must prepare for an active
role in the community. In anticipating the social and sexual relationships and
responsibilities of adult life, the adolescent is shifting focus away from a pre-
dominant attention to the household and toward attention to both the house-
hold and the community, from members of the family to persons who will
become in-laws or with whom there will be common interests in associations

broader than the family-kin groups, sodalities, factions, networks, and
other kinds of social groupings that adults form.
This shift of focus to the broader world does not go unaided. The process
is facilitated by social structures intervening between the few and primary
structures of childhood and the many and complex structures of adult life.
One of these structures in the modern world is the secondary school, which,
if it is to socialize effectively, cannot be merely a continuation of primary
school but must take the particular needs and goals of adolescents into ac-
count. Universally, however, an important intervening structure is the peer
group, comprising members of the same sex. Although it is true that younger
children have peer groups, which assume greater importance as the child gets
older, it is our contention that the position of the peer group becomes central
to socialization in adolescence rather than ancillary to it (cf. Coleman 1980).
By no means does the peer group supplant the family as a socializing agent;
rather, it coexists with the family as a structure that allows for intense inter-
action outside the family, for the organization of activities that affect the
community, and for jockeying for status in settings relatively free from adult
intervention. Within the peer group, adolescents can try out the social activ-
ities and maneuverings of adulthood while still sheltered by their families.
The peer group gives them the opportunity to experiment while their subor-
dinate age status gives them license to do so without being taken too seriously.
It is the peer group, more than any other structure, that is critical to a
holistic definition of adolescence, playing a role not only in the life of the
individual but also in the social organization of the community. Children do
not pose much of a problem to the community, as they are under the control
of their families. Their play-group activities are unlikely to affect the com-
munity, even though considerable community resources may be allocated to
children, particularly where the state has taken over such responsibilities as
education. However, the rapid biological changes of puberty make adoles-
cents a population within the community that requires more than simply fa-
milial attention.
The shift from nonreproductive capacity to reproductivity means that
adolescent sexuality must be considered. Though an adolescent girl's sexual-
ity may be an issue only for her family, who have to deal with any offspring
she may produce outside of marriage, the sexuality of unmated boys can
cause problems for the community, which must try to keep them from sexual
relations with inappropriate girls or married women. Youthful energy must
be channeled in socially constructive directions, and the potential aggressive-
ness of boys must be curbed. Peer groups, as extrafamilial structures that are
less powerful than adult structures, are means through which adults can or-
ganize adolescent activities, motivating and rewarding them collectively for
behavior that is beneficial to the community and punishing them for lapses. 3
We need to examine how adults use peer groups to structure the lives of ado-
10 ADOLESCENCE
lescents until they are safely absorbed into the adult population and how the
community, as well as the family, uses its adolescent children as a source of
labor or for other social ends.
Taking an anthropological view of the passage through life, we assume
that, though there may be some variability across cultures in the chronologi-
cal age at which people enter and leave social stages, each stage is to some
degree linked to important biological changes. Minimally, universally recog-
nized social stages are infancy, childhood, adulthood, and, we contend, ad-
olescence. 4 Transition from one stage to another, whether gradual or abrupt,
is signified by differences in the kind or intensity of occupational and leisure
activities and in familial and community roles and responsibilities. Treat-
ment of the individual by the family and community will vary according to
the life stage. Our concern is to examine the behavior and treatment of ado-
lescents and the concomitant features of culture and social organization that
account for variability across cultures.
Social adolescence is unlikely to begin much before age 11, when the
physical and cognitive capacities of the child have matured to the point where
children can be given social responsibilities. It usually ends at marriage, al-
though marriage is not universally a marker of entry into full adulthood even
though reproductive activities undergo marked changes at marriage.
Although the beginning of adolescence may be partially determined by
biological development, the end is socially determined. Generally, however,
if full social adulthood is delayed many years beyond puberty, there is a fur-
ther stage between adolescence and adulthood. Following Keniston (1971),
we call this youth, a stage during which one's behavior and treatment differ
in important ways from those of adolescents and yet one is not fully adult.
Youth is not an extension of adolescence but rather a stage with its own ex-
pectations and demands, during which various occupations and potential
marriage partners may be given a trial or young men and women may have a
special community role (see Chapter 3).
We are not the first to recognize the necessity of adolescence. Aberle et
al. (1963:261) stated:
There is such a gap [between the point at which young individuals are
sexually mature and the point at which they can fend for themselves] in
all known human groups-or least in no known human group does the
onset of sexual maturity coincide with/u/1 assumption of adult economic
and social responsibilities. Even where marriage occurs at a very early
age-indeed, especially where it does-the youthful marital partner, or
pair, remains under the direction of senior members of the kin group.
(italics in the original)
Their position differs somewhat from ours, because we do not see any dis-
crepancy between full social adulthood and some degree of subordination to
senior members of the kin group. Such subordination is usual in societies in
which residence is in an extended family and headship of the family house-
hold or estate may not begin until the head is well into middle age. As we and
many others do, these authors recognize the disjuncture between biological
and social maturity. Children do not usually assume adult status when first
menstruation or first ejaculation is experienced or expected.
In certain societies adolescence for girls ends with marriage at or shortly
after puberty, and it is instructive to examine them. 5 In some of these, it is
parenthood, not marriage, that signals full adulthood for one or both sexes.
In such cases, girls might become mothers, and thereby adults, anywhere
from two to four years after puberty, in the middle or late teens. Some exam-
ples from our study are the Gheg of Albania, the Micmac of eastern Canada,
and the Quiche of Guatemala. In other societies, such as the Aranda of Aus-
tralia, the Copper Eskimo of Alaska, and the Yanomamo of Venezuela,
childhood ends and social adolescence begins before puberty; even if a girl
becomes an adult when she marries soon after menarche, there is a period of
social adolescence preceding puberty. Among the Aranda, for example, the
adolescent initiation ceremony occurs when the girl's breasts begin to de-
velop.
When adolescence is very short and there is no youth stage, behavioral
reorganization may continue into the early years of social adulthood. Long
adolescence, i.e., delay in marriage and adulthood, is significantly associated
with neolocal residence, the young couple living apart from either parental
family (see Chapter 6). More typically in traditional societies, however, they
live either with his family or, less commonly, with hers; and junior adults
continue to defer to senior kin. Under these conditions, it is possible for quite
young people to marry. While the social transition from adolescent to adult
may be abrupt, the behavioral and psychological processes that the adoles-
cent undergoes are unlikely to terminate rapidly. It may be necessary to think
of adolescence as a time during which these processes of reorganization get
underway rather than a time during which they are necessarily completed.
Finally, we must consider whether adolescence is equally important for
the two sexes. When we examine the roles of adult women and men, we see
that the subordination of children to adults continues in a new form for
women in most places, as subordination to men; the girls' pattern of subor-
dination need not undergo so much of a transformation as the boys' as they
grow into adulthood. In such places, girls may not need as long a period of
readjustment as boys do. In fact, we generally find that social adolescence
for girls ends at an earlier age than for boys, about two or four years earlier
in most cases (see Chapter 3). Similarly, the transition from childhood to
adulthood is generally more continuous for girls than for boys. The greater
degree of discontinuity for boys should be reflected in behavior that differs
from that of girls. We will look at the relevant data later in the book.
12 ADOLESCENCE
Premises of the Study
Our initial research was designed to collect information about issues re-
lated to adolescence and to discern patterns across cultures rather than to test
specific hypotheses. The hypotheses that formed the basis for data collection
are simple but by no means self-evident. The first one is that a universal or
nearly universal stage of social adolescence exists between childhood and full
adulthood, characterized by differences from the preceding and following
stages in the ways that adolescents behave and are treated. The second hy-
pothesis is that some measurable difference exists across cultures between the
treatment of girls and that of boys, corresponding to a universal distinction
between the sexes in social roles and cultural perception.
The issues emerged from two sources, the abundant literature on adoles-
cence in Western society and ethnographic descriptions of adolescents. The
empirical evidence is weighted on the side of commonalities across cultures.
(It is these commonalities, in fact, that give rise to the model of adolescence
offered in the following chapter.)
One issue that receives particular attention in the sociological and psy-
chological literature is the adolescent's separating from the natal home while
at the same time remaining in it. Not all societies inculcate independence and
autonomy to the degree that Western ones do; however, as individuals be-
come more involved with persons and social groups outside the family, de-
pendency on the family is somewhat diluted, and the enlargement of the
social world brings in its train an increase in responsibilities. Nevertheless,
for all adolescents, even those most separated from the family (like the child
in boarding school), the parental home is where the young person is socially
and emotionally grounded. Therefore, we need information on household
activities and the character of family relations.
A second issue, which has received more attention from ethnographers
and social historians than from sociologists and psychologists, is the place of
adolescents in the larger community and the their contributions to it.
As we indicated earlier, we regard the peer group as intervening between
the child's heavy involvement in the family and the adult's dual involvement
in family and community. This structured setting is where much of the social
learning for adulthood takes place. The peer group as a social institution has
been well studied by sociologists in particular, and their literature helped us
frame our inquiry into the forms, activities, and relationships of that univer-
sal phenomenon.
A third issue, adolescent pathology, raises questions about the interplay
of family, community, and peer group. We consider it unlikely that adoles-
cence can be a stress-free time for young people or for their parents, as rela-
tionships in the family constellation are changing rapidly at the same time
that the child's body is taking on new conformations and capabilities. With
the accompanying internal stresses, both those originating in hormonal
changes and those involving unlearning and relearning, it seems to us im-

plausible that adolescence would be experienced without uncertainties, self-
doubts, and ambiguities in family attachments. However, these reactions
need not be of such magnitude as to result in physical or mental pathology,
nor need they erupt into antisocial behavior. We are concerned with the con-
ditions under which social pathology arises.
A fourth issue is adolescent sexuality, and we ask whether its manage-
ment is as problematic elsewhere as our society finds it. The range in the
ethnographic literature is very wide. At one extreme, a number of Middle
Eastern peoples are known to kill girls who have dishonored their families by
losing their virginity. At the other extreme are Asian and Pacific groups that
maintain adolescent houses where young people are expected and encour-
aged to indulge in sexual intercourse with a number of partners. A similar
range is seen for homosexuality, from general tolerance (and in a few socie-
ties, prescribed adolescent homosexual acts) to strict prohibition. It is not
only the potential reproduction of the adolescent girl that must be regulated,
even in very permissive societies. Just as important to those who control
young people is the regulation of their sexual desires, channeling them in ap-
propriate directions toward approved partners and preventing wayward pas-
sions from disrupting the social alliances of the elders.
The final issue is preparation for adult life. We wish to know what
makes for success in adolescence and how adolescents prove their future
worth to the community of adults. These questions do not necessarily elicit
the same answers. The adolescent athlete in America may be a success among
his peers and receive the praise of sports-minded adults, but he is not by rea-
son of his athletic ability being groomed as a future professional or corpora-
tion executive. Nevertheless, although success in the present does not ensure
success in the future, the character traits that underlie present-oriented and
future-oriented activities may be similar for both the ~thlete and the corpo-
ration member. Competitiveness and cooperativeness are useful character
traits in both settings. We examine the inculcation of character traits during
adolescence, those just mentioned and others.
An important part of preparation for adult life is the training in produc-
tive activities that the adolescent receives. In many societies, such as those
practicing foraging (hunting and gathering wild foods for subsistence) or
simple horticulture, most of the specific training will have been given before
adolescence. For example, it is not unusual among foragers for a boy's first
kill of a large animal to mark the end of childhood and the beginning of
adolescence. When productive activities are more elaborated, as in societies
with advanced horticulture or agriculture, or when the management of pri-
vate property is associated with adult status, as in pastoral or agricultural
societies, adolescence is likely to be a time in which preparation for adult
productive roles is more intensive.
Schooling is an important means of transmitting adult skills in industrial
14 ADOLESCENCE
nations. Very few societies examined in this study send adolescents to school;
schooling in preindustrial societies is usually restricted to the elite or, if more
widely dispersed, to young children only. By adolescence, most children have
left school and are engaged in some productive work. Even as recently as
1962, in a nation as economically advanced as the Federal Republic of Ger-
many, only 19.8 percent of adolescents between 16 and 18 were in school,
most of the remainder already working full time or as apprentices (Aller beck
and Hoag 1985). In this book, we shall give schooling limited attention.
The Cross-Cultural Method

We followed the cross-cultural or hologeistic method, in which variables
are coded for a large representative sample of societies. The data are then
subjected to statistical analyses to find pairs or clusters of correlated vari-
ables. The ultimate goal is to demonstrate, or to provide the data to infer,
causal relationships among variables (cf. Levinson and Malone 1980).
Our codes were constructed to elicit information on the issues of inter-
est. Coding was done from ethnographic monographs, published accounts
of a culture usually but not always written by anthropologists. Because the
data were not originally collected for the study, many questions cannot be
answered with available data in every case. The quantity and type of missing
data vary considerably from one society to another; for some of the vari-
ables, there was information on fewer than 10 of 186 societies, while for oth-
ers there were as many as 177 cases with information. This is a
methodological difficulty of hologeistic research, for scattered missing data
restrict the techniques of statistical analysis that can be used.
Another difficulty in this type of research is that the ethnographic ac-
counts at times report observed behavior and at times recount what infor-
mants say about their culture. There is often some discrepancy between what
people believe and say about their behavior and what the relatively unbiased
observer witnesses. Even with observed data, interpretations can differ
widely between observers. Coders must exercise judgment, based on wide
knowledge of ethnographic cases, in resolving discrepancies. Anthropolo-
gists are trained observers who usually spend enough time in the field to
make fairly accurate assessments of behavior. The descriptions they offer
can generally be trusted, even if they may interpret them in idiosyncratic
ways. Mead's (192~) study of Samoan girls is a case in point: the accounts
included in her book, the data, contradict the sunny picture she painted of
stress-free adolescence in her interpretation.
Still another difficulty with using ethnographies, which describe whole
cultures or major segments such as castes or communities, is the scarcity of
detailed information on intracultural variability. One form of such variabil-

ity is often reported, differences between girls and boys in their settings and
activities. Our study measures this intracultural variation.
These limitations of the hologeistic method are offset by some distinct
advantages. First, it is the only method that systematically utilizes the
breadth of the ethnographic record. Commonalities among cultures can be
found that crosscut the usual typologies based on subsistence type, level of
societal complexity, type of descent, regional placement, and the like.
Second, isolating culture traits and pulling them out of context elimi-
nates ''noise,'' the distracting effect of coterminous traits within that cul-
ture. When one is analyzing a single culture, it is easy to assume that the
cause of x condition lies in y as the antecedent condition. Even if several
cultures, all having x and y present, are under examination, for these condi-
tions x and y, the several cultures can be seen simply as replicas of one an-
other. Testing the proposition across a wide sample of societies, however,
one might find that the coexistence of x and y is a deviant case. The clearest
presentation of this problem known to us was given by Kobben (1973) in his
lively article ''Comparativists and Non-Comparativists in Anthropology.''
In demonstrating the pitfalls of generalizing on the basis of a single or very
limited number of cases, he compiled a list of contradictory pairs of general-
izations. One, relevant to this study, is as follows (Kobben 1973:589):
8a: a society, such as the Ibo, where a father allows his son autonomy, is
likely to produce men high in achievement motivation; hence is open to
modernization ....
b: a society, such as the Hindustani's where the father is an authoritar-
ian figure, produces aggression in the sons, who become, thereby, highly
ambitious; hence is open to modernization ....
One of these pairs is likely to represent a deviant case, that is, to deviate from
the statistically established correlation; or perhaps both do, if in fact there is
no significant association between authority of the father and achievement
motivation when tested worldwide.
Users of the hologeistic method are aware, sometimes painfully so, of
the limitations of the method and make every effort to compensate for them.
One such is to refine the procedural steps. Another, widely discussed among
cross-culturalists, is triangulation, that is, using other methods to test propo-
sitions that have been tested by the hologeistic method. Single-case analyses,
intracultural comparisons, tests of similar propositions conducted by social
scientists of other disciplines, and hologeistic tests of different but related
propositions are all ways in which cross-cultural researchers gain-or lose-
confidence in their findings. We hope that the findings of this study will be
retested by a variety of other methods.
16 ADOLESCENCE
Methodological Procedures
The sample used is the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock and

White 1980), a sample of 186 preindustrial societies worldwide (listed in Ap-
pendix I), selected by Murdock to be representative of regional placement,
level of sociocultural complexity, and major features of social organization.
As some world regions have been reported on more fully than others, socie-
ties in the sample vary in the quantity of information on them. Wherever
appropriate, Murdock selected representative societies with the largest
amount of available data. Attempts were made to exclude societies known to
have had close or continuous contact, thus avoiding the effects of diffusion
as much as possible. (In cross-cultural research, this is called Galton's prob-
lem.) One feature of the sample is the pinpointing of each cultural unit to a
specific time and to the smallest identifiable subgroup of the society, usually
a community. This pinpointing by time and locale enhances the accuracy of
correlations between traits, because their presence or absence must coexist
temporally and spatially within a unit of interacting persons in order to be
meaningful.
The coding manual is given in Appendix II. It contains variables related
to the actions and personality of adolescents, features of their social settings,
and the nature of their interpersonal relationships. It includes variables pre-
viously coded for infancy and childhood (Barry and Paxson 1980; Barry et
al. 1980a). Five research assistants did the coding from the ethnographic doc-
uments, collected in the research library of the Cross-Cultural Cumulative
Coding Center at the University of Pittsburgh. The coding was preceded by
a three-month period of training, during which time the coders arrived at
consensus about the meaning of the codes and the codes themselves were re-
fined. Although resources did not permit every society to be coded twice in-
dependently, societies were randomly selected for recoding. In these cases,
coder discrepancie~ere minimal, giving us confidence that consensus had
been reached. 6
Data analyses have been conducted at both the University of Pittsburgh
and the University of Arizona. Given the random missing data problem, only
bivariate statistics could be used. Details of the procedure are discussed in
Appendix II.
Societies change over time, traditional ones no less than modern nation-
states. A description accurate at one period may be inaccurate 50, or even 20,
years later. To avoid confusion, anthropologists often use the' 'ethnographic
present,'' referring in the present tense to cases as they were at one particular
point in time. For example, the life of Hopi adolescents, used for illustration
in several chapters, is referred to in this manner, even though the data come
from the first author's historical reconstruction of adolescent life in the late
19th century and no Hopis experience adolescence in that way today.
All of the societies in the sample have been pinpointed by place and
time, the latter usually being time of first contact or earliest reliable report-
age. Details on the sample are given in Murdock and White (1980). When
societies not in the sample are used for illustration, the time period is that of
the ethnographer's fieldwork or historical reconstruction and can be ob-
tained from the cited ethnography. Information on historical cases is given in
the past tense except for historical societies in the sample, such as the Ro-
mans.
The use of the ethnographic present has been criticized as implying that
tribal societies are changeless and that only the great civilizations and their
descendants have a history. No such implication colors the use of the ethno-
graphic present in cross-cultural research; it is a useful convention that facil-
itates the comparison of many ~ases from different times as well as places.
2
An Ethological Approach to
Human Social Organization1
O F the biological changes that adolescents undergo, the most critical to

themselves and society is the transformation from a nonreproductive to a
reproductive state. We have alluded before to the problem of fertile daugh-
ters and lusty sons; unless girls are married shortly after puberty, their fertil-
ity must be dealt with. The sexuality of adolescent boys is a matter of concern
almost everywhere, for the marriage of boys at puberty is rare.
Why do societies not avoid these problems by marrying children at pu-
berty? Even among foragers, hunting and gathering peoples who generally
have no property and therefore have no economic reasons to delay marriage,
boys do not get permanent mates until some time after puberty. Foraging
societies generally allow sexual freedom; but this does not avoid the problem
altogether, as boys still have to negotiate with girls for sex and cannot count
on having a partner always available. Even in permissive societies, not all
boys may find their sexual desires satisfied whenever they wish. In small for-
aging bands, no unrelated girls may be available during a boy's adolescence,
and then adultery with a married woman can become a strong temptation.
The most likely answer to this question is that permanent mating is not
appropriate until the boy has proven his ability to provide for a wife and
children. The works of several anthropologists, Meillassoux (1981) and Col-
lier and Rosaldo (1981), discussed the exchange nature-meat for domestic
comforts-of marriage among foragers. Collier and Rosaldo, recognizing
that the provisions go not only to the wife but also to her parents, labeled this
category "bride service societies." They extended it to include some South
American and other societies that practice very simple horticulture along
with gathering and hunting and thus exhibit many of the features of true
foragers. In such groups, women have considerable freedom to bestow them-
selves on mates, and the mating bond remains intact as long as the husband
provides the wife and her parents with game. As women gather their own
18
An Ethological Approach to Human Social Organization 19
vegetal food, it is the ability to contribute meat that determines whether a

boy is ready to assume the roles of husba~d and of father to his wife's chil-
dren. The wife provides the husband with cooked food and sex while he pro-
vides her with raw meat and sex. It is not a question of going hungry without
a wife, for a female relative will happily allow an unmarried boy or man to
eat at her hearth if he contributes meat. Rather, it is having the right to ex-
pect cooked food and sex, in contrast to having to ask or negotiate for them,
that makes marriage attractive to men in foraging societies. Marriage also
secures men the right to domestic comforts and the social support to uphold
these rights. The benefits of fatherhood will be addressed in Chapter 6.
Rarely do boys in their early teens take on the full economic responsibil-
ity of adult men. It is not unusual among foragers for a boy to leave child-
hood, that is, to be recognized as a social adolescent, after his first successful
kill of a large game animal around puberty. Some time may elapse, from one
to several years, before he can convince a girl and her parents that he can be
relied on for a steady supply of meat. In more complex societies in which
goods are exchanged, it may take years for the boy and his father to accumu-
late or negotiate for goods to accompany the marriage or for his productive
capacity and potential leadership qualities to be assessed as adequate for a
son-in-law.
The exceptions to this, instances in which boys may be married at pu-
berty, seem to be those in which neither wealth and productive capacity nor
leadership position are at issue, that is, in some aristocratic families in which
economic security and the boy's future role are assured by the status into
which he was born. Furthermore, marriage in such cases provides an oppor-
tunity for the parents of the couple to cement a political or economic alli-
ance; they are eager to contract it as soon as their children are minimally
ready. Perhaps there are tribal or peasant societies in which marriage for
boys at puberty is thought to be desirable by adults for other reasons, but we
know of no such cases. Child betrothals occur, but such betrothals rarely if
ever have the same binding quality as marriage and can usually be broken if
one or the other party turns out to be unacceptable. Thus, while girls may
marry as early as 13, boys are rarely deemed marriageable before their late
teens. The subject of marriage is developed in Chapter 6.
Social adolescence, then, is a response to the disjuncture between sexual
reproductivity and full social maturity. It appears to be universal for boys;
for girls, in the majority of societies, at least a short period of social adoles-
cence intervenes between puberty and the full assumption of adult roles, usu-
ally at marriage.
We focus on reproduction as a key issue for an understanding of adoles-
cence and on the social systems of reproduction-for human society, the sys-
tems of kinship and marriage-as central to social organization. We consider
both biological and social factors in the management of reproduction.
Ethologists have established beyond doubt that the social organization
20 ADOLESCENCE
of most animals militates against close inbreeding, that is, mating between
parents and children and between siblings. Various mechanisms accomplish
this out breeding. A common one is the dispersal of the young at puberty, the
result being that the likelihood of close kin mating is reduced. Dispersal may
serve other purposes as well, such as preventing a concentration of animals
that would degrade the local habitat (cf. Dunbar 1988:82). Whatever the
proximate cause, the result is a reduction of inbreeding. Another mecha-
nism, well established for mice, who live as adults in close proximity to near
kin, is the genetically programmed repulsion between parents and children
and between siblings as mates (Beauchamp et al. 1985). These mechanisms
may have evolved in response to genetic degradation caused by very close
inbreeding and to the greater survival of offspring among those individuals
who mate outside the parent-child-sibling sphere . First-cousin mating, how-
ever, is not close inbreeding; in some species, it may confer the advantage of
preserving biologically adaptive features without concentrating maladaptive
ones (cf. Lewin 1984).
We expect to find behaviors in human societies, as in societies of other
animals, that reduce the likelihood of close inbreeding. In addition to the
behaviors to be discussed later, there is the incest taboo, a cultural universal.
With very few exceptions the taboo includes the nuclear family; beyond that,
marriage rules may vary from permissive to highly restrictive of between-kin
marriage. At the permissive end of the continuum, Aiyappan (1934) dis-
cussed uncle-niece marriage (between mother's brother and sister's daughter)
among non-Aryan peoples of India and mentioned a few cases of grandfa-
ther-granddaughter marriage as well. First-cousin marriage is widespread
among tribal peoples, and the marriage of the children of two brothers is a
preferred form in many Moslem groups.
In contrast to these endogamous societies, there are those in which mar-
riage between any known kin is incestuous. An extreme example is medieval
Europe. Goody (1983) credited the changes toward extreme exogamy in early
Christian European marriage rules to the increasing control of the Catholic
Church over marriage; prohibition of marriages to kin was seen by Goody as
one strategy by which the Church broke down the corporateness of kin
groups. Neither social mechanisms nor the cultural taboo are sufficient to
prevent incest altogether; however, they restrain it to the point that the off-
spring of incestuous unions comprise only a very small fraction of the total
human population.
In a discussion of mating systems among foragers, Meillassoux (1981)
dismissed the universality and importance of the incest taboo, citing several
ethnographic or historical reports of tolerance toward the mating of father
and daughter or sister and brother. With the exception of the curious and not
well understood case of Roman Egypt, where there seem to have been some
legal marriages between full siblings (Hopkins 1980), these are all instances
of either social deviance reported by ethnographers or very specific excep-
tions to general incest prohibitions to mark unusual events or situations. Ex-

amples are the royal incestuous marriages of Egypt and Hawaii and some
African noble clans to preserve the purity of the blood line. In no sense can
incest be said to be inconsequential; the fact that it is not always publicly
punished may simply be due to the widespread notion in stateless societies
that what happens inside the family is no one's business but its own.
A requirement of the human family, which contains sexually mature but
unmated members, is to be organized in such a way as to avoid incestuous
matings. In addition, parents wish not only to avoid inappropriate matings
but to encourage appropriate ones-marriages-from which they will derive
some social or material benefit. The reproductive system of human society is
the consequence of several factors: social mechanisms comparable to the so-
cial mechanisms of other species, the cultural rules that prohibit some mat-
ings and encourage others, the marital strategies individuals employ to
secure economic and political advantage, and sometimes mutual attraction.
The Avoidance of Incest
Chapter 6 will focus on certain features of marriage and how these

mechanisms for regulating reproduction affect the lives of adolescents. At
this point we wish to propose a general pattern of social organization by sex
and age that characterizes Homo sapiens as distinct from other species. Our
model, which we call a human ethogram, 2 is patterned after the diagrams of
what Bischof (1975a) called "conjugal structures," or structures of mating
relationships. Bischof's point is that social groupings have evolved to prevent
close inbreeding. Our ethogram shows that outcome, as it diagrams the posi-
tion of adolescents within the social structure. It is not our intention to imply
that mating patterns have the same deterministic role for humans that they
do for other species, but rather to suggest that reproductive patterns are an
important component of human social organization. Reproduction as the
point of departure will not explain everything about social organization, but
it can raise to the fore some universal patterns not readily explicable in other
terms. The social mechanisms that deter close inbreeding produce a pattern
of social groupings that includes adolescents as a social category.
Homo sapiens is a species of primates, and it is instructive to examine
the features of primate social organization even though there is no other pri-
mate species that replicates the social arrangements of our species, which in-
cludes both pair-bonded mates and community interaction. For example,
although gibbons are like us in being pair-bonded, meaning that a male and
female pair interact closely over time and cooperate in reproduction and
early socialization of their young as humans do, gibbons do not have any-
thing approaching a community life. In primate species in which troops of
animals are found, there seem to be two basic structures. In one, exemplified
22 ADOLESCENCE
by the hamadryas baboon, a male controls a "harem" of female mates, and

most social activity at the troop level consists of interactions between males.
In the other, the animals mate "promiscuously," as primatologists would
have it. The chimpanzee, our closest primate relative, has this type of mating
behavior. Males interact at the troop level with other males, as do fem ales
with other females, and closely related kin of opposite sex-mother and son,
sister and brother-interact with one another throughout life.
In the "harem" species, close inbreeding is prevented by male control
over females, that is, females are prevented by their mate, who is not a father
or brother, from mating with close kin. The corresponding mechanisms in
the "promiscuous" species are not all well understood. There appears to be
a biological or social inhibition on mating with close kin (Bischof 1975a:53);
at least, the frequency of observed mother-son and sibling matings is very
low compared to other kinds. It is unclear whether there are mechanisms to
inhibit matings of fathers and daughters or of half-siblings through the fa-
ther, because the observer does not know who the father of any particular
animal is. Among chimpanzees, females who leave the troop are not likely to
mate with fathers or brothers. Simonds (1977) cogently summarized the vast
body of literature on primate social organization; the preceding description
draws upon his work.
Simonds (1977) and more specifically Chance and Jolly (1970) distin-
guished several kinds of social groupings that occur widely among monkeys
and apes. Chance and Jolly (1970: 157) stated: "Three main sub-groups are
widely distributed amongst subhuman primate societies: assemblies of fe-
males and young, clusters of juveniles and cohorts of adult males." The fe-
male assembly consists of females of all ages along with infants. Juveniles
come and go between the assembly, where they seek out their mothers, and
the juvenile cluster, where young animals, those past infancy, play together.
In some species, such as the savannah baboons, these juvenile clusters are
mixed-sex groups, from which females split off as they approach puberty
and join the female assemblies. In others, such as the hamadryas baboons,
the play groups are almost entirely male, the females having been preempted
by their future mate and incorporated into his harem, although he does not
mate with them at this age (Chance and Jolly 1970: 130). The play groups
seem to provide the basis for attachment among males in primate societies,
female attachments being formed and maintained throughout the lives of fe-
males through their involvement in the female assemblies. We can add to
those widespread types of groups the "bachelor bands" (Chance and Jolly
1970), sexually mature but unmated males, who are found along with mated
males in some species.
The variety of social dyads and clusters found in human society can also
be found in the societies of other primates. The male-female pair bond of the
monogamous and "harem" species are found in human mating relations,
the monogamous or polygynous marriage. To our knowledge, no one has
identified "polyandrous" clusters among primates. While polyandry, the
marriage of one woman to two or more men, is rare as a preferred or fre-
quent form of marriage in human societies (cf. Peter 1963; Levine and
Sangree 1980), it is more widely found as a tolerated deviance than is com-
monly believed (cf. Schlegel 1972:50). Cecisbeism, or the institution of the
married woman's legitimate lover, is another form of female pair-bonding
with multiple males (Peter 1963). The tolerance that the gorilla alpha male
shows toward the mating of subordinate males with the females of his band
is somewhat analogous to polyandry or cecisbeism.
Female assemblies and male cohorts bring to mind the widespread ten-
dency in human society for adults of the same sex to cluster together in occu-
pational, ritual, or recreational groupings outside the family and to do so
within the family in large, extended-family households. Play groups of juve-
niles, of course, are as universal in human communities as in primate troops.
There is also a parallel between the bachelor band and the adolescent male
peer group. Considering these elements of primate social organization from
the point of view of the prevention of close inbreeding, we construct the
ethogram shown in Figure 2.1 as a hypothesis of human social groupings.
This, we believe, is applicable to all societies for boys and, for girls, to those
(Al
a
aaa
(ctaa)CY /
I
1
aaa1
(B)
\
5tCf/
u /
\ I
\ I
\ I
\ I
\ I
,c, 9=0//
\I I
_;.,/
\ \9-u·
Figure 2.1 An Ethogram of Human Social Organization
24 ADOLESCENCE
societies in which girls have a social adolescence. The fact that there is no
social adolescence for girls in one society of which we are aware, the Gros
Ventre Indians of North America, in which girls are married before puberty,
suggests that there may be others like it. Thus, while we postulate a universal
social adolescence for boys and a nearly universal one for girls, our model
accommodates societies that advance girls directly from childhood to adult-
hood, at or before puberty. These, however, are not represented in the dia-
gram.
The model is divided into three levels. Level A represents the adult com-
munity structures, whatever their content may be, from few and generalized
to many and specialized. As indicated previously, the majority of adult struc-
tures in most societies are for members of one sex only. Level B represents
adolescent peer groups, from friendship dyads to informal groups to formal
age sets. To take two examples for boys, peer groups among the Rwala Bed-
ouins of Syria and Jordan are relatively unimportant but friendship dyads
have great emotional salience (Rohn Eloul, personal communication); at the
other extreme, among the Nyakyusa of Tanzania, adolescent boys are segre-
gated into a boys' village peripheral to the adult community where they vir-
tually govern themselves, and the peer group supersedes personal friendships
in structuring boys' activities.
Level C represents the unit of biological and social reproduction that
can loosely be termed "the family." In some societies such as ours, this will
be the nuclear-family household where child socialization is the responsibil-
ity of primarily two adults. When groups of kin outside the household coop-
erate in socializing children, as is often the case where there are localized
descent groups such as clans or cognatic clusters, kin outside the household
will be included at level C. Only for simplicity's sake is the monogamous
nuclear family used as an illustration.
The model illustrates our hypothesis that adolescents continue to be em-
bedded in their family and kin group of origin, their participation in peer
groupings and adult groups coexisting with strong family participation. Even
Nyakyusa boys have close ties to their families, for they continue to eat at
their mothers' hearths until they have wives of their own.
The ethogram can be translated into narrative form. It shows four prin-
cipal kinds of social groupings: the dual-sex family that includes people of all
ages; the adult male cohorts that put adolescent boys very much on the pe-
riphery if they include them at all; the female cohorts that include adolescent
girls interacting with adult females; and the single-sex adolescent peer
groups .- The model recognizes the importance of both family and peer group
to the adolescent; it indicates that adolescent girls are likeiy to spend more
time with adults of the same sex than are boys and that peer groups are likely
to be more important to adolescent boys than to girls. By "peer group" we
mean anything from friendship dyads to very large organized age sets.
Our hypothesis states that human social organization, like the social or-
ganization of other primates, includes social mechanisms that prevent close
inbreeding. One of these is the tendency toward sexual separation, at puberty
if not before, when girls spend more time with other females and boys are
more in contact with other males. Another is the redirection of the attention
of the biological adolescent, especially the boy, away from the natal family
toward other persons of the same age, the peer group.
The peer group has its foundation in the juvenile play group, in which
the child begins to learn the social skills required to get along with age-mates.
However, the adolescent peer group differs in two important respects. First,
it involves the members' attention more than the play group; the increased
maturity and self-direction of the adolescent make peer socialization of
greater importance to adolescents than to younger children, who are more
under the direction of their parents. As the adolescent moves out from the
family, he or she looks more to the peer group for support (Coleman
1980:409). Petersen (1988) cited several studies showing that in contempo-
rary society, peer groups become larger, more complex, and more salient
than children's play groups. This tendency seems to be universal wherever
communities contain enough children for the age-group to expand.
Second, it is a single-sex group. Although there is relatively little cross-
cultural research on children's play groups, what has been done suggests a
tendency for children to congregate with members of the same sex even
though play does occur between boys and girls. Whiting and Whiting
(1975:48), in their study of children in six cultures, referred to this apparent
affinity of children for others of the same sex, but they did not distinguish
between the younger group (ages three through six) and the older ones (ages
seven through 11) (see also Whiting and Edwards 1988). Although Schlegel
did not make systematic observations of Hopi play groups, her impressions,
corroborated by information given by Hopis about the traditional culture,
are that girls and boys under eight or nine sometimes played together, while
older prepubertal ones more often (but not exclusively) played apart. This
also can be inferred from Dennis (1940), who made his observations among
the Hopi a generation earlier.
There may be a general human pattern to associate increasingly with
members of the same sex until one reaches puberty, by which time single-sex
peer groups predominate, although groups of girls and boys may get together
for dancing or other special-purpose activities. The stage of heterosexual
cliques, identified as characteristic of late adolescence in contemporary
America (Dunphy 1963), is absent from preindustrial societies because, by
late biological adolescence, girls at least tend to be married. When later mar-
riages occur, as in early modern Europe (see Chapter 6), there is greater em-
. phasis on segregating the sexes than in modern industrial society, in which
gender is a less significant marker of social status than it is in traditional so-
cieties (cf. Schlegel and Barry 1980b).
The model depicts our assumption that the family plays a central role in
26 ADOLESCENCE
the lives of adolescents, even in modern 11:rban settings where a combination

of factors-primarily nuclear-family residence and occupational opportuni-
ties that can take young people away from the home community-push the
young person toward developing an extraordinary degree of independence
from the family of origin. Attachment to the family is greater for girls than
for boys, perpetuating a tendency found among children as well: Whiting
and Whiting (1975:45) reported that in all of the six cultures they studied,
including a community in the United States, girls remain closer to home; and
they cited Nerlove (1969) and Nerlove, Munroe, and Munroe (1971) for cor-
roborative studies.
We predict a difference in the involvement of girls and boys with adults
of the same sex, a human pattern in many respects similar to that of some
other primates. This pattern is manifest as follows. Adolescent girls, usually
along with their mothers, spend more time with adult women of the "female
assembly,'' to borrow the term from primatology, and are more actively en-
gaged with them than boys are with men. Girls frequently accompany their
mothers to gatherings of related or unrelated women, where they also inter-
act with female peers. Boys less often accompany their fathers to adult men's
gatherings. When in the company of men, they are often socially and spa-
tially isolated from them, hanging about on the periphery of the "male co-
hort." Frequently, men and adolescent boys have little interaction outside
the family; when it does occur, the boys as a group are subordinate to the
authority of the men as a group. Here is just one example of this sex differ-
ence, quoted from Brandt's (1971 :93) study of a Korean village:
At important events where many people are present, several different age
groups invariably form. In looking over hundreds of photographs that I
took in the village with quite different objectives in mind, I later discov-
ered that in an overwhelming majority the men included at random in
any one picture were within a few years of each other. On the other
hand, women's work groups, whether washing at the well, gathering oys-
ters, or gardening, include people of all ages. Similarly, in domestic
household work grandmother, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter all
work together in the kitchen or courtyard.
The pattern can be seen most clearly during the leisure hours of evening,
after the families' work is done. In society after society, adult men gather
then to socialize and conduct the informal politics of small community life.
It may be someone's home where they meet to drink beer, as do the
Nyakyusa (Wilson 1963), or a commercial establishment like the local tea-
house of the Far East, the coffeehouse of the Near East, and the European
tavern. It may be the village men's house so common in the tribal world and
well described for much of New Guinea, the Pacific, and tropical South
America, or simply some ,customary place like a central plaza. Adolescent
boys cluster along the peripheries of these men's gatherings or are off on
business of their own. Meanwhile, adolescent girls and women are at home
unless some ritual or community matter pertaining to women calls them out.
This pattern is not absolute; it does not, for example, characterize the
!Kung of the Kalahari Desert, whose family campfires, around which family
members sit, are close enough to permit free discussion back and forth
among women and men. Some other foraging groups are also exceptions to
this generalization, like the Eskimo, where an entire community of under 100
souls may collect in a single large structure for an evening's socializing. Not
all foragers, however, are so flexible: Hart and Pilling (1960:36) described
the evening hours of the Tiwi of Australia by telling of "men visiting from
fire to fire as the women, who were not encouraged to walk about after dark,
gossiped [sic] around their own fires." Nevertheless, this pattern appears to
be extremely widespread, and we expect that adolescent socialization for
adult life includes this aspect of gender difference.
This gender difference can be seen in the following observations of two
formerly tribal societies and one traditional state that even today maintain
some of the customs of earlier times. The first observation was made by
Schlegel on a visit to the lfugao in 1983.
The Ifugao are a formerly tribal but rapidly modernizing people of
Mountain Provinces, Philippines. Aboriginally, their subsistence econ-
omy depended upon the cultivation of rice in terraced fields along the
mountain slopes and upon raising of pigs. While many today are Chris-
tian, pre-Christian elements can still be seen in such customs as burial
practices.
A murder had occurred a few days previous to my visit, and there
would be a war dance in front of the victim's house and a pig sacrifice by
its leaders to honor the victim. The dancers, all adult men, appeared,
slowly dancing their way in front of the house where the body was laid
out to a house yard close to where the pig would be sacrificed. My guide
and I went along with the people who followed the dancers. When we
got to the house yard, everyone except those actively involved in the pig
sacrifice sat down under and around a shelter. I was the only adult
woman present, but some adolescent girls huddled together, whispering
and giggling, on a bench off to the side. Men and boys sat on the
ground, mainly under the shelter. The boys, who looked to be between
about 14 and 18, clustered together apart from the men. While the men
sat upright and separate from one another, conversing in low tones, the
boys were sprawled on the ground, arms and legs draped over one an-
other, whispering and giggling like the girls. In this important public set-
ting, there was clear separation by sex and age, and the solemn dignity of
adult men contrasted sharply with the casual poses of the adolescent
boys.
28 ADOLESCENCE
Schlegel also visited Malaysia in 1983, when the second observation

took place in Kuala Trengganu, a traditional town on the east coast of Ma-
laysia.
The people I associated with were of the upper class, nobility of the
Trengganu Sultanate and elite commoners. The time was Hari Raya, the
feast celebrating the end of Ramadan, when everyone goes visiting house
to house of kin and friend. As I went about the rounds with my host fam-
ily, I noticed that within the homes there was the same kind of informal
mixing of the sexes-freedom in seating arrangements and in conversa-
tion-that one finds in urban European or American families. Adoles-
cent girls were present along with adults and children, although they
tended not to participate in the conversation unless directly addressed.
On a few occasions, an adolescent son of the family was also present.
However, during several of the visits, groups of adolescent boys, the chil-
dren of neighbors or kin, came calling as a group. After giving formal
greetings and eating heartily of the treats laid out at this time, they de-
parted quickly.
This difference in the behavior of girls and boys was even more notice-
able at a feast given to celebrate a young adolescent's circumcision. Ex-
cept for the boy being honored and a few of his male cousins who helped
serve, adolescent boys were conspicuously absent. They did come in at
one point, however, as a group, seating themselves to the side of the
large room where the men were being served, where they ate and soon
took their leave.
In both of these instances the observed behavior occurred under ritual
circumstances. The cohort clustering of the boys, not mixing with adult men
but spatially peripheral to them, was striking. The last description is of a
mundane setting. It is drawn from Schlegel's field notes on the Hopi, on
whose culture she has conducted research since 1968.
Traditional Hopi make very clear statements about the spatial separation
of the sexes. Houses belong to women, and that is the appropriate loca-
tion for the activities of females of all ages and small boys. As boys
reach age seven or so, they begin to spend time in the kivas, the ceremo-
nial chambers that are used as men's clubhouses when not required for
ritual purposes. While I have never entered a kiva when it was in use as a
clubhouse, men have reported to me that in earlier times when men actu-
ally used the kivas in this way much of the time, male children and ado-
lescents sat at one end, where they were supposed to keep quiet enough
so that they would not disturb the men. They were expected to learn by
listening to discussions and homilies. Before initiation into the men's so-
cieties at age 18 or so, which marked formal transition from boyhood to
manhood, and marriage, usually a short time after, a young male did not
attempt to make his presence felt in the kiva but rather stuck with his
peers off to the side. Thus, even though boys were in close proximity to
adult men, they stayed together at the spatial and social periphery of the
adult male group. At the same time, their female age-mates were inter-
mingling freely in home settings with groups of adult women, primarily
neighbors and clan kin. When such a group congregated to make piki
bread or other Hopi dishes, adolescent girls took their turns at the cook-
ing fire along with women, and they were very much a part of the group
that mixed and molded the corn puddings and shared in discussions and
joking. In this respect, the Hopi resemble another tribe of southwestern
United States, the Papago (Joseph et al. 1949:151-154).
These observations illustrate the point made earlier, that the exclusion
of boys from adult male activities is greater than the exclusion of girls from
adult female activities. Why are adolescents excluded, and why this sex dif-
ference?
A ready answer might be that adolescents have not yet learned their
adult roles sufficiently to participate in adult society. While this might be
true for the Hopi and Ifugao, who have fairly elaborate social systems, or for
traditional states like the Trengganu Sultanate, it does not seem to hold for
simple foraging societies among which a similar set of behaviors can be ob-
served. It is not, we contend, that adolescents are not ready to participate in
adult activities, since by adolescence, boys in less complex societies are likely
to have acquired the skills necessary for adulthood, but rather that adults do
not wish to include them. The exclusion of adolescents seems to be much
more marked for boys than for girls.
Most adults in most societies spend the majority of their waking hours
in productive activities. When the household is a unit of production, as it
generally is in tribal and peasant communities, and household members co-
operate in production, boys are likely to be working with their male kin and
girls with their mothers. Within the family, then, there may be very little sep-
aration between the adolescent and his or her same-sex parent and kin. Out-
side the family, however, this separation can often be observed particularly
for boys, as in the preceding examples. If there is a sex difference in the in-
clusion or exclusion of the adolescent from groups of same-sex adults, it is
instructive to look at the activities of these groups.
We begin with the common observation that, almost everywhere, com-
munity decision-making is at least formally done by men-all adult men in
simpler societies, leaders who inherit or are selected for their offices in the
more complex ones. This is not to deny that women can control certain pub-
lic institutions, the control of local markets by women among the Nigerian
Yoruba (Sudarkasa 1973) being an example. Nevertheless, in almost all tra-
ditional societies, decisions concerning dispute settlement, territorial bound-
aries, and questions of warfare are usually made by men, even in such
30 ADOLESCENCE
sexually egalitarian societies as the Hopi (Schlegel 1977) or the Philippine

Bontoc (Bacdayan 1977). The occasional woman chief (Hoffer 1974) or
king's councillor (Awe 1977) are exceptions that do not obviate this general-
ization. This implies that much of the discussion among adult men will have
to do with community politics, a subject on which adolescent boys can make
little contribution because they have not assumed the responsibilities of
adulthood and thus have not been accepted as adults, irrespective of their
skills.
Another topic of discussion among adult men in the public sphere is eco-
nomic activities. It is not expected that adolescent boys will have the experi-
ence to contribute much here, either. Furthermore, without wives and
children to help provide for, their personal stake in economic activities is less
than that of adult men.
While inexperience and lack of personal involvement in adult activities
make adolescent boys of little interest to senior males, adolescent girls are
engaging alongside their mothers in the same activities that they will one day
do as wives. In most places, the gulf in political power and control of prop-
erty is not so great between girls and women as it is between boys and men.
This is particularly true in male-dominant societies, in which the autonomy
of females, whether girls or women, is restricted in comparison to that of
adult men. In such societies, the girl will move from the greater subordina-
tion of childhood and adolescence to the lesser subordination of adult wom-
anhood. Even though she will control areas of household management and
child rearing, her final authority will be her husband or adult brother (cf.
Schlegel 1972). Her male age-mates, however, will be making the transition
from subordinates to peers, looking to the time in their adult lives when they
not only claim authority over their households but also take whatever voice
their social status allows them in controlling community affairs.
The adult roles that adolescents in sexually egalitarian societies antici-
pate differ from those of male-dominant societies (cf. Schlegel 1977 and San-
day 1981 on gender power). In some such societies, women hold power in
other spheres, such as the production and distribution of goods, that bal-
ances the power of men in community decision-making. These can be called
gender-balanced societies, and the Hopi are one example.
When gender is not a determining factor in the allocation of power, it is
possible that the difference between boys and girls is not so marked. A mut-
ing of gender differences may be accompanied by a muting of age differ-
ences, with adolescents generally interacting more freely with adults of both
sexes than they do in those societies in which gender is associated with
power-symmetrically in gender-balanced societies, asymmetrically in male
dominant ones. This question has not received attention from ethnographers
and is open to research.
The lesser social disjuncture between girlh~od and womanhood than be-
tween boyhood and manhood makes social relations of adolescent girls and
women easier than those of adolescent boys and men. This suggests that ad-
olescence may often be less stressful for girls than for boys. Blos (1979) and
other psychoanalysts maintained that the adolescent transition is more diffi-
cult for girls than for boys because of girls' lesser differentiation from the
mother in earlier years and consequently greater struggle for emotional au-
tonomy at this time. We agree with the position of lesser differentiation and
discuss it in Chapter 10, but we do not see this as necessarily resulting in a
greater struggle for autonomy in adolescence. In other words, we see none-
cessity for a great or sudden differentiation from the mother; autonomy may
be relative, and its realization may stretch out over many years. Blos and
others rely on clinical evidence from Western society, which demands ex-
treme individuation quite early in life for both sexes. Where the social unit in
most activities is the collective rather than the individual and individualism is
not expected, the struggle over individuation may be absent or very slight.
To sum up, the implications of the model are that the unlearning of
child roles and character and the learning of adult modes are likely to be
more difficult for boys than for girls and that women have more in common
with adolescent girls than men do with adolescent boys. This may be partic-
ularly true in male dominant societies. Yet, observations of adolescents in
sexually egalitarian societies suggest that, even here, girls are more fully ab-
sorbed into the "female assemblies" than boys are into the "male cohorts."
In the chapters that follow, we test this model. We will be specifically
looking at separation of the sexes, that is, closer interaction with same-sex
than with opposite-sex parents and siblings, and at differential association
with peers. Girls, we predict, will have greater involvement with mothers and
thereby with adult females in general, whereas boys will have greater involve-
ment with peers and less involvement with fathers and adult males. Our as-
sumption is that Homo sapiens, although unlike other primate species both
pair-bonded and communal, shares with our kin in the animal kingdom a
tendency to become sorted into groups that are analogous to female assem-
blies, male cohorts, and bachelor bands.
3
Looking at Adolescent
Socialization
Across Cultures
THE model developed in the preceding chapter describes the biologically

and culturally determined features that we assume to be universal in the
placement of adolescents in human society. This assumption does not con-
flict with the observation that the structures and activities of adolescent life
and adolescent behavior are variable across cultures, but it does raise the
question of generic versus culturally specific culture traits. One of our objec-
tives was to discover widespread patterns of adolescent behavior. Others
were to assess the range of variability and to explain the variations. For ex-
ample, adolescent boys' peer groups arise in all societies. In some, they as-
sume primary importance as a social setting; in others, in which boys spend
more of their time with adult male family members, they are less important
as spheres of action and foci of interest. Why are boys more extruded from
the home in one case and more incorporated into it in the other? One answer
may lie in the tasks required of them. In the first instance, boys may spend
much of their time out with the herds, whereas in the second they may work
alongside their fathers in the family gardens. There may be other explana-
tions, depending on the activities in which boys are engaged.
In meeting our inquiry's objectives, we necessarily dealt with two criti-
cal questions in the analysis of human development. The first question, dis-
cussed in Chapter 1, is how to sort out the determinative influence on
behavior of psychogenic versus sociogenic factors, or features internal to the
individual and external or situational features. Psychogenic factors are
widely held to be responses to child socialization. On the one hand, then, lie
those studies that trace the causality of adult behavior-and thereby adoles-
cent behavior-to child-rearing techniques (cf. Shweder 1979); on the other
are those studies that look to the present for determinants. This study tests
32
Looking at Adolescent Socialization Across Cultures 33
both antecedent and situational variables as components of adolescent be-
havior.
The second question is whether a stage is discontinuous from or contin-
uous with earlier stages. Obviously, without some discontinuity there would
be no differentiation, but it is the degree of abruptness and magnitude of
discontinuity that is in question. It is probably inevitable that any discussion
of the life span as a series of stages (e.g., Erikson 1950) implies discontinuity,
as it focuses upon the distinctiveness of stages. We can still ask whether the
behavioral transition from childhood to adolescence is marked by continu-
ity, ameliorating the effects of the biological changes at puberty, or by dis-
continuity corresponding to biological discontinuity.
Ruth Benedict (1938) brought this issue to the fore some time ago. She
contrasted Samoan adolescents, or the somewhat romanticized version of
them described by Mead (1928), with modern Western adolescents. The for-
mer, she said, enter and leave adolescence gradually, with plenty of opportu-
nity to participate in or at least to observe all aspects of adult life. The latter,
however, are shielded from the realities of adult life, such as sex and death.
The genesis of discontinuity, according to Benedict, lies in childhood's lack
ofresponsibility contrasted with adulthood's responsibility, submission con-
trasted with dominance, and markedly different sexual roles. Her major
points were that discontinuity is variable across cultures and that discontinu-
ity results in stress.
One would expect discontinuity to be greatest where adolescent initia-
tion ceremonies mark the break between childhood and adolescence. Even
here, however, the discontinuity of the abrupt change in status is amelio-
rated, because the ceremonies express themes that are prominent in earlier
childhood socialization: social solidarity and an emphasis on sexual differen-
tiation (Barry and Schlegel 1980b).
A Summary of the Frequency Distributions
A list of variables used for this study is given in Appendix II. This sec-
tion summarizes the frequency distributions, presenting them in the form of
percentages or mean scores. Since for no variable is there information on all
of the societies in the sample, the figures refer to the subsample of societies
for which there is information on that variable.
Parameters of Adolescence
Information is available on the presence or absence of an adolescent so-
cial stage for 173 societies for boys and for 175 for girls. Of these, all societies
have this stage for boys; only one society lacks it altogether for girls, this
being the Gros Ventre (Flannery 1953), where girls are married by about age
34 ADOLESCENCE
10. Because the Gros Ventre believe that sexual intercourse is necessary for
menstruation to begin and expect wives to be virgins, marriage must occur
before menarche. The child bride has the legal and social status of a woman
and is expected to perform the tasks of an adult. If she is a junior wife in a
polygynous household, her older co-wives are likely to be her sisters or close
kin. While she has adult status in the community and takes her turn sleeping
with her husband, her co-wives treat her as a little sister, which softens the
abruptness of the change for so young a child. All other societies in the sam-
ple recognize an adolescent stage for both sexes.
The boundaries and descriptive characteristics of adolescence must be
established. To do this, coders were asked to determine beginning and ending
ages of adolescence for each society, rituals marking beginning and ending,
if any, and whether adolescence was followed by an intervening youth stage
before full adulthood.
A difficulty encountered in any anthropological study of the life cycle is
that ages of people are rarely given in ethnographic monographs. In fact,
they are often unknown by the people themselves, social role being deter-
mined more by level of maturity than by chronological age. To avoid this
difficulty, this study relates social adolescence to biological adolescence
rather than to any specific age. Starting age of social adolescence is measured
as beginning before puberty, at puberty, or after puberty, and ending age is
in early adolescence (up to about two years after puberty), mid-adolescence
(about two to four years after), or late adolescence (about four to seven years
after).
It is possible to make some very rough estimates of age of puberty, de-
fined as first menstruation for girls and first ejaculation for boys. Puberty
usually occurs about two years later for boys than for girls in modern indus-
trial societies. 1 If ages of adolescence are given, but no typical age of menar-
che is estimated by the author, the coders were instructed to estimate 14 as
age of girls' puberty unless there is evidence to the contrary. This age is de-
rived from Eveleth and Tanner (1976:214-215), Table 15. The populations in
that study closest in characteristics to the populations in the Standard Sam-
ple, peoples in Africa, Asia, and India, range from about 13 to 15 in median
age of menarche. 2 We make no attempt to specify any particular chronolog-
ical ages for social adolescence, nor does the study depend upon such speci-
fication. As beginning and ending ages for every society were coded by the
same pair of coders, who arrived at consensus during the training period, we
have every confidence that the relative ages in the study are correct assess-
ments of the variation among cultures and the difference between girls and
boys. By these criteria, starting age for both sexes is predominantly at or just
about at puberty, 72 percent (173) for boys, 82 percent (175) for girls; the
remainder start before puberty, except for one case for girls after puberty.
The movement into adolescence is often marked ritually. Data on this
code, combined with that of earlier studies by Schlegel and Barry (1980a,
1980b) using the same sample, show that either a public adolescent initiation
ceremony is conducted or the transition is signified in some other ritual form
in 68 percent of 130 societies for which there is information on boys and in 79
percent of 126 societies with information on girls. The ceremonies are often
major public events, more often for boys but occasionally for girls. Their
themes express the important contribution to society the young person is ex-
pected to make in his or her future life: productivity is the most common
theme among foragers, although fertility is also an important theme in girls'
ceremonies, while fertility is a primary theme for both sexes in horticultural
societies. (Advanced agricultural societies tend not to have public initiation
ceremonies.) Thus, for about half the cases in this sample, the break between
childhood and adolescence is given ritual recognition and may be the basis
for communitywide ceremonies.
Ending age for boys is most commonly about two to four years after
puberty, with 35 percent of 178 cases falling there and another 31 percent
within two years after puberty. This estimate places the ending age for most
societies at between 16 and 18, coming later for the remainder. For girls, 63
percent of 178 societies end adolescence within two years after puberty, or by
about age 16. Because marriage almost always marks the end of adolescence
in this sample, moving the individual into adult productive and reproductive
relationships, it is safe to assume that adolescence is rather short in most so-
cieties in the sample, particularly for girls.
Modern society has nothing that corresponds to a full adolescent initia-
tion ceremony that marks the total social transformation out of childhood.
One could argue that transition rituals exist within certain domains, how-
ever. For example, the modern bar mitzvah has little effect on the way the
adolescent boy is treated in society, but it does mark the end of childhood
within the religious sphere of Judaism. Modern society pays more attention
to the end of adolescence. For Americans, graduation from high school
serves as a ritual of graduation from adolescence. Young people who do not
graduate must enter the next stage without ritual recognition, although in-
duction into military service may signify this transition for some.
In most societies, adulthood follows adolescence, but in a minority
there is a youth stage before full adulthood is reached: 25 percent of 168
societies have this for boys, and 20 percent of 166 societies have it for girls.
This stage exists in some traditional societies, notably those in which there is
a postadolescent age-grade for young men serving in the army of the tradi-
tional state. Eisenstadt (1956: 142ff .) discussed such age grading for African
militaristic states like the Swazi, Zulu, and Tswana, whose young men spent
a period of years soldiering and performing public works. He contrasted
Sparta, which had such an age-grade for men between ages 20 and 30, with
Athens, which had only a short period of service between ages 18 and 20.
Though a youth stage appears to be most common in traditional or
modern states, some evidence exists for such a stage in certain tribal societies
36 ADOLESCENCE
such as the Abipone of South America (Dobrizhoffer 1822), nomads with no

political organization beyond the small local community. Unfortunately, the
data are sparse and indicate only that young men do not marry until about
age 30, at which time they become full social adults. Very little is known
about the content of this stage. Given the frequency of warfare among the
Abipone, full adulthood is probably delayed to facilitate the establishment
of a warrior-class of unmarried men, as in the more complex traditional
states.
A youth stage characterized many segments of early modern Europe as
well. After a period of apprenticeship during the teenage years, young towns-
men aspiring to be master craftsmen went through a period as journeymen,
typically between the ages of about 18 and 26. Not yet married, they were
granted neither productive nor reproductive adult status; such status came
not at a specific age but rather when they were able to assume the tasks and
responsibilities of full adulthood (cf. Burke 1978). In contemporary society
the youth stage occurs between high school and the concomitant or sequen-
tial events of full employment and marriage. The social timetable (Elder
1975b) for modern society is to complete one's education, settle into a job,
perhaps after a period of experimentation with several occupations or a stint
in military service, and then marry. Research indicates that people who expe-
rience these events out of sequence may suffer adverse effects in terms of
decreased lifetime earnings (Hogan 1980).
A fair bit of ink has been spilled concerning the term adolescence. Al-
though the Oxford English Dictionary traces it to the 15th century (Bak an
1972), it may have differed in meaning then. However, the residents of 14th
century Montaillou, a village in the French Pyrenees, did use the term in its
modern sense. Between the ages of 12 and 14, children ceased being referred
to as puer and became adulescens or juvenis in the records. They kept these
terms until adulthood, which came at marriage for girls, not long after men-
arche, and after age 18 or so for boys (LeRoy Ladurie 1978:215-216).
Contrary to Bakan (1972), we do not believe that adolescence as a social
condition and a social fact has been created by the term adolescence. Nor do
social facts inevitably give rise to classificatory labels, although labels may
increase the awareness of social facts and contribute to the ease of discourse
about them. In other words, adolescence as a social fact can exist without a
term to distinguish adolescents as a definable class of social beings. Never-
theless, it is of interest to know whether only Western society applies such a
label.
Information is limited in the ethnographies, as ethnographers are more
likely to report the presence of such terms than their absence. The fact that
terms are reported for 14 out of 39 societies for which there is information on
boys and for 17 out of 41 societies for girls does not indicate widespread ter-
minological recognition of this stage. However, it does indicate that such rec-
ognition is not limited to modern society.
One example comes from the North American Navaho, who call a girl
ch 'ikeeh and a boy tsilkeeh between childhood and marriage. Another comes
from the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia, whose adolescent life was richly
described by Malinowski (1932:60). In the Trobriand Islands, the large
breaks come between the periods of life characterized by different reproduc-
tive status: wadi, prereproductive children of both sexes; ta'u (male) and
vivila (female), persons of reproductive capacity; and the post-reproductive
elderly (no term given). Within these major periods, stages are designated,
each with its name. The boy from puberty to marriage is known as to'ulatile,
the girl as nakapugula.
In addition to labelling the adolescent stage, the Trobrianders see it as
highly distinctive, a time when young people are "the flower of the village"
(Malinowski 1932:64). However, the Kalapalo of Brazil, who also regard
their adolescents as the epitome of beauty, have no terms for adolescence
(Ellen Basso, personal communication). Further, there is no evidence that
the Navajo, who do have such terms, consider this period as being in any way
special. It appears that some peoples are more concerned about labelling life
stages than others, for reasons having less to do with the distinctiveness of
the life stages than with ideas about the need to delineate cosmic or social
order. Labelling or not labelling social facts may be more reflective of the
symbolic structure of the culture than the social structure of the society.
Labelling can be done visually as well as verbally. One signifier of social
distinction is distinctiveness in dress, hair style, face painting, or ornamenta-
tion, all visual markers. For boys, changes in visual markers from childhood
occur in 86 percent of 102 societies, while for girls they occur in 88 percent of
118 societies. Such markers may exist for one sex only. Among the Chatino
Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, girls move out of childhood when they receive a
large rebozo, a kind of shawl, to replace the small rebozo of childhood. The
large one enables them to carry babies about, a primary task of adolescent
girls. Boys, however, do not change their appearance; their exit from child-
hood is signified only behaviorally, by their entering the ceremonial organi-
zation of the village where they act as pages to the adult men (Eva Zavaleta
Greenberg, personal communication).
Visual markers to distinguish adolescents from adults are less common,
being coded for only 32 percent of 100 societies for boys and 35 percent of
118 societies for girls. An example of distinctive adolescent appearance, dif-
fering from that of either children or adults, is the change in hairstyle of the
Hopi girl. As a child, she wears the miniature version of the butterfly hair-
style, for which the hair is formed into bunches on each side of the head like
butterfly wings. After a small private adolescent initiation ceremony, she
puts her hair into large butterfly wings, set with the aid of wicker hoops. This
is, in fact, a visual announcement that she is ready for courtship. Upon mar-
riage, she assumes the hairstyle of adult women, in which the hair is worn in
two braidlike ropes. Boys have no such visual markers. Incidentally, the
38 ADOLESCENCE
Hopi have no terms for adolescence, the adolescent being classified termino-
logically with the child until the girl marries and the boy undergoes his initi-
ation into a men's society. Nevertheless, visual markers for girls and certain
behaviors for both sexes are distinctive of this stage.
Relations with the Family

In most societies of this sample, adolescents spend the majority of their
waking hours with adults of the same sex-in 66 percent of 161 cases for boys
and in 84 percent of 160 cases for girls-and the setting for most of their
activities is the home. Relations with family members are assessed in separate
segments of the code and were independently coded by different sets of cod-
ers, with the results of each supporting the other. One segment ranks agents
of socialization in the family by their importance in teaching adolescents and
having some control over their activities. For boys, the father is the single
most important agent in 79 percent of 173 cases, while the mother is most
important for girls in 85 percent of 171 cases. The other segment measures
contact, intimacy, subordination, and conflict on an 11-point scale. The data
reflect both the nature of the human family as an integrated unit comprising
both sexes and the fact that some degree of sexual separation is widely pres-
ent, even in the home. Of the societies in this sample for which there are data,
girls have both more contact and greater intimacy with older female kin (ex-
cluding sisters), mothers, and grandmothers than boys have with older male
kin (excluding brothers), fathers, and grandfathers. Contact and intimacy
with older siblings of the same sex are similar for girls and boys.
Relations with the Community

Adolescents are quite commonly closely integrated in adult family activ-
ities, and many participate substantially in adult community life_, assuming
new roles in the community. Out of 78 societies for which there is informa-
tion on boys, new roles are undertaken in 64 (82 percent). These roles are
economically productive, military, religious, or contributive to community
welfare; no cases were recorded of new political roles. Girls are shown to
have less community involvement: out of 45 societies, they take on new roles
in 27 (60 percent), these being new religious roles in 14 cases. Examples of
new community roles are the military activities that adolescent boys perform
in a number of tribal groups. In the South and East African age-graded soci-
eties, adolescent boys are not generally warriors themselves, as the warrior
grade comprises slightly older youths, but adolescent boys typically receive
military training.
Adolescents of both sexes may for the first time take a meaningful part
in community rituals. This is the case for the Chatino boys mentioned ear-
lier, who enter the cargo system-the system of religious obligations-at this
time. For a small number of societies, there is information on the response of

the community to adolescents' new roles. Recognition can be given through
such rewards as payment, feasts, or public praise. In a few cases, there is
conscious selection or training for community leadership during adoles-
cence.
In the modern world, we expect a certain portion of our adolescents to
be delinquents, i.e., to exhibit behavior that violates social standards. How-
ever, what may be delinquent in European or American nations might not be
so in traditional societies. Information on the question of regular, expected
antisocial behavior-not including the occasional deviant-has been coded,
framed in terms of what the society itself considers disruptive. Out of 54 so-
cieties for which there is information, patterned antisocial behavior of boys
occurs in 24, and it occurs in 6 out of 34 societies for girls. It occurs among
adolescent boys more than among younger boys in 61 percent of 31 cases and
among adolescent boys more than among adult men in 59 percent of 29
cases. For boys but not for girls, adolescence tends to be the stage during
which antisocial behavior most often occurs, if it occurs at all. Violence
against persons and theft are more common than destruction of property.
Punishment for misbehavior of any kind is fairly evenly divided between
mild and severe, although it is ignored or only mildly admonished in 23 per-
cent of 69 cases for boys and in 25 percent of 61 cases for girls.
One form of disruptive behavior is running away, and ethnographers
are more likely to note its presence than its absence. For societies with infor-
mation on this feature, it has been recorded for 61 percent of 36 cases for
girls and for 55 percent of 31 cases for boys. Nisa, a !Kung adolescent, at-
tempted to avoid a distasteful marriage by running into the forest and re-
maining there overnight in order to convince her parents of her feelings
(Shostak 1983). The first author has been told of several cases of Hopi girls
who used this tactic to gain relief from a tense relationship with their moth-
ers. In these cases, they took shelter with relatives, who finally persuaded
them to return.
Another form of antisocial behavior, widespread among tribesmen, is
the practice of witchcraft, malevolence through magical means. In general,
adolescents seem no more likely to be either victims or practitioners of witch-
craft than persons of other ages.
Relations with Peers

In the model offered in Chapter 2, the peer group is more salient for
boys than for girls. This hypothesis is supported by the frequency distribu-
tions of the data. Although for both sexes most time is spent with adults of
the same sex, the peer group is the single primary locus of boys' waking
hours in 17 percent of 161 cases with information but in only 5 percent of 160
cases for girls. The importance of peer groups relative to the family and other
40 ADOLESCENCE
social groups has been rated in 91 societies for boys and in 68 societies for
girls. For boys, the figures are: more important, 27 percent; equal, 40 per-
cent; and less important, 33 percent. For girls, the comparable figures are 7
percent, 24 percent, and 69 percent respectively. Evidence from other ratings
leads us to suspect that this rating overestimates the "more important" cate-
gory for boys. Nevertheless, peer groups clearly seem to be more important
in boys' lives than in girls', while involvement with older kin of the same sex
is greater for girls. Data on contact with peers, coded independently from
importance of peer group, support this: the mean score for boys is 6.1 for
126 cases, whereas it is 5.0 for 101 cases for girls.
Peer group size also varies between the sexes. Boys' peer groups are
large, numbering about 14 or more, in 52 percent of 88 cases with informa-
tion and are small, about three to six, in 20 percent. Girls' groups, however,
are large in 37 percent of 68 cases and small in 34 percent. Boys' peer groups
more often have names than do girls' groups. For both sexes, time with peers
is most commonly spent in leisure activities. Recreational activities are not
confined to peer groups, however; both boys and girls are rated as "often"
participating with children and with adults. Young people may get together
in work groups. Several Hopi girls, for example, sometimes take the corn
they have to grind over to one girl's house and have a grinding party, thus
lightening the burdensome task with talk and laughter. Adolescent herd boys
in African cattle-owning societies commonly herd together, away from the
eyes of the village.
Sexuality and Reproduction

For the large majority of societies, marriage choice is made during ado-
lescence. Age of first marriage relative to puberty tends to differ between
girls and boys. In 60 percent of 124 societies with information, girls are mar-
ried within two years after puberty. Boys are married between two and four
years after puberty in 45 percent of 132 societies, earlier than that in 33 per-
cent. This puts the most common chronological ages of marriage roughly at
14 to 16 for girls, 16 to 20 for boys, if our estimates of age of puberty are
accurate.
Unless young people are married at or before puberty, the question of
adolescent sexuality arises. Ethnographers give fairly extensive accounts of
premarital sexual activity. In the majority of societies in this sample, hetero-
sexual intercourse is either tolerated or expected with a limited number of
partners: in 65 percent of 155 societies with information for boys and in 60
percent of 163 societies for girls. Some controls are exerted, however; only a
few societies tolerate promiscuity, and the partner is most frequently ex-
pected to be another adolescent: in 61 percent of 141 cases with information
for boys and in 61 percent of 140 cases for girls.
Homosexual activity is also permitted in some societies, although these

data are less complete; instances of such activity are more likely to be re-
ported by ethnographers than the absence or prohibition of homosexuality.
There is evidence in 25 societies for boys and in 17 for girls that homosexual
relations are tolerated or expected.
The Self
Adolescence is a time of new or intensified learning for both sexes in the
skill areas identified: work, warfare (boys only), religion, arts and games,
cognition, and social interaction. Adolescents tend to do work similar to that
of adults and to dress like them but to have different leisure-time activities.
Adolescence is also a time when young people are given more productive
property to manage than previously in 44 percent of 102 societies with infor-
mation for boys, 31 percent of 74 societies for girls. Success in adolescence is
preponderantly in the area of work. The good worker gets social acclaim and
is also likely to attract a satisfactory spouse later. However, physical skill is
also important in determining success for boys; the activities are likely to be
wrestling or competitive games. For girls, sexual attributes assume impor-
tance.
If adolescence is a time during which various skills and social roles are
being learned, it is also a time during which the inculcation of character traits
continues from childhood or is intensified. The traits selected for measure-
ment were fortitude, impulsiveness, aggressiveness, obedience, sexual ex-
pression, sexual restraint, self-reliance, conformity to group, trust, com-
petitiveness, responsibility, and achievement. Mean scores for these traits are
primarily of interest in comparing girls with boys. For most, the difference is
less than one point on an I I-point scale. The traits with a greater difference
are aggressiveness, self-reliance, and competitiveness, with boys receiving
higher mean scores in all cases. These distributions argue against radically
different socialization of the sexes for most societies.
Adolescents in this sample are not free from social pressures. There is a
widespread belief that adolescence in tribal or peasant communities flows
smoothly, without competition for resources (which can include a desirable
spouse and powerful in-laws) and without areas in which choice must be ex-
ercised. This notion is belied by the data from this study. In only a small
minority of societies is there no increase over childhood in responsibility. Oc-
cupational choice must be made by at least some boys in 65 percent of 150
societies with information and by some girls in 43 percent of 141 societies.
An adolescent may have to decide whether to become, for instance, a sha-
man, midwife, berdache (institu'tionalized transvestite), or master carver.
Because training for a specialized role often means a long period of appren-
ticeship to a master, this choice can be costly in terms of time and goods. It
42 ADOLESCENCE
is not made lightly. In many societies, there is pressure for excellence rather
than mere competence.
Young people may also have to take the initiative in finding a spouse,
even though the choice often has to be approved by others. This is the case in
58 percent of 174 societies with information for boys and in 47 percent of 169
societies for girls. Courtship in tribal societies can be as frustrating and as
shadowed by fear of rejection as it is for modern Western teenagers.
Adolescence is a time during which adult character is established in the
large majority of societies. Memories are long in small communities, and one
carries one's adolescent reputation into adulthood.
The frequency distributions of the data strongly suggest that an adoles-

cent social stage is very widespread and possibly universal for boys. Such a
stage is usual for girls, although there are exceptions. Early marriage, even
before menarche, does not necessarily preclude social adolescence, however;
the married girl's activities may differ markedly from those of older women,
and sexual relations may be delayed until some time after puberty. For any
particular societies that schedule life events in a sequence different from that
followed by the majority of societies, analysis has to be done on a case-by-
case basis.
Compared to modern Western society, the societies in this sample tend
to display a rather brief adolescence, particularly for girls. It is necessary to
prolong adolescence when adult roles require lengthy training, and role
training in many societies may be easier for girls than for boys. Whether in
the homes of their fathers or their husbands, women remain subordinate to
men in most of the societies in this sample. As women age, they assume con-
siderable autonomy and authority within their domains, but the sphere
within which they make decisions is generally more restricted than that of
men. Where men hold power, adolescent boys are preparing to make the
transition from child subordinates to adult peers. Girls, however, move from
greater to lesser subordination within the society at large, even in those cases
in which a middle-aged or elderly woman is the family matriarch. For role
training, then, boys may often need a longer adolescence than girls.
The brevity of the adolescent stage for girls is related to another factor.
In many places, nubile girls are political capital for the people who control
their marriages, usually their fathers. Fecundity is a critical issue in these so-
cieties, for it is through his own increase-via his wife or wives-that a man
assures himself of loyal supporters in his middle and later years. He expands
his network of social alliances through the marriages of his children. Fur-
thermore, in many horticultural societies and some pastoral ones, multiple
wives are an economic asset: polygyny has been demonstrated to be signifi-
cantly associated with high female contribution to subsistence (Schlegel and
Barry 1986). For social reasons, and often economic ones as well, marriage-
able women are in high demand. Delaying the marriage of a daughter for
many years after puberty would be letting an asset go to waste, unless there
are compelling reasons to postpone marriage.
The adolescent stage itself not only is midway between childhood and
adulthood but also shares some characteristics of both stages. While the ad-
olescents in this sample are childlike in their domestic subordination and lack
of political involvement in the community, they are likely to dress like adults
and to perform adult productive tasks. Their absence from community
decision-making does not indicate that they fail to contribute to the commu-
nity, for they may take on responsibilities, particularly in religious or
military activities. Although they may be sexually active, they are not repro-
ductive.
The pattern of relationships with family, community, and peers among
adolescents in this sample follows the model offered in Chapter 2. The
greater contact and intimacy shown by girls with adult female kin, compared
to that of boys with adult male kin, indicates greater involvement among
females of all ages and greater segregation of men from boys. Conversely,
involvement with peers is generally greater for boys than for girls. Although
for both sexes the family is undoubtedly the most important social group and
the peer group secondary in the majority of societies in the sample, a gender
difference appears in the degree of involvement in these two social units.
How characteristic this gender difference is of modern society is hard to
say. In the United States, for example, there may be considerable variation
among ethnic groups and social classes. In the middle and upper classes,
where child labor is not needed at home or in family enterprises, adolescents
of both sexes are likely to spend a good deal of time with their age-mates, and
the difference between boys and girls may be less marked. In working-class
households or in families of Hispanic or of recent Middle Eastern or Asian
extraction, girls may be expected to spend their after-school hours at home
while boys may be away from home, working or at leisure with their peers.
Although adolescence worldwide might not have the Sturm und Drang
quality attributed to it in some of the more florid 19th and 20th century liter-
ature, adolescence in this sample displays points of stress that may be widely
characteristic of this stage. Life becomes a serious business at this time, for
young people are under the observation of their elders as future children-in-
law. Decisions made during these years can have far-reaching consequences.
In small closed societies, adolescence is not just a period of training for adult
life; it is the time during which the ground is prepared for adult social rela-
tions with the same people who are currently one's peers. There is no escape,
no chance to begin anew somewhere else. What one will be in 10 years is
strongly colored by what one is today. It is likely that adolescents are aware
of this as they struggle to cope with the social pressures to conform and often
to excel.
Adolescents and
Their Families
THE ethogram in Chapter 2 depicts our model of the social organization of

adolescence. In this and the following chapters, the utility of that model is
assessed and some of its implications are explored. We begin by looking at
family relations.
Adolescents in modern industrial nations, anticipating the day when
they will leave their families, face an important developmental task. In prep-
aration for this move, they must begin to disengage while they are still in the
midst of family activities. Within a few years they will move out, to reside for
a while with roommates, a young spouse, or alone before once again living in
a family circle, one that they have created. This issue does not enter the lives
of the adolescents in our sample. In most of the societies, only one sex (usu-
ally girls) leaves-at marriage-and then into another family household.
Even in neolocal societies, in which the married couple sets up its own house-
hold, the new home is most often within shouting, or at least walking, dis-
tance of the homes in which the young husband and wife spent their
childhoods.
Such family continuity colors the relations of family members. If one's
source of social support, livelihood, standing in the community, and all fu-
ture aid is the family, one will avoid antagonizing relatives. Even if there are
hostilities or personality incompatibilities, these feelings are suppressed to
preserve a facade, at least, of family harmony. In a couple of instances it
took the first author by surprise when, after being present at a cordial Hopi
family gathering, she heard another side in the privacy of the field worker-
informant relationship. Such suppression of animosity and preservation of
family solidarity is not unusual; it characterizes family life whenever the
family and not the individual is the basic unit of economic and social action.
Relations of adolescents with their families must be seen in the light of
lifelong family unity. In the societies in our sample, family members need
44
Adolescents and Their Families 45
one another. Adolescent and young adult children depend on the help of par-
ents and other kin, especially when all are living together, and aging parents
rely on older children for their very survival. Siblings and other relatives
form the core of an individual's political and social support group and are
expected to respond in time of need. Independence as we know it would be
regarded as not only eccentric and egotistical but also foolhardy beyond rea-
son.
Adolescents' relations with other family members, as recounted in the
ethnographies, are generally harmonious. Subordination to elders does not
seem to cause difficulties, as long as treatment is fair and the young person is
being helped by the parents to achieve an honorable adulthood. Selfishness
and abuse of power on the part of elders are not unknown and are resented
as keenly by tribal adolescents as by any other young people. However, such
cases seem to be the exception. Parental calls to duty that interfere with the
adolescents' plans, and the childish thoughtlessness and foolish pranks that
irritate their elders, will pass. In these families, one is in for the long haul,
and present aggravations are overlooked to serve everyone's best interest,
which is to maintain harmony in family relations.
Although this study's coding schedule includes questions about siblings,
grandparents, and other kin, most of the information is on parents. 1 The
norm is that both parents live in the home, in all of the societies of the sample
except the South American Mundurucu and Callinago, among whom adult
men live in the village men's house and visit their matrilocally residing wives.
Only rarely is the father not the adult male who cooperates with the mother
in child rearing: the Nayar of southern India and the Minangkabau of Indo-
nesia (societies not in the sample), in which the adult brother and sister reside
in the same household and the woman's husband is an evening visitor, are
among the few examples worldwide.
In most societies in our sample, adolescents spend most of their waking
hours with adults of the same sex-in 66 percent of 161 cases for boys and in
84 percent of 160 cases for girls-and the setting for most of their activities is
the home or elsewhere with kin. In virtually all cases, the family is the pri-
mary unit of production, and adolescents work alongside family members.
Questions concerning relations with family members appear at different
points in the code and were independently coded by different research assist-
ants. One question concerns agents of socialization, ranking them by their
importance in teaching adolescents and having some control over their activ-
ities. For boys, the father is the single most important agent in 79 percent of
173 cases, while the mother is most important for girls in 85 percent of 171
cases.
Other questions concern some of the features-contact, intimacy, con-
flict, and subordination-that contribute to the emotional tone of the rela-
tion between adolescents and other family members. These features have
been rated on an 11-point scale. Mean scores are reported in Table 4.1. While
Table4.J. Relations with Family: Mean Scores of Contact, Intimacy, Subordination, and Conflict
Boys' Mean Girls' Mean

Subordi- Subordi-
Contact Intimacy nation Conflict Contact Intimacy nation Conflict
Mother 2.4 (126) 5.3 (59) 5.9 (92) 2.7 (33) 7.1 (133) 6.4 (51) 6.7 (111) 2.8 (46)
Father 5.3 (134) 4.8 (56) 7 .2 (138) 3.4 (61) 2.5 (122) 4.1 (47) 7.2 (136) 2.8 (54)
Older male
~
sibling 6.1 (46) 6.2 (41) 6.1 (58) 3. 7 (26) 2.6 (40) 5.3 (36) 6.2 (53) 2.6 (11)
°'
Older female
sibling 2.5 (33) 5.3 (38) 4.5 (24) 2.3 (8) 6.2 (32) 6.7 (33) 5.2 (24) 2.5 (12)
Grand- inadequate inadequate
mother 2.1 (29) 5.9 (26) 5.9 (35) data (N=2) 5.6 (40) 6.3 (30) 6.4 (51) data (N=5)
Grand- inadequate inadequate
father 3.6 (32) 6.0(31) 6.3 (47) data (N=4) 2.9 (33) 5.8 (25) 6.2 (39) data (N=3)
Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of societies for which there are data.
there is no rating for contemporary adofescents, data from Youniss and
Smollar (1985) on American adolescents provide some basis for comparison.
In eight separate studies, they sampled 1,049 boys and girls of high school
age, almost all from two-parent homes and predominantly middle class.
(Other class and family structures might provide somewhat different results.)
We refer to their work in the following discussion.
Contact refers to the proportion of waking time spent together. A rating
of two indicates only a small proportion; five, about half; eight, most; and
ten, virtually all. For example, among the Aztecs of pre-Columbian Mexico,
boys attend school while girls stay at home; thus, boys receive a rating of
four for contact with father, while girls receive eight for contact with
mother. Among the Balinese, however, boys work as closely with their fa-
thers as girls do with their mothers, and both sexes are rated eight for contact
with parent of the same sex. For both sexes in the sample, contact with par-
ent of the opposite sex is rated lower than contact with same-sex parent.
Mean scores indicate that boys and girls have similar levels of contact with
the parent of the opposite sex; girls' contact with the mother, however, is
higher than boys' contact with the father in the sample societies.
American middle-class girls and boys appear to spend nearly equal time
with mothers and with fathers. Most waking hours of adolescents of both
sexes are spent away from home, at school or work and with friends. In eve-
nings or on weekends, the entire family is likely to be present in the home.
There is some difference, however; Youniss and Smollar (1985) report that
girls engage in more activities with their mothers and boys do more with their
fathers.
Intimacy is evidenced by sharing secrets and expressing affection. A rat-
ing of two indicates acquaintance but no special friendship; five, a substan-
tial degree of trust and liking; eight, strong expressions of affection and time
spent together by choice. As examples, in the Trobriand Islands of Melane-
sia, girls are somewhat more intimate with their mothers (rating of seven)
than boys are with either their mothers (six) or their fathers (five); while
among the Javanese, both sexes are equally intimate with their mothers
(seven), but intimacy with fathers is greater for girls (five) than for boys
(two). This rating reflects an extreme distance and guardedness between
Javanese fathers and sons; these fathers relax more in the company of their
daughters. In the sample, girls and boys are similar in the level of intimacy
with the father. For both sexes, intimacy is greater with the mother, more so
for girls than for boys.
Youniss and Smollar's (1985) data do not allow us to compare intimacy
levels of American adolescents with those of the sample societies, but they do
provide information on the difference between boys and girls with their par-
ents. For both sexes, intimacy with mothers is higher than it is with fathers,
conforming to the worldwide pattern. Fathers exercise authority over both
sexes through controlling or protective behavior, and they are turned to for
advice on instrumental activities like career planning. Mothers receive confi-
48 ADOLESCENCE
dences; and their authority, while strong, is softened by the perception that
they gratify the emotional needs of their children through understanding and
cooperation.
As Youniss and Smollar (1985:83) pointed out, the adolescents' depic-
tion of parental roles is close to the instrumental-expressive dichotomy of
Parsons and Bales (1955). This model, which identifies fathers with instru-
mental activities and mothers with expressive ones, has been much criticized,
particularly for overlooking the instrumental activities of mothers. Youniss
and Smollar do not report distinctions in their sample-members' families be-
tween those with and without working mothers; do working mothers, usually
overextended between job and household responsibilities, withdraw emo-
tionally from their adolescents more than mothers without jobs? Generaliz-
ing to the sample, is the greater warmth and intimacy of the mother a
consequence of her usually having fewer extradomestic claims on her time
and attention?
Subordination refers to obedience and deference. When it is prevalent,
a rating of eight is given; when it is generally expected, the rating is five; and
when it is not generally expected, the rating is two. Among the patrilineal
R wala Bedouin of Syria, both sexes are rated strongly subordinate to their
fathers (nine), with no rating available for mother. The matrilineal Negri
Sembilan of Malaysia, however, require less submission, particularly for
boys: girls are rated eight for subordination to both parents, while boys are
rated six for the same. Girls and boys are equally subordinate to their fathers
in the sample, but boys are less submissive to their mothers than are girls.
In the American study, subordination declines as children move from
childhood into adolescence and large areas of their lives are lived outside of
parental awareness. Parents also relax authority as their children grow older
(Youniss and Smollar 1985:72-74). Part of the diminution of authority in
American households may be due to our egalitarian and democratic ideol-
ogy. Part, however, may have to do with the greater length of adolescence in
industrial nations. American children are adolescents until about age eigh-
teen, by which time the young person is closer to the parents in physique,
mentality, and interests than is the young adolescent of fourteen or fifteen.
Two or three years' difference in age has significant effects in a stage of life
when growth and change are rapid. We expect that treatment changes ac-
cordingly.
Conflict refers to contradictory aims or expectations and is expressed
through strife, punishments, or disobedience. A rating of eight is given when
quarrels or punishments are fairly frequent or severe, five indicates a moder-
ate degree of conflict, and two signifies a mild degree. Two pastoral peoples
show the range of difference. Among the Siberian Chukchee, conflict is
high for both sexes, with a rating of eight for conflict of both girls and boys
with father and mother. Among the African Fulani, boys and girls have little
conflict with their mothers (rating of one for both sexes) but considerably
more with their fathers (rating of four for girls, six for boys). For the sample,
conflict scores for both sexes are low, boys having a slightly higher level of
conflict with their fathers. . . .
In the American research, confhct for both sexes tends to be higher with
their mothers than with their fathe~s (Yo~niss and Smollar 1985). This m~y
be a function of the lesser contact with theu fathers and some guardedness m
the father-child relationship. The greater freedom of expression with the
mother also invites more disagreement and criticism by the child. Much of
the mother-child conflict is rather petty, revolving around issues like clean-
ing one's room or talking back.
The data in Table 4.1 reflect both the nature of the human family as an
integrated unit comprising both sexes and the fact that some degree of gender
difference is widely present. Of the societies in this sample for which there
are data, girls tend to have both more contact and greater intimacy with older
female kin-mothers and grandmothers-than boys do with older male
kin-fathers and grandfathers. Contact and intimacy are similar for girls
and boys with older siblings of the same sex. Conflict is more often stronger
between fathers and sons than between mothers and sons or between daugh-
ters and either parent. Even so, the mean level of conflict between fathers
and sons is low. Subordination for both sexes to their fathers is rather high,
somewhat lower to their mothers.
Of these four variables-contact, intimacy, subordination, and con-
flict-the one with the most complete data is contact. In order to determine
the relative contact of parents with children, whether high or low as deter-
mined by waking hours spent with parents, we assessed contact with the
mother versus contact with the father. It must be remembered that high and
low contact do not have the same meaning for girls and boys. For girls, high
contact with the mother refers to a rating of eight or above, while for boys,
high contact with the father refers to a rating of six or above. As girls gener-
ally have more contact with their mothers than boys do with their fathers, a
designation of high contact with the parent of the same sex means high con-
tact relative to other societies for the same sex, not high contact relative to
the opposite sex. For both sexes, high contact with the parent of the opposite
sex means a rating of three or above.
With those definitions in mind, we report the significant findings, using
the quantitative ratings on a scale of O to 10. When contact of boys with one
parent is high, contact with the other is very likely to be high also (r = .27,
P< .003, N = 121). When boys have high contact with their fathers, girls are
significantly likely to have high contact with their mothers (r = .41, p < .001,
N = 126), and when girls have high contact with their fathers, boys are sig-
nificantly likely to have high contact with their mothers (r = .66, p < .001,
N = 117). Thus, high father-son contact predicts high contact of both boys
and girls with their mothers, and high father-daughter contact predicts high
contact of boys with mothers. In other words, high contact of both girls and
boys with their fathers indicates a high level of contact within the family gen-
erally. However, high mother-daughter contact does not predict high father-
50 ADOLESCENCE
daughter contact, although there is a trend (r = .18, p = .052, N = 119) in

that direction . High contact between mother and daughter occurs in sexually
segregated as well as sexually integrated families, whereas high contact be-
tween father and son does not. When fathers and sons are less in contact,
boys are spending time with peers, with other adults, or alone.
Contact has been assessed in relation to the other variables. For boys,
high father-son contact is associated with high subordination, and there is a
trend for high contact to be associated with high conflict (see Table 4.2). For
girls, however, high father-daughter contact is associated with high father-
daughter intimacy (see Table 4.2). It is clear that contact with the father has
different meanings for the two sexes, tending to lead to subordination or
conflict for boys and to intimacy for girls. This finding has implications for
the current interest in increasing the involvement of fathers in the rearing of
children. Instead of closing the gap in the differential treatment of sons and
daughters, increased involvement of fathers might enlarge it, as fathers more
than mothers seem to treat the two sexes differently.
There is no significant relation between intimacy and subordination or
between subordination and conflict for either sex with either parent. For
boys, there is an inverse relation between intimacy and conflict with the fa-
ther. Applying the Mantel-Haenszel test to the entire sample (rather than di-
chotomizing at the median), the chi-square value is 4.32, p = .038 (N = 28).
Table 4.2 Relations with Father
Contact
below median above median
Boys
Subordination
below median 32 16
above median 25 38
x2 = 6.90 p = .009
Conflict
below median 21 8
above median 10 13
x2 = 3.34 p = .068 (trend)
Girls
Intimacy
below median 17 4
above median 10 11
Fisher's Exact Test p = .052
This relationship is not significant for girls or for either sex with the mother.
These findings suggest that subordination per se neither discourages inti-
macy nor exacerbates conflict, so that a more democratic household does not
necessarily foster intimacy or reduce conflict. That intimacy and conflict are
inversely related is hardly surprising; one would not expect a high degree of
trust and affection to coexist with frequent quarrels or punishments. It is
noteworthy that this inverse relation between conflict and intimacy for fa-
thers and sons is not found for mothers and sons or for daughters at all. This
may have to do with the type of conflict between mothers and children and
fathers and daughters, the tribal equivalent of squabbles over keeping one's
room neat or taking out the garbage. Petty bickering that no one takes seri-
ously can be frequent between intimate persons, but a boy's conflict with his
father is likely to involve more important issues, such as the son's contribu-
tion to household labor or his use of family resources.
Family Members Other Than Parents
Very little attention has been paid to relations between adolescents and
grandparents (Baranowski 1982). In the West, grandparents are not gener-
ally part of the home in which adolescents live. In traditional societies,
grandparents are present in the home in stem- or extended-family households
or live nearby within the community when households consist of nuclear
families. However, when life expectancies are low, not all adolescents have
living grandparents.
It has often been observed that grandparents can serve as a buffer be-
tween parents and children. The mean scores in Table 4.1 reflect that obser-
vation: for boys, intimacy with the grandmother is slightly higher than with
the mother, and with the grandfather it is a good bit higher than with the
father. For girls, intimacy with the grandmother is similar to that with the
mother, and with the grandfather it is considerably higher than with the fa-
ther, as for boys.
Somewhat more information is available on siblings. Relations with
older male and female siblings were measured and were assessed vis-a-vis
similar relations with parents. The findings indicate that. relations with an
older sibling of the same sex mirror relations with a parent of the same sex.
When contact of the boy with the father is high, contact with the older
brother is also high; when subordination or conflict with one is high, so are
subordination and conflict, respectively, high with the other (Table 4.3). For
girls, contact with the mother predicts contact with the older sister (Table
· 4.3). Data on subordination and conflict between sisters are insufficient to
permit testing.
In societies in which mortality, particularly maternal mortality, is high,
older siblings may have to become parental surrogates. These data suggest
that there is socialization for that potential role. It has become widely recog-
Table 4.3 Relations with Older Siblings
Boys
Contact with older brother
Contact with father
below median 20 5
above median 5 15
x2 = 11.48 p = .001
Subordination to older brother

Subordination to father
below median 18 3
above median 8 27
Fisher's Exact Testp < .001
Conflict with older brother

Conflict with father
below median 6 1
above median 0 8
Subordination to older brother

Sibling child care: boys
absent 5 0
present 13 14
Girls
Contact with older sister
Contact with mother
below median 11 2
above median 6 13
Fisher's Exact Te~t p = .005
52
nized that much child care in tribal and traditional societies is performed by
other children, following Weisner and Gallimore's (1977) influential paper
surveying this practice. In the large majority of societies in this study for
which there are pertinent data, adolescents interact frequently with younger
children: girls in 87 percent of 95 cases and boys in 81 percent of 89 cases.
Teenage child care, a source of income for modern adolescents, is a domestic
duty in much of the world. Weisner (1982:323) points out the important role
of sibling care in mediating parent-child tensions.
For analysis, we divided these societies into two groups, those in which
adolescents are and are not significant socializers of younger children, mean-
ing that they do or do not care for them or otherwise spend a good deal of
time with them. The role of adolescents as socializers was related to the mea-
sures of family emotional tone. We reason that where adolescents are social-
izers, then those in the sample societies who have older siblings were
socialized by them when these siblings were themselves adolescents. We ex-
pect that the relations between adolescents and siblings who socialized them
will differ from relations in societies in which this is not the case.
In our efforts to discern the impact of relations of adolescents of both
sexes with older siblings of both sexes, the only significant finding is the ab-
sence of strong subordination of boys to older brothers who did not care for
them as children (Table 4.3). As Weisner (1982:312) pointed out, it is com-
mon for older siblings to dominate younger ones in their care. For brothers
this is one way of establishing a hierarchy, in which the position of the older
brother as agent for the parents can be carried forward into the adolescence
of the younger brother. Whiting and Whiting (1975:95ff.) hypothesized that
child care promotes responsible and nurturant behavior in children; for boys
in some cases there may be an increase in dominance as well, at least toward
younger brothers. There is, of course, no incompatibility between nurtur-
ance and dominance; one can be both loving and bossy. The absence of sig-
nificant findings for other kinds of sibling relationships may be due to the
small size of the samples. Alternatively, it may indicate that sibling relation-
ships in adolescence are more a consequence of the setting in which they
occur-the current factors promoting closeness or distance, hierarchy or
equality, between adolescents and their older brothers and sisters-than of
antecedent relationships, those between siblings when the adolescents were
children.
Family and Society
We looked at the co-occurrence of variables measuring family relations

with variables that are measures of social organization or that are known to
be associated with features of social organization. By social organization, we
refer to relations that sort people into roles and categories and through which
the necessary activities of life are carried on: relations of production that
54 ADOLESCENCE
characterize roles within the subsistence technology and the economy; rela-
tions of reproduction embedded in kinship and marriage; and relations of
power that operate within the political system, whereby decisions for the
community and polity are made and enforced.
Anthropologists, practitioners of a comparative science, long ago
learned that behavior, features of expressive culture, kinds of religious sys-
tems, and even the more subtle aspects of culture like values, beliefs, and
styles of self-presentation do not vary randomly across cultures but fit some-
what loosely into typologies. If one knows that a society is a tropical foraging
band or an East African cattle-keeping village or is matrilineal or practices
general polygyny, one can make predictions about other aspects of social or-
ganization and culture.
Several ways of classifying societies have proven to be useful. One
highly predictive set of variables, which encompasses many other features of
social organization, is the type of subsistence technology. Another, associ-
ated with features of individual behavior, is the structure of the family.
These variables tend to be intercorrelated, but not so highly as to indicate
that they are tautological.
Subsistence Technology
Subsistence technology can be characterized by a rough-hewn typology.
As generally used in cross-cultural research, in which fine-grained classifica-
tion would result in too few cases per type to permit testing, the classification
consists of five types: foraging (sometimes subdivided into primarily hunt-
ing, primarily fishing, and primarily gathering), pastoral, horticultural
(sometimes subdivided into incipient and extensive agricultural), agricultural
(or intensive agricultural), and industrial. This study deals with only pre-
industrial societies, coded by Murdock and Morrow (1980).
Foraging societies that depend upon hunting or gathering of wild foods
are generally small in scale and consist of nomadic or seminomadic bands
traveling within a territory. Fishing societies are likely to be more sedentary,
although they may alternate coastal fishing with inland hunting. In this case,
people leave their communities to disperse during part of the year. Although
most foraging societies collect food on a daily basis or every few days, some
are able to acquire enough surplus to store, like the Haida and Bella Coola of
the resource-rich northwest coast of North America, or to trade with outsid-
ers, as the Plains Indians of North America traded buffalo skins and dried
meat for goods of European manufacture. Thus, societies like the Oceanian
Manus and Marshallese, the Haida, the Bella Coola, and the Plains Omaha,
classified as foraging on the basis of primary subsistence techniques, might
have features of social and political organization more in common with the
more complex horticultural societies than with foraging bands such as the
Australian Tiwi or the Canadian Montagnais. The great world area of forag-
ers at the time of European expansion, between the 16th and 20th centuries,
was pre-Columbian North America. Pockets of foragers have existed until
recently in Australia, tropical South and Southeast Asia, the circumpolar
zone, and Africa.
Horticulture, sometimes called hoe or extensive agriculture, relies com-
monly on root or tree crops rather than cereal grains (excepting corn in the
native New World). In the absence of advanced techniques of irrigation or
fertilization, it often requires extensive land, as fields are burned and
cleared, used until the yield declines, and then allowed to lie fallow a number
of years until new growth can be burned to restore fertility. This type of
slash-and-burn horticulture is common in tropical regions of Africa, South
America, and the Pacific. With a low person-to-land ratio, communities
tend to be small and rather widely spaced.
Agriculture refers to intensive cultivation with advanced techniques, in-
cluding the animal-drawn plow, large-scale irrigation systems, and other
techniques permitting intensive cultivation of cereal grains such as corn in
certain areas of the pre-Columbian New World and wheat, millet, or rice in
the Old World. The person-to-land ratio is increased, allowing for the rise
of urban centers where noncultivators are fed by a food-producing popu-
lation.
These subsistence technologies have very different labor requirements.
The involvement of the sexes, for instance, varies widely: women are heavily
engaged in primary subsistence activities in gathering and horticultural soci-
eties, much less so in most hunting, pastoral, and agricultural societies, al-
though they may contribute a good deal to the processing of raw materials
(cf. Schlegel and Barry 1986). The labor demands on children differ consid-
erably also, with relatively little contribution to the family food supply
among foragers to a fair amount of contribution in the food-producing soci-
eties. Older children and adolescents are frequently used to take charge of
animals in horticultural or agric~ltural communities in which domestic ani-
mals are raised-cattle in Africa, pigs in Oceania, sheep and goats along the
Mediterranean, and the small livestock of Europe and Asia. The duck boy
with his waddling flock is as familiar a figure in the Asian countryside as the
little cattle herder in East Africa or the young shepherd in Sardinia. In this
respect, industrial societies are somewhat similar to foraging ones like the
African Hadza, where adolescents may hunt and collect to feed themselves
snacks without adding to the family larder. Western adolescents who earn
pin money to satisfy their optional wants are also dependent on their families
for their essential needs without contributing much in return.
Although the occupations that bring parents and children together into
work teams differ among societies in the sample, female domestic tasks are
56 ADOLESCENCE
usually conducted at or near the home. For this reason level of contact be-
tween adolescent girls and their mothers _shows no distribution according to
subsistence system. Contact between boys and their fathers does, however.
High contact is characteristic of agricultural and fully pastoral societies,
whereas low contact is more likely in foraging and horticultural societies (see
Table 4.4).
The determining factor here is private property, for even though pasto-
ralists claim collective ownership of watering places and grazing fields, ani-
mals are almost always individually owned. Not only are herd management
and agriculture most effectively done by two or more men working together,
but the prospect of inheriting the father's property (most pastoral and agri-
cultural societies having father-son inheritance) also makes it advantageous
for father and son to work together, as the father teaches his son how to
manage the estate. In foraging societies, on the other hand, male subsistence
labor (hunting and fishing) is often performed individually. In horticultural
societies, while adults work in the gardens, adolescent boys might be tending
Table 4.4 Subsistence System and Relations with Father
Subsistence System
Horticul- Agricul-
Foraging [Pastoralj tural tural
Contact: boys
below median 22 [I] 34 19
above median 10 [ 4] 20 24
Mantel-Haenszel ')( = 3.98 p = .046
Subordination: boys
below median 18 [3] 20 13
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 6.42 p = .Oil
Subordination: girls
below median 19 [3] 18 9
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 9.51 p = .002
Intimacy: boys
below median 6 [ 2] 15 13
8
Figures on pastoral systems are given to show the distribution. They were not used in comput-
ing the statistic.
cattle (Africa) or pigs (Oceania) or hunting and fishing (tropical South
America), activities that take them away from the company of their fathers.
In agricultural and pastoral societies, subordination to their fathers is
likely to be high for both sons and daughters (Table 4.4). There is, however,
no relation between subsistence system and subordination to their mothers.
Paternal authority is related to family ownership of property, land or ani-
mals, and the preparation of sons to assume eventual management of the
family estate. When there is private property, children depend much more on
their parents for their start in life than in tribal societies in which property is
collective and each adult rightfully assumes usufruct of lineage or commu-
nity land. In foraging societies, without property, each individual makes it
on his own.
Societies with heritable tangible or intangible property-animals for
pastoralists, use-rights to land and sometimes animals for horticulturalists,
land and other wealth for agriculturalists-are less likely to promote inti-
macy between fathers and sons than are the foragers, who in most cases do
not own heritable property (fishing societies of Oceania and the northwest
coast of North America being exceptions). This distinction suggests that
there are two strategies by which parents bind their children and assure them-
selves of lifelong loyalty. When there is property, it acts to ensure bonding
through common interest. When there is not, love is an adhesive. There is, of
course, no incompatibility between these strategies, for ties through property
can only be stronger if they are reinforced with love. If neither love nor prop-
erty binds adult children to their parents, the relationship becomes quite at-
tenuated.
Household Structure
The structure of the household has consequences for relations between
adolescents and their parents. There is a weak trend for boys to have low
contact with their fathers when residence is female-centered (matrilocal) and
high contact when it is male-centered (patrilocal, avunculocal, and virilocal)
(Table 4.5). Whiting and Whiting (1975: 122) found a higher level of interac-
tion with fathers among children in cultures with nuclear-family households.
That is not the case in this study for contact of fathers with either boys (r =
- .03, N = 134) or girls (r = - .04, N = 120). Possibly by adolescence,
children in nuclear-family households are reducing paternal contact in prep-
aration for the move away from the family when they marry. Contact of
either sex with their mothers is not significantly associated with the residence
pattern or the form of the household.
Thus, contact between fathers and sons is somewhat likely to be higher
when men bring wives into their fathers' (patrilocal) or mothers' brothers'
(avunculocal) households or to live near their male kin (virilocal). The large
majority of cases with male-centered residence are patrilocal. Matrilocal res-
58 ADOLESCENCE
Table 4.5 Household Organization and Relations with Parents
Residence
Female-Centered Male- Centered
Contact with fat her: boys
below median 22 49
above median 9 42
x2 = 2.13 p = .145 (weak trend)
Subordination to father: boys
below median 18 28
above median 7 72
x2 = 14.81 p < .001
Subordination to fat her: girls
below median 15 25
above median 9 72
x_2 = 10.13 p = .001
Intimacy with mother: boys
below median 9 17
above median 4 25
Fisher's Exact Test p = .111 (weak trend)
idence, with husband and wife living with her mother and father, is found
almost exclusively where there is matrilineal descent, and in such places boys
are likely to spend some time with their maternal male kin. In matrilocal
households, adult men also spend time in the homes of their mothers and
sisters and with their sisters' sons, away from their own sons.
In male-centered households, subordination to their fathers is likely to
be high for both sexes, whereas it is likely to be low in female-centered house-
holds (Table 4.5). Patriarchy flourishes under male-centered residence, the
father's authority over his children being reinforced by the presence or prox-
imity of his close male kin. When husbands move in with wives, their pater-
nal authority is lessened. It is considerably lower in households under the
control of female heads, as among the Hopi. Furthermore, in the matrilineal
societies in which most female-centered households are found, authority
over children is distributed among fathers, mothers, and the mothers' matri-
lineal kin (usually the children's maternal uncles), the proportions varying
among matrilineal societies (cf. Schlegel 1972).
We find a weak trend for intimacy between mother and son to be high in
male-centered homes (Table 4.5) and low in female-centered ones. This find-
ing reflects the often observed tendency for mothers in male-centered house-
holds to pay great attention to their sons. In part, this may be because to be
the mother of sons is their major raison d'etre in the household when the
descent line is patrilineal, as is usually the case with male-centered residence.
Another reason, going beyond descent, is that the mother's emotional invest-
ment in her sons in patrilocal households will pay off when they are adults,
continuing to live in the household of birth. Their in-marrying wives will be
subordinate to their mother, and their devotion to her will give her matriar-
chal power. The woman without sons in a patrilocal household is to be pit-
ied, for in her older years she does not occupy the prominent place in the
household and exert the authority over it that her more fortunate sisters do.
The fact that it is only a weak trend probably reflects the discouragement of
mother-son intimacy for adolescent boys in many patriarchal societies, espe-
cially where elaborate initiation ceremonies emphasize the boys' removal
from the society of women and reinforce the male bonding that counteracts
childhood dependency on the mother (Whiting et al. 1958).
We also assessed the relation between boys' conflict with their fathers
and the form of the household. The nuclear-family household, consisting of
husband and wife and their unmarried children, is the preferred and most
common form in Western society. It is not the preferred form in much of the
preindustrial world. More usual among peasants is the stem-family house-
hold, consisting of an older parental couple, one adult child who will eventu-
ally inherit the family estate (usually a son) plus spouse, and any unmarried
children of either couple. Among tribal peoples, the extended-family house-
hold is more frequently found, in which several married couples-most com-
monly the parental couple plus two or more adult sons and their wives-and
all unmarried children live together. We hypothesized that there would be
less conflict in the larger household, as the presence of several adult males
would reinforce the authority of the father and thereby suppress expressions
of conflict. We found no such relationship. Thus, we cannot claim that the
nuclear-family household is either more or less conflict-ridden than other
forms.
Features of the productive system and of household structure con-
tribute to the character of interaction between parents and adolescent
children, as we have seen. This interaction in turn has some measurable
consequences for adolescent treatment and behavior. For both girls and
boys, young people choose their own marital partners when subordina-
tion to their fathers and mothers is low, but partners are chosen for them
when subordination is high. When girls control their choice of spouse,
their subordination is low to their fathers ( p = .070, N = 98) and their
mothers ( p = .071, N = 86). There is a similar picture for boys, with low
subordination to their fathers ( p = .012, N = 105) and mothers ( p = .060,
N = 71). In fact, control over the choice of marriage partner is a good indi-
cator of level of subordination.
60 ADOLESCENCE
Marriage Transactions
In a number of societies, goods beyond small gifts are exchanged on the
occasion of a child's marriage. These exchanges can take several forms, and
some will be discussed further in Chapter 6 in the examination of adolescence
and marriage. At this point we are interested in three general types, accord-
ing to the recipient. In one type, the bride's family receives goods from the
groom's family. This is bridewealth, the most common form worldwide. In
another, gift exchange, there is an equal exchange of goods between the two
families. In the third, the new conjugal couple receives goods. These goods
originated either in the bride's family (dowry) or the groom's family, which
provides the goods that the bride brings into her new household (indirect
dowry). In indirect dowry, either the goods are given directly to the bride or,
more commonly, goods are given to her family who then pass on goods to the
new couple.
Table 4.6 shows that both girls and boys are more likely to be subordi-
nate to their fathers when there are marriage transactions. In part, this may
be due to the dependence upon parents for assembling the goods. More
likely, it is the parents who enforce subordination, for if they wish to control
their children's marriages-generally the case when property is exchanged-
they must control the children. Only if transactions are absent are children
likely to be freer from domination.
This interpretation implies that as the European form of marriage trans-
action, dowry, has faded as a cultural practice, the issue of parental control
has become less central to family life in the West. There are additional fac-
tors, one being the rise of economic opportunities with industrialization that
make young people less dependent upon inheritance or familial financing.
Table 4.6 Direction of Marriage Exchange and Subordination to Father
Recipients
Bride's Equal Conjugal
family exchange couple Absent
Subordination to fat her: girls
below median 25 6 3 15
above median 42 17 20 8
-x_2 = 14.81 df = 3 p = .002
Subordination to father: boys

below median 28 6 5 15
above median 42 14 19 9
-x_2 = 9.60 df = 3 p = .022
Parent-Adolescent Conflict and Antagonism
Before leaving this discussion of the relations of adolescents with family

members, we wish to dwell further on a topic that has received great atten-
tion, parent-child conflict and antagonism. Parents of Western adolescents
are acutely aware of the antagonism that can be engendered by a discordance
of interest between adolescents and adults. It is often assumed that this is a
phenomenon of modern society, but that is not true. Duby (1980:23) related
that among the French aristocracy of the early Middle Ages:
Most heirs apparent did rebel against their fathers as soon as they out-
grew adolescence, out of impatience to exercise unfettered control over
the seignory, in which they were egged on by companions of their own
age, equally frustrated and greedy.
Anticipation of possible rebellion surely colored feelings of fathers and ado-

lescent sons during that time.
Although conflict and antagonism are closely related, the former behav-
ior often being the outward expression of the latter emotion, it is important
to keep them separate for purposes of analysis. As noted earlier, conflict can
often be petty, the bickering or mild disobedience that indicates some discor-
dance but not necessarily fear or dislike. Antagonism may be expressed in
conflict, but it may also be expressed by withdrawal from the other or be
suppressed by the need to maintain harmonious-appearing associations.
Whenever the goals and interests of parents and children are at cross-
purposes, there is the possibility of more serious conflict. For example, when
adults control the marriages of young people by giving or withholding eco-
nomic resources, the seeds of discord are present, for those resources might
be used in ways more profitable to the adults than to set up their children as
householders. Among the Kyaka of New Guinea, "open conflicts occur be-
tween fathers and adolescent or young adult sons over allocation of garden
land and arrangement of marriages and exchanges" (Bulmer 1965:141); and
father-son antagonism leads later in life to the attribution of sickness and
death to the malice of fathers' ghosts. An African pastoralist might prefer to
use cattle for bridewealth to acquire a second wife for himself rather than a
first one for his son. In some peasant communities, as in rural Ireland
(Arensberg 1937) or Sicily (Constance Cronin, personal communication), the
aging household head may delay as long as possible turning over land to sons
so they can marry, for with his retirement comes his own decline in status as
he enters into the category of the powerless aged. In such cases, antagonism
toward the father is an expectable consequence.
Even if property is not at issue, the parental value set on family eco-
nomic production and use of the adolescent's time for work in the family
gardens or elsewhere may interfere with the youngster's own preference, and
62 ADOLESCENCE
conflict over freedom may ensue. Closer to home, though it was in the inter-
est of the American lower-class boy of the 19th century to get further educa-
tion, it was in the father's interest to put him to work, and conflict often
erupted (Rothman 1971). The first author has been given similar reports
about some Hopi parents and sons from the early 20th century, when ele-
mentary and secondary education became generally available to Hopi chil-
dren but their labor was often wanted at home. Children who live with their
parents but do not depend on them for support can be embroiled in conflicts
resulting from discrepancies between parental authority and youthful inde-
pendence: the homes of 19th century English industrial workers, whose ado-
lescent members might earn wages equal to their parents, were often
strife-ridden after this fashion (Musgrove 1964:65ff.).
The impression one gets from reading many ethnographies is that con-
flict and antagonism between adolescents and parents in most traditional so-
cieties are not, in fact, serious problems. Adolescents do not struggle to
individuate themselves from the family to the degree that Western young
people do: their dependency on their families, or their spouses', will continue
even after they reach adulthood, and much of their economic well-being is
likely to come from their contribution to group effort rather than from inde-
pendent action.
Nevertheless, conflict and antagonism can arise, so predictably as to be
part of the cultural pattern. The two examples that follow are extreme types,
selected to illustrate ways in which adolescent-parent antagonism can be-
come established. The first example is of father-son antagonism among the
Moose (Mossi), a herding-horticultural people living in small kingdoms of
what is today Burkina Faso. The information is summarized from Skinner
(1961).
Moose fathers have very little contact with their sons, particularly the
first who is most likely to be heir and successor. The oldest son is reared
by his maternal relatives and does not return to his father's compound
until after puberty. Although he visits his father before this, his behavior
is very formal and circumspect. When he does return, he lives with other
young men of the compound in special quarters for bachelors.
Bachelorhood is long and difficult. Only older men usually have the
social and economic resources to acquire wives, and young men make do
with occasional lovers. Since the heir will inherit his father's wives as his
own, excepting his mother, it is recognized that access to wives-in fact,
his advancement in the community-may depend upon the death of the
father. While wishing for the father's death is the ultimate treachery,
Moose claim that some young men do long for it.
Open conflict between father and son in Moose society is prevented or

at least softened by the limited contact between them. However, the very
customs that keep father and son apart also prevent any intimacy from grow-
ing up. The institution that ensures paternal control-postmortem inheri-
tance of women and cattle, with little opportunity to receive either during the
father's lifetime-makes it difficult for the adolescent or youthful son not to
look forward to his father's death.
The second example is of mother-daughter conflict, representing a tran-
sient state rather than lifelong attitudes. It comes from the Hopi. (More de-
tailed information can be found in Schlegel 1973, 197 5.) Property is not the
issue here. Rather, the Hopi mother and daughter come into conflict over
curtailment of the girl's freedom and escalation of her household responsi-
bilities.
The appearance of menstruation marks the change from freedom to re-

striction for the Hopi girl. While her male age-mates are free to roam at
will, her mother keeps her in the house. Running about the village, as she
formerly did, is unseemly. She is expected to guard her chastity and her
reputation and occupy her time with the laborious task of grinding corn
for family meals.
At the same time that she is relatively secluded, she is expected to be
choosing the boy to whom she will propose marriage, with her parents'
approval. Since men marry into the homes of their wives, the burden of
initiating the marriage falls on the girl's shoulders. Boys are free to re-
fuse, and the fear of rejection casts a shadow over many girls' adolescent
years. Her parents, who are urging her to marry so that there will be an-
other worker in the house and the family line will continue, at the same
time make it difficult for her to become acquainted with boys and to at-
tract them.
These two factors, the sudden curtailment of freedom of movement
and fear that she will be unsuccessful in marriage, make adolescence a
trying time for the Hopi girl. Quarrels between mother and daughter, at
other stages of life the most loving of kin, are common. Girls may rail at
their mothers and accuse them of being "mean," i.e., unloving and un-
caring in Hopi usage of English. The mother will try to sweeten the bur-
den of household duties by telling the daughter that her corn grinding
brings the blood to her cheeks and makes her pretty, and adolescent girls
hold grinding parties in each other's homes, but that does not always
help matters. In cases of extreme conflict, the girl might run away to a
relative's house. While she gets temporary respite, she has no alternative
but to return home.
In this case, mother-daughter conflict is not institutionalized, but quite

the contrary. It is a response to a situational stress brought about by abrupt
role change and exacerbated by parental pressures to find a husband.
64 ADOLESCENCE
Though the daughter is her mother's heir to house and status in this matrilin-
eal, matrilocal society, as the Moose youth is to his father in their patrilineal,
patrilocal one, there is none of the tension in the former that is so evident in
the latter. Mothers and daughters share duties, and the transfer of household
headship is gradual as the older woman ages and willingly turns over respon-
sibility and authority to her adult daughter. The conflict in the Hopi case is
not a discordance of goals, for both the mother and the daughter want the
girl to learn housewifely skills and be successful in finding a husband, but
rather in the way these goals are implemented. The Hopi mother does not
stand in her daughter's way, as the Moose father does to his son. The antag-
onism that peaks in adolescence and youth for the Moose boy is an underly-
ing feature of father-son relations, while for the Hopi family, adolescent
conflict is something that simply has to be endured in the knowledge that it
will pass, once the daughter has married and become an adult.
Much of the conflict between Western adolescents and parents can be
understood by looking at the social institutions of modern industrial society.
First, there is the nuclear-family household, which the young person will
leave shortly after adolescence. Economic dependency extends into the later
teen years for those who are in school full time, creating a disjuncture be-
tween adolescent dependence and the expected economic independence for
many in the postadolescent youth stage. In addition, there is considerable
geographical mobility. (The nuclear-family household is a centuries-old in-
stitution in preindustrial England and other parts of Europe, but as young
people left home, they tended to stay within or near the community in which
they were born.) This forces young people to face a rather sudden and ex-
treme rupture from their natal families, at a time when they may fear and feel
unready for such independence. It is also confusing to parents, who must
encourage their adolescent children to act in mature, adult ways in prepara-
tion for leaving home at the same time that these children are still under their
authority and economically dependent on them.
Second, most young people are faced with imminent responsibility for
their own financial support. This independence has its advantages, in that it
releases them from the parental control that can weigh heavily on young
adults in societies in which parents control resources. However, the break in
economic dependence also signals a rupture in the family's community of
interest.
Perhaps adolescence is particularly stressful for the many modern ado-
lescents who grow up in child-centered homes. Much attention has been paid
by social historians to the cult of domesticity and the centrality of child rear-
ing to family life since the industrial revolution. Children growing up in an
indulgent and sheltered environment may be frightened by the prospect of
independence, and their fear may be expressed as antagonism toward their
parents. Children who have been more taken for granted will have less to lose
when they leave home, and in such societies adolescence may lack the emo-
tional intensity it has in Western nations.
The measures of family relations lend support to our model of the social
organization of adolescence. Most waking hours are spent in the company of
same-sex adults, who are likely to be family members and kin. Boys and girls
have similar levels of contact with the parents of the opposite sex, but girls
spend more time with their mothers than boys do with their fathers. Girls are
with their mothers in the home and accompany them in their activities out-
side the home, whether of a productive or recreational nature. Boys, how-
ever, accompany their fathers much less and spend more time with their
peers (see Chapter 5).
Fathers are generally more distant from adolescent children of both
sexes than are mothers, even though boys spend more time with them than
with their mothers. Both boys and girls are more subordinate to fathers than
to mothers, with whom they are more intimate.
Even though mothers are the parents with whom children of both sexes
are more intimate, girls are both more intimate with them and more submis-
sive to them than are boys. Mothers have greater authority over daughters
than sons, but they also tend to be closer to daughters. Even in societies that
do not deliberately attempt to dilute the mother-son bond with initiation cer-
emonies or by other means, this bond is likely to be weaker than the mother-
daughter bond. We will return to this sex difference in Chapter 10.
The relation of fathers to their children shows some differences depend-
ing on the sex of the child. As men's contact with adolescent children in-
creases, they are more in conflict with sons and more intimate with
daughters. Thus, the boy's relation to his parents, of greater conflict with his
male parent and more intimacy with his female parent, reproduces itself
when he grows up in his relation to his children, when increasing contact
brings him more into conflict with his male child and fosters greater intimacy
with his female child. Chodorow (1978) has written of the reproduction of
mothering. These findings indicate that men, also, carry into parenthood the
kinds of relations they had with their own parents.
We have seen that parent-child attitudes and behaviors are sensitive to
the relations of production that arise with different types of subsistence tech-
niques. Parental authority is strongest among the agricultural and pastoral
peoples. On the other hand, boys' intimacy with their fathers is greater
among foragers. We attribute this to the presence or absence of property:
private property is most widely held among the agriculturalists; it is signifi-
cant among pastoralists; it is variable among horticulturalists, where both
communally held and private property exist; and it is minimal or absent
among most foragers. We believe that the effect of property upon adoles-
66 ADOLESCENCE
cents results from the facts of parental control of resources and of inheri-
tance. When there is significant private property, anticipated inheritance be-
comes a ubiquitous feature of family life and child socialization, as parents
consciously groom children to preserve the assets they have acquired or
maintained. Furthermore, as the parents control the economic resources of
the family, the child is obliged to submit to their wishes. These factors make
for a more authoritarian family.
Other factors can lead to similar consequences. Acquisition of wives
among the Moose makes young men dependent on their fathers. Intangible
property like high offices can also be inherited. In tribal societies, the groom-
ing of the heir is likely to occur most strongly among families of high status,
among whom the anticipated inheritance of powerful political or ceremonial
offices colors family interactions.
In the association between family relations and property ownership,
families in modern societies may be somewhat like either traditional agricul-
tural or foraging families. If the family owns significant property, access to
it by the young person now and in the future depends upon the good will of
the parents. If it does not, the young person has to rely on individual achieve-
ment through education, personal skills and talent, and luck. Based on the
findings from this sample, we suggest that, in the former case, parent-adoles-
cent interactions will tend to be more hierarchical and perhaps less intimate
than in the latter. Thus, there are likely to be significant social-class differ-
ences in these relationships.
Parent-adolescent relations also respond to the structure of the house-
hold. The nuclear-family household is of particular interest to us, as it is the
characteristic type in modern society. We have noted that Whiting and Whit-
ing (1975) found a high level of interaction between fathers and children in
such households, whereas we have found no difference between nuclear fam-
ily households and other forms for contact between fathers and adolescents.
We believe that this reflects a shift in the father-child relationship in adoles-
cence: the decoupling from the family is accentuated in nuclear-family
households, as young people prepare to make the break that will eventuate in
their establishing independent households.
To summarize, we find a general pattern of parent-child relations that
conforms to the model. Within this pattern there is considerable variability.
We have identified at least three major factors related to this variability: sub-
sistence techniques and the relations of production associated with them,
control over property, and the structure of the household.
Peer Groups and
Community Participation
AooLESCENTS operate on the fringes of adult community life. Only oc-

casionally do they regularly interact with adults other than family and kin
outside of an educational or occupational setting. When they are intensively
involved with adults, it is within rather strictly prescribed limits. They are not
granted admission into social groups beyond the family in which adults inter-
act freely and adult interests are realized. In no cases in the sample do adoles-
cents take on new political roles, being like children in their lack of power
within the community. Traditional states may from time to time have their
boy kings or the rare charismatic leader like Jeanne d 'Arc, who was about 17
when she led the army of France. With these few exceptions, community
decision-making is an adult responsibility and privilege that comes with the
economic rights and social alliance-building of adulthood.
Nevertheless, in a number of places, adolescents do take on new com-
munity roles that signify an increase in social responsibility over childhood.
They may begin to take part, or increase their participation, in military and
religious affairs, or to perform activities for community economic produc-
tion or social welfare. In such cases, adolescents usually perform these ac-
tions in groups. For that reason, we will consider community involvement
along with peer group activities.
The model in Chapter 2 depicts relations with family and peers as differ-
ing between girls and boys. In most societies the family is likely to be the
most important socializing institution, but the peer group as a secondary so-
cializing agent is predicted to be more salient for boys than for girls. This
prediction is borne out. For the 176 societies for which there is information
for boys, peers are primary agents of socialization in 11 and secondary
agents in 29. For girls, peers are primary agents in only one society and sec-
ondary ones in only 18 of 173 societies. Within this pattern, considerable
variability is shown in the importance of peer groups both among and within
67
68 ADOLESCENCE
cultures. Elder (1974), for example, related the variability in orientation to-
ward friends and family of Oakland children during the Depression to eco-
nomic factors, with a stronger orientation toward peers among the children
from economically deprived families. Because the data for this present study
are at the cultural rather than the individual level, this kind of intraculturaI
variation cannot be tested. However, there is no reason to conclude that in-
dividual differences in orientation are absent from even small, homogeneous
communities, although probably not to the degree that one finds in large,
heterogeneous nations.
At all stages of life beyond infancy, from the rough-and-tumble play
group of childhood to the poignant, ever-diminishing cluster of aged cronies,
persons of similar age congregate. Such groups take on a special meaning in
adolescence, when young people are temporarily released from intense iden-
tification with a family. In childhood, people depend for their very life on the
natal family; in adulthood, they are responsible for the well-being of spouses
and children and for pursuing the interests and position of the marital fam-
ily. For the brief period of adolescence, they are neither so dependent as they
were nor so responsible as they will be. It is then that peer relations can take
on an intensity of attachment that they lack at other stages of the life cycle,
except perhaps in old age in those places where the elderly retire from pro-
ductive activities.
The transitory nature of intense peer group involvement is well known
from modern society, in which it has been frequently observed that these at-
tachments wither when young people marry or begin serious courtship. The
egalitarian nature of the peer group (Gecas 1981) dissolves as occupational
and social claims differentiate its members. The inevitable rupture of close
ties among adolescents is a characteristic of tribesmen as well, as illustrated
by the Boran, an East African cattle-keeping people. Although neither the
high degree of peer group solidarity nor the competitiveness of later adult
relations among the Boran is necessarily typical of traditional societies, the
process described for this group (Baxter and Almagor 1978: 172) is wide-
spread:
Sharing is urged by and on those who are equal in their juniority and lim-
ited access to those resources which differentiate men and who, in prac-
tice, have little to share but hardships and danger. . . . As men mature
they become patently less equal in wealth, wives, influence, office, and
power; the responsibility property brings divides as it socializes. The
ideal of fraternity may remain, but it is eroded by cares and responsibili-
ties .... Both a man's interests in his family herd and his individual am-
bitions are opposed to, and stronger than, the ideal of sharing with all
age-mates.
As Sherif and Sherif (1964:251) observed, when boys move from adolescence
to adulthood through marriage and employment: "The adolescent group
loses its magic even in the lives of the loyal group members.''
Peer Groups and Community Participation 69
Adolescence, then, is a time when there may be something of a morato-
rium on family attachment, at least for boys. The peer group is likely to be
the first social unit in the child's experience that acts as a group independent
from adults and outside their supervision. As a socializing institution it is
likely to remain secondary to the family, although in some places, particu-
larly where there are adolescent communal houses, it can equal the family in
the enforcement of behavior and inculcation of values.
An extreme form of separation from the natal family occurs within Eu-
ropean tradition. Europe has a long history of child and adolescent foster-
age, a case being the circulation of boys as pages among noble families of the
Middle Ages. (The Abkhaz of the Caucasus Mountains retained the ancient
practice of child fosterage into the 20th century.) In early modern Western
Europe, it was common for adolescent girls and boys whose labor was not
needed at home to be farm hands, apprentices, and domestic servants in the
homes of others, often their neighbors. In this way, young people could con-
tribute to their families through the remittance of cash wages, save up money
to buy a farm or assemble a trousseau, or, in the case of crafts apprentices,
learn a trade (cf. Gillis 197 4). This practice continued well into the 19th cen-
tury. Even though these young people were engaged in occupations, they
were still in a domestic setting. Their employers acted in loco parentis and, at
least in theory, treated these adolescents as they would their own children.
The boarding school, then, was not an innovation in parent-child relations,
but a new form of the separation from home that already had a long history
in Western life.
In traditional societies, the separation is usually not so extreme, al-
though child fosterage is not uncommon in some parts of Africa and Ocea-
nia. However, adolescents may still spend a good deal of time together and
take responsibility for their own governance. The following two accounts
from the Nyakyusa and the Muria of adolescent social organization, summa-
ries of classics from the ethnographic literature, are examples of societies in
which adolescents have a fair degree of independence from parental control
and supervision, even though they are still dependent upon their families.
The Nyakyusa, described as they were between 1934 and 1938, are a hor-
ticultural and cattle-keeping people dwelling in the border region of what are
today Tanzania and Malawi. The following account is drawn from Wilson
(I 963).
Up to about age 10 or 11, Nyakyusa boys live in their fathers' homes and
tend their cattle. When a number of village sons have reached the right
age, they are given a piece of land adjacent to the village, where they
build their own huts. Along with change of residence goes an occupa-
tional change: they leave herding to the younger boys, and work in the
fields with their fathers. Thus, they belong to two villages-economically
to that of their fathers, and socially to that of their age-mates. While
each boys' village is attached to the adult village that gave it land, boys
70 ADOLESCENCE
from other villages may live there as well. Until they marry, boys and
young men eat at their mothers' hearths, going from one to another in
small groups. Beginning with perhaps a dozen boys, new members are
added for about six or eight years, and then the village is closed. At
about age 25, the senior members begin to marry and cultivate their own
fields. The rationale for sending boys away is so that the parents may
have privacy in their sexual activities.
Prepubertal Nyakyusa girls live with their parents (the author does not
resolve the privacy question for girls), but they may visit the boys to
whom they are betrothed and indulge in sex play. The initiation and mar-
riage rituals comprise one extended ceremony. These now occur at pu-
berty. Formerly, marriage came later, and adolescent girls lived together
in a girls' house in the village, where they were visited at night by the
boys.
It is not uncommon in many societies for adolescent boys to sleep away

from their parents' homes. If the community contains a men's house, it is the
usual sleeping place for adolescent boys, unmarried-widowed or di-
vorced-men, and men who for various ritual reasons are sleeping apart
from their wives. For example, Hopi boys after about age 10 or 11 frequently
sleep in the kivas, the ceremonial buildings used as men's houses, or on warm
nights, in groups on the flat rooftops of the family houses.
Less common are separate community dormitories for boys or for girls.
Such dormitories for one sex or the other were rather widespread among
tribespeople of Africa, southern Asia, and the Pacific; the Nyakyusa for-
merly had them for girls. (A survey of this custom is found in Elwin 1947:
Chapter 9.) They are not limited to tribal peoples, for peasant communities
in Japan, particularly in the south, often had girls' dormitories in earlier
times (Norbeck 1953). Though in some cases the chastity of girls was guarded
in their dormitories, often the separation from parents gave them legitimate
opportunity and relative privacy for sexual adventures. Such was the case in
Japan, where nocturnal visits by boys were customary.
Wherever these dormitories occurred, they were simply sleeping places,
not self-contained households where goods were produced and consumed.
Adolescents spent their days at home, working with their parents and eating
with the family. The adolescent dormitory was the place for free evening
hours, for frolic and sleep, a sort of extended slumber party as American
teenagers know it, but often with the addition of sexual play.
An example of such a society is the Muria, selected because they are
representative of adolescent communal organization in its most extreme
form, the mixed-sex dormitory where all adolescents sleep and spend their
leisure time. Described as they were between 1935 and 1942 (Elwin 1947),
they are a tribe in the former princely state of Bastar, in central India. They
practice plow agriculture and keep cows and pigs.
There is no particular age at which girls and boys begin sleeping in the
ghotul, as the adolescent dormitory is called, but somewhere between six
or eight seems to be the time when they first go there occasionally. The
little ones act as fags to the adolescents, who teach and discipline them.
All activities within the ghotul are regulated, from the duties the mem-
bers perform for the ghotul or the village, to who sleeps with whom. In
some ghotuls, semi-permanent attachments are formed, but in others ad-
olescent boys and girls are expected to rotate among partners and are ac-
cused of selfishness and egotism if they seem reluctant to do so. At
marriage the girl leaves the ghotu/ forever, but the young married man
may continue to visit for some months until he can afford to give a fare-
well feast. Very popular married men may even be invited to retain a
membership and revisit the place of happy youthful hours from time to
time.
Two features of ghotul life are particularly striking in Elwin's ac-
count. One is the discipline that ghotu/ members exert over one another,
relieving parents and other adults from enforcing conformity to cultur-
ally approved behavior. The second is the importance erotic play as-
sumes in the activities and expressions of adolescents, making
adolescence a highly eroticized time of life (we will discuss this further
and bring up the question of pregnancy in Chapter 7). .
These are cases of unusually strong peer group bonding. In most societies,
adolescents spend most of their time in a family, usually their own. In the
majority of societies, then, some accommodation must be made between at-
tachment to family and attachment to peers.
The ''parent-peer'' issue, as it has come to be known, refers to the in-
volvement of adolescents with family or peer group: where adolescents' time
and energies are directed, with whom they prefer to spend time, and who is
monitoring their behavior and inducing conformity. The discussion of this
issue in the social and psychological literature has been cogently summarized
by Coleman (1980), who noted that it is considerably more complicated than
earlier investigators had assumed. In reviewing this issue several years ear-
lier, Conger (1972:220) spoke of the "well-worn cliche that at adolescence
the young person turns away from his parents and becomes the captive of his
peers,'' a belief that ''contains a considerable element of mythology.'' Both
reviewers referred to studies carried out during the 1960s and 1970s, which
indicated that weight given to influence of peers or parents may depend on
the situation, that influence from both sources is often mutually reinforcing,
and that parental influence is strongest when adolescents and their parents
are intimate and weakest when they are not. On this last point, Bronfenbren-
ner (1970: 102), speaking of American children, stated: '' It would seem that
the peer-oriented child is more a product of parental disregard than of the
attractiveness of the peer-group-that he turns to his age-mates less by
72 ADOLESCENCE
choice than by default. The vacuum left by the withdrawal of parents and
adults from the lives of children is filled with an undesired-and possibly
undesirable-substitute of an age-segregated peer group" (emphasis in the
original).
While strong peer-orientation may be a consequence of parental rejec-
tion or neglect among American children, this is not the case for the Muria
and Nyakyusa, as just discussed. There, the values of the peer group rein-
force those of parents and community. However, the implication of
Bronfenbrenner's statement-that there can be an inverse relation between
attachment to family and attachment to peers-receives some support from
our work.
In an earlier study on adolescent initiation ceremonies, using different
coders (Schlegel and Barry 1980a, 1980b), we examined the social conse-
quences of these ceremonies, one of which is same-sex peer bonding. Separa-
tion from the family is coded for this present study along a five-point scale,
from no or minimal separation, with the adolescent spending most time in or
near home or with family members, to absolute separation, generally eating
and sleeping away from home. The test of peer bonding and separation indi-
cates that for boys, absence of peer bonding as a consequence of initiation is
associated with absence of family separation, while presence is associated
with some level of separation (Table 5.1). For girls there is no significant
relationship: peer bonding is present for only six of 84 cases, and in 137 of
165 cases there is no or minimal separation.
Another relevant variable coded for this study is the importance of peer
groups. This variable is measured on a three-point scale: less important than
other social groups, equal in importance, and greater in importance, impor-
tance judged according to time spent and resources expended. Peer bonding
Table 5.1 Peer Bonding as a Consequence of Adolescent Initiation: Boys
Peer Bonding
absent present % present
Family separation
absent (1) 27 4 13
present (2-5) 10 16 62
Fisher's Exact Test p < .001
Importance of peer groups
less 7 0 0
equal 9 4 31
more 3 7 70
as a consequence of initiation is significantly associated with the importance
of peer groups for boys (Table 5.1).
Time that is spent with peers is not available for spending with family
members. Table 5.2 shows the association for boys between time spent with
peers and both family separation and the importance of the peer group. It
also shows an inverse relation for girls between time spent with peers and
contact with the mother, although in very few cases is more time spent with
peers. There is a trend in this direction for sons and fathers, but it fails to
reach significance.
The peer group is more prominent in the lives of its participants if young
people are less involved in family life. It is more important for boys if there
is separation from the family and if contact with the father is lower (below
the median) (Table 5.3). As we might expect, when peer groups are rated as
more important than other social groups, peers are more likely to be primary
agents of socialization (Table 5.3). These results suggest that frequent or sus-
Table 5.2 Time Spent with Peers

Time spent
more with more with % more with
peers others others
Family separation: boys
absent 11 88 89
present 16 41 72
x2 = 6.13 p = .013
Importance ofpeer
group: boys
less 26 96
equal 7 25 78
more 16 8 33
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 23. 78 p< .001
Contact with father: boys
below median 16 57 78
above median 5 47 90
x2 = 2.47 p = .116 (weak trend)
Contact with mother: girls


74 ADOLESCENCE
Table 5.3 Importance of Boys' Peer Group and Relations with the Family
Importance relative to other groups
less equal more
Family separation
absent 20 17 7
present 8 18 18
Contact with fat her

above median 18 8 5
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 12.39 p < .001
Peer group as agent
of socialization
primary 0 IO
secondary or tertiary 8 17 9
tained contact with the father reduces the boy's participation and interest in
peer activities. For girls, there are too few cases of family separation-and
none where peers are primary agents of socialization-to conduct tests with
these variables.
Although for boys the importance of the peer group is inversely related
to contact with the father, this is not true for intimacy with the father, with
which there is no significant association. Neither is there an association with
father-son conflict. These results support the positions of Conger and Cole-
man, previously cited, that there is no simple parent-peer dichotomy. Peer
groups are not the enemies of parents. In some societies, boys may flee to
their peers in retreat from constrained relations with the father. In others,
where the peer group is equally important, intimacy with the father may be
cherished as a relief from the competitiveness of age-mates and the pressures
they exert to conform to their standards. Distance between generations may
appear with peer group involvement in some societies or under some condi-
tions, but there is no general association. The reports on the Nyakyusa and
the Muria, extreme cases of peer group attachment, indicate a low level of
conflict with the parents.
The Structure, Activities, and Character of Peer Groups
We begin with the assumption that social organization is the conse-

quence of- an interplay between historical traditions and the constraints and
opportunities of everyday life. The structure and character of peer groups
vary according to ecological, demographic, and technological features that
can be identified. The size of peer groups is constrained by community size
and consequently the number of adolescents who can congregate at any one
time. Subsistence technology determines whether adolescent labor is re-
quired and whether adolescents work with the family or with their peers.
some foraging societies, like our own industrial cities, depend very little on
the products of adolescent labor, while the participation of youngster~ might
be vital to family production in agrarian and pastoral societies. While peer
groups per se meet some very important socialization needs of adolescents, it
is not adolescents themselves _who determine the activities of these groups.
This determination is made by adults, who make the demands, provide the
resources, and bestow the rewards. It is also adults who determine the
amount of leisure time available to adolescents.
One of our purposes has been to investigate the structure, activities, and
character of adolescent peer groups. As peer groups are not commonly de-
scribed by ethnographers, the data are not so complete as one would like,
and not all of the questions in the code have received enough answers to
make statistical testing possible or meaningful. The analysis depends on
those variables for which adequate information has been obtained.
Measures of peer groups are defined in Appendix II. Five of these are
the following: (1) Importance of peer groups relative to other social
groups, as measured by time and other resources expended on them.
"Other social groups" includes the family. (2) The most common size of
the peer groups. (3) Is this a socially recognized group, such as an age-set
or a group with a name? (4) Age range of the peer group. (5) Structure of
the peer group.
Peer group activities were rank-ordered according to priority: produc-
tive work, leisure, military, religious, community service, other. The sample
of societies coded for the set of activities included those with a ranking on
any of the items. They were divided into two categories with the use of two
strategies. One strategy is a dichotomy between present and absent from
mention for a specified activity, such as religious peer group activities. The
assumption is that if other activities are mentioned by ethnographers and this
one is not, then either it is truly absent or it exists but is inconsequential. The
other strategy is a dichotomy that disting"Qishes a sole rank of one for a spec-
ified activity, such as productive work as the most important peer group ac-
tivity. The alternative category includes societies in which the number one
ranking is shared with one or more other activities, in addition to societies in
which the specified activity is ranked second or third or not ranked.
Peer competition was rated on a scale of 0-10. This variable rests on the
common observation that competitiveness is fostered when there are status
differences and status is determined by individual achievement. Peer cooper-
ation was rated on a scale of 0-10.
76 ADOLESCENCE
The importance of the peer group shows no significant relation to sub-

sistence economy. Only one peer group activity does: peer groups tend not to
engage in ritual as groups in foraging societies, in which ritual is more often
conducted by and for an individual than the community, whereas these activ-
ities are part of peer group life in agricultural societies (Table 5.4).
The distribution of boys' peer competition is explicable by what is
known of subsistence systems worldwide (Table 5.4). It is lowest where there
is agriculture; only 34 percent of agricultural societies are above the median.
Agricultural societies, predominantly located in Eurasia and Latin America,
are highly structured. Status differences exist not only between classes but
also within classes, such as the peasantry, and these differences are deter-
mined as much by hereditary position as by individual achievement, al-
though that varies from one historical period to another. The adolescent in a
peasant village may not be so concerned about his status within his peer
group, for he knows that his status within the community is already estab-
lished. There is less reason to compete with his peers. The adolescent in for-
aging societies, also, has less reason to compete with peers; since foraging
societies are relatively unstructured and egalitarian, there are no material or
political rewards to strive for, no markedly high statuses to achieve.
Horticultural and pastoral societies, in particular, often do reward com-
Table 5.4 Adolescent Peer Groups and Subsistence Economy
Peer groups conduct religious activities

Boys Girls
% %
present absent absent present absent absent
Foraging 5 20 80 4 17 81
[Pastoralism] 3 6 2 25 4 I 20
Horticulture 18 25 58 11 25 69
Agriculture 23 18 44 17 12 41
x2 = 8.30 df = 2 p = .016 x2 = 9.34 df =2 p = .009
Competition among peers (boys)
below median above median % above median
Foraging 10 16 62
[Pastoralism] 3 2 7 78
Horticulture 10 27 73
Agriculture 17 11 34
x2 = 7.57 df =2 p = .023
8
Figures on pastoral systems are omitted from the tests of statistical significance, as in table 4.4.
petition. These tend to be relatively egalitarian, but there are differences in
personal wealth (animals belonging to pastoralists and some horticulturalists
usually are owned individually) and social rank (political and ceremonial po-
sitions in some of these give prestige and often power to their incumbents).
As this finding demonstrates, the character of the adolescent peer group is
shaped not only by the circumstances surrounding the group itself but also
by the adult life that adolescents anticipate in the future.
The effects of the subsistence economy are mediated through social and
political structures. The effects of some structural features upon adolescent
groups and activities were assessed, and the results are reported in the Tables
5.5, 5.6, and 5.7. (Measures of social and political structures were coded by
Murdock and Provost 1980 and Murdock and Wilson 1980.)
Boys' peer groups are likely to be more important than other social
groups when community settlement is permanent, and they are less than or
equal to other groups in the less sedentary communities. This finding sug-
gests that the importance of peer groups is promoted in societies that are
structured in other ways. Permanent settlements are more likely to be organ-
ized into social groups functioning for specific purposes-political, military,
religious-than are less permanent ones (Table 5.5).
The size of the boys' peer group increases as community size increases
up to a population of 1,000, a result of a larger population of adolescents to
draw from (Table 5.6). In communities of 1,000 and over, there is a slight
likelihood for smaller peer groups to be present. It is probably at this point
that many communities divide into two or more neighborhoods, each with its
own adolescent peer group.
Larger peer groups are also likely to be present in societies at higher lev-
els of political integration (Table 5.6). The same mechanisms that allow for
the absorption of large numbers of people into the polity seem to work to-
ward an increase in peer group size. There is also, of course, the consider-
ation that more complex societies tend to have larger communities.
However, the size of peer group is not a simple artifact of community size, as
Table 5.5 Importance of Boys' Peer Group Related to Settlement Pattern

Importance
less same more
Fixity of settlement
nomadic to 15 14 6
semipermanent
permanent 15 22 19
Mantel-Haenszel x.2 = 3.82 p = .051
78 ADOLESCENCE
Table 5.6 Community, Society, and the Structure of Boys' Peer Groups
Size ofpeer group
small medium large % large
Community size
fewer than 99 7 6 5 28
100-399 8 IO 23 56
400-999 2 3 11 69
1,000 or more 5 7 54
Level of political integration

not above community 14 6 18 47
above community 4 18 28 56
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 4. 79 p = .029
Girls: Mantel-Haenszel x. 2 = 5.22 p = .023
Age range
medium or % medium
small large or large
Social stratification
absent 5 26 84
present but minimal 4 27 87
high 11 19 63
x_2 = 3.68 p = .055
Social recognition
absent present % present
nomadic to
semipermanent 15 8 35
permanent 15 26 63
x_2 = 3.77 p = .052
Level ofpolitical integration

not above community 20 11 35
above community IO 23 70
x_2 = 6.20 p = .013
indicated by the fact that the size of girls' peer groups shows a significant
relation with political integration but not with community size (Table 5.6).
We find a trend for the age range of members of the peer group to be
related to social stratification, the smaller range being found in the stratified
societies (Table 5.6). Age divisions among adolescents thus often replicate
status divisions within the larger population.
Authority relationships can occur among age peers when the group has
a recognized leader or a leadership hierarchy, although the presence or ab-
sence of hierarchy is not associated with any of the social measures used in
this study. Speaking of the Xesibe, a cattle-keeping people of eastern Trans-
kei, Republic of South Africa, O'Connell (1982:25) stated:
The boys in each neighborhood organize themselves into groups based
on age. These groups are internally stratified on the basis of age, fighting
skill, intelligence, and personality. Good fighters and intelligent leaders
are usually older in age, although a younger boy with exceptional
strength and a forceful, domineering nature may become a group leader
earlier than expected. Older groups of boys and youths develop more
elaborate hierarchies with titles such as captain, vice-captain, treasurer,
and so on. Each group collects money and sponsors periodic gatherings
at which they slaughter an animal and drink beer, together with their fe-
male counterparts who are less formally organized.
Somewhat less organized, but still with a recognized leader, is the boys'
peer group on Moala, Fiji. As Sahlins (1962:300) described it:
The village gang of adolescent boys has an informal leader. Often this is
the village paramount's son, or at least a boy of high rank, but he will
also have to be skilled in singing, guitar-playing, and in sports. The gang
leader rules by example and influence rather than by direction. The
whole organization is loosely structured: there are no initiations, no of-
fices, no titles, or the like.
There is recognized leadership of this informal sort for girls' peer groups,
too, although those groups are smaller. Both boys' and girls' groups in Fiji
perform communal economic tasks, the boys' groups doing more than the
girls'.
Social recognition of the peer group by the community is found in the
more tightly structured communities. When settlements are permanent, and
at higher levels of political integration, the peer group is likely to be given a
generally recognized name or to constitute an age-set or to receive other pub-
lic recognition as a group (Table 5.6).
In sum, a peer group is likely to be larger, contain members with a
smaller range of ages, and be recognized as a legitimate group by the commu-
nity in the more complex societies. However, the internal structure of the
peer group, as measured by presence or absence of leadership or by leader-
80 ADOLESCENCE
ship hierarchy, does not correlate with the community or society variables
used in this study. There are cases of egalitarian societies with hierarchical
leadership of adolescent peer groups, such as the Comanche of the Nonh
American Plains, and hierarchical societies with peer groups in which leader-
ship is fluid, such as the Lamet of Laos or the New Zealand Maori. The peer
group is not the only socializing institution; as we saw in the previous chap-
ter, the family is generally more important.
Types of peer group activities are widely dispersed over types of peer
groups. In those societies with data adequate for testing, there is little associ-
ation between predominant or prominent kinds of activities and the impor-
tance or structure of the peer group.
Several features of the society and community show an association with
peer group activities. Boys' involvement in military maneuvers is somewhat
less likely to be present in complex societies and significantly less where com-
munities are permanent (Table 5.7). Warfare is better organized in complex
and sedentary communities and requires a fair degree of skill, whereas small
communities of fluid composition may need to enlist all able-bodied males in
attack and defense.
Peer groups are more likely to perform collective religious acts in larger
and more permanent settlements (Table 5. 7). This is concordant with the test
result shown in Table 5 .4: in the more complex societies, rituals tend to in-
clude participation by recognized social groups as groups.
The relation of an additional variable, antisocial behavior, to peer
group activities (analyzed more fully in a subsequent chapter) was assessed to
determine whether types of activity might promote or suppress delinquency
among boys. (There are few data on delinquency among girls.) The hypoth-
esis was that when adolescents unite in achieving some common end, be it
religious, military, or community service, there is a lesser tendency to misbe-
have. Conversely, leisure might promote such behavior, the assumption
being that "idle hands do devil's work." That is not the case. There is no
association between leisure as a major purpose of peer group socializing and
antisocial behavior, but such behavior is significantly present when peer
groups engage in religious or military activities (Table 5.7). This finding im-
plies that organizing adolescent groups to perform worthy acts is not a way
to prevent undesirable behavior.
We examined the nature of peer group relations by looking at coopera-
tiveness and competitiveness within the group. Each of these variables was
coded along an 11-point scale. Societies were divided into those below the
median and those above (none was at the median). Competitiveness showed
some relation to peer group activities: it is more likely to be above the median
when peer groups engage in military training or fighting (Table 5.7). Al-
though the inculcation of aggression is not significantly related to military
activities, 67 percent of societies with such activities were rated above the
median for aggressiveness. These results imply that military training, which
Table 5.7 Peer Group Activities: Boys

Military activities
present absent % absent
Social stratification
present 14 65 82
absent 12 26 68
x2 = 2.11 p = .147 (weak trend)
nomadic to
permanent 10 59 86
Antisocial behavior
present 9 14 63
absent 2 19 90
Competitiveness
Religious activities
present absent % absent
nomadic to
permanent 37 32 46
Community size
fewer than 400 29 50 63
400 or more 23 15 39
x2 = 4.97 p = .026
Antisocial behavior
present 18 5 17
absent 6 15 76
x2 = 9.02 p = .003
82 ADOLESCENCE
fosters individual achievement if the warrior is to succeed, stimulates com.

petitiveness, while the competitiveness or aggressiveness of such training can
stimulate or reinforce antisocial behavior. It is easy for the contained vio-
lence of mock battles to get out of hand and for boys encouraged to hone
their combativeness to use these skills in achieving private ends.
Cooperativeness is likely to be above the median when peer groups are
more important (both sexes), groups are large (boys), and the age range is
medium or large (girls) (Table 5.8). Larger groups that are more important in
the lives of their participants are more cohesive and oriented toward group
tasks and goals. Cooperativeness is likely to be below the median when peer
groups are less important than other social groups (Table 5.8). Competitive-
ness for boys is also most likely to be low when peer groups are less important
(Table 5.8). This finding indicates that competitiveness and cooperation in
boys' peer groups coexist and are likely to rise and fall together. This associ-
ation is not seen in girls' peer groups, implying that girls are not socialized as
well as boys to tolerate both competitiveness and cooperativeness within the
same setting.
Whatever competitive feelings may be engendered by household interac-
tions do not appear to carry over into the peer group. It is arguable that com-
petition among siblings is highest in the nuclear family, in which children
compete with each other for the attention of the mother and the father more
than in other forms, or in extended families, in which sibling sets often com-
pete against one another for family resources. Yet, tests showed no associa-
tion with the form of the family. Presence and degree of polygyny has also
been tested with competitiveness, on the assumption that polygyny, which
promotes competitiveness among co-wives, may be carried over into compet-
itiveness among their children. Even if that assumption is correct, there is no
discernible carryover into the peer group. Competitiveness seems to be en-
gendered more by the immediate situation than by feelings that arise in other
settings or earlier in life.
Peer Groups and the Community

When the peer group takes an active part in community affairs by as-
suming responsibility for certain rituals, community festivals, or community
projects, it is at its most effective as a structure of anticipatory socialization.
Adolescents may contribute their time and energy toward community service
projects. It is not uncommon for adolescents to entertain their elders. In their
attempts to display themselves to their best advantage in dancing or sports,
adolescent girls and boys not only attract one another but also put on a show
for the adults and children. Throughout small-town America, high school
sports teams and cheerleading squads serve this purpose. Adolescents can
also be used as agents of social control, keeping themselves and even adults
Table 5.8 Competition and Cooperation Within Peer Groups

Boys
Competitiona Cooperationb
% %
below above above below above above
median median median median median median
Importance of
Peer Group
less 11 3 21 12 5 29
equal 7 20 74 12 12 50
more 10 11 52 6 16 73
x2 = 10.40 df = 2 p = .006 Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 7.18
p = .007
Size of Peer
Group
small 8 3 27
medium 10 6 38
large 13 21 62
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 4.85
p = .028
Girls
Importance of
Peer Group
less 18 6 25
equal 5 6 55
more 1 4 80
Mantel-Haenszel x.2 = 6.38
p = .012
Age range
small 17 8 32
medium or large 7 11 61
x2 = 2.51
p = .113 (trend)
aCompetition: Girls' mean = 3.6, Boys' mean = 4.7
bCooperation: Girls' mean = 6.2, Boys' mean = 6.~
84 ADOLESCENCE
in line through peer pressure, mockery,. or punishment. Some examples of

various community services will be described in the pages that follow.
One way that peer groups can take part in community life is through
participation as groups in rituals. It is not unusual for adolescents to take
responsibility for some portion of the community ritual cycle or certain
events within it. In one Mexican village, according to Arnold (1978), adoles-
cent girls sweep the church, assist the nuns in the catechism classes, sponsor
masses for St. Theresa, and assume responsibility for singing, hiring musi-
cians, buying fireworks, and organizing the procession in her honor. This
sort of ritual involvement is widespread throughout Latin America: Chatino
Indian boys of Oaxaca, Mexico, enter the village ritual system upon adoles-
cence by acting as pages to adult men of the community.
Another way in which adolescents become active in community affairs
is through the organization of festivities. This often overlaps with religious
responsibility, for festivals are frequently plotted along the ritual calendar.
The account that follows, for southern France, draws on Roubin (1977).
Adolescent and youth organizations played an active role in preindustrial
Proven9al villages and towns. In 17th century Draguignan, there were
four distinct youth groups: the Grand Jouvent for noble boys; the
Basoche for the young clerks of the law courts; the Groupe des Artisans,
a very large group subdivided according to neighborhoods; and the
Bassaquets, or day laborers, who were similarly subdivided. An impor-
tant task of these Proven9al youth associations was to organize the Ball
at Mardi Gras. Records from 16th century Nice, 17th century
Draguignan, and 18th century Mons-du-Var all speak of these associa-
tions organizing balls according to social status. Thus, in Nice, the no-
bles danced at the Loggia, the merchants in front of the bishop's palace,
the artisans at one town square, and the fishermen and agricultural work-
ers at another. The leaders of these groups, the "abbots," were charged
with seeing that only persons of the appropriate social station attended
the respective balls. The abbots were responsible for arranging festivities
on the community's patron saint's day as well. Support came from the
community, in the form of a gift by the town council and also through
contributions collected from house to house. This responsibility contin-
ued in Provence into at least the 1960s, under the direction of the Feast
Committees elected by all young unmarried people of the community.
Adolescents in Transylvanian villages in Hungary similarly took responsibil-
ity for Christmas festivities as recently as the 1960s (Kresz 1976).
Adolescent energies in some societies are tapped for community service
projects. One such case was aboriginal Palau, a Micronesian society whose
description by Barnett (1949) is summarized here.
At about age 15 or 16, boys and girls formed clubs, named age-sets sepa-
rated by sex. Leaders came from among the ten most prominent fami-
lies. Young people continued to work for their families, but in addition
they began to assume community service, doing assigned tasks for their
village or district. They worked as clubs under the direction of village
and district chiefs. The nature of these tasks is not given by Barnett, but
it is likely that they had to provide labor for the construction of commu-
nity buildings or for community maintenance.
In central India, specific tasks were turned over to Muria adolescents,

who organized their labor through the ghotul described earlier. Elwin
(I 968: 167) stated:
These boys and girls worked very hard indeed for the public good. They
were immediately available for the service of State officials or for labour
on the roads. They had to be ready to work at a wedding or a funeral.
They had to attend to the drudgery of festivals. In most tribal villages of
the Central Provinces the children were slack, dirty, undisciplined, and
with no sense of public spirit. The Murias were very different.
Peer Groups and Social Control
One of the beneficial community functions of organized peer groups

can be to socialize their members by exerting pressure to behave well. Peer
pressure is well understood by researchers, parents of adolescents, and ado-
lescents themselves. While peer pressure can work at cross-purposes to the
wishes of the family or the community, it can also aid in conformity to com-
munity norms and standards. Bronfenbrenner (1970) contrasted the behav-
ior and values of Soviet and American peer groups in the 1960s along this
line, finding the former to be concordant with the values of the larger society
and the latter discordant. When the peer group enforces community-held
norms and goals, parents can turn over some disciplining to the peer group.
In this way, their burden is relieved and intergenerational conflict may be
reduced.
While the concept of peer pressure is of very practical concern to the
families of adolescents, it is not an especially interesting theoretical con-
struct. One takes it for granted that any social group exerts pressures on its
members to conform to the norms of the group. What is less expected is the
use to which adolescent peer groups may be put to enforce the conformity of
adults to accepted standards of behavior or to punish persons who are a
threat to the community in some way. By giving adolescents authority to
control minor infractions, adults use them for some of the social "dirty
work" of the community. The examples below are of four such cases: the
Mbuti Pygmies of Africa, early modern Europe, the Hopi, and contempo-
rary Chinatown. These and comparable cases are not instances of antisocial
behavior, even though certain people are discomfited or even injured or
86 ADOLESCENCE
some property is destroyed by the actions of adolescents as enforcers of the

norms.
Mbuti adolescent boys and youths are actors in the molimo ceremony,
the great celebration of the spirit of the forest for the entire band. While
much of the ritual occurs at night and involves singing led by older men, boys
contribute their share. As Turnbull (1962:82-84) described it:
But in the mornings the youths came into their own completely. Before
the first glimmer of light filtered through into the camp, those of us who
had managed to get to sleep were waked by a violent and raucous trum-
peting from just outside the camp .... From the far end of the camp,
near the path leading to Cephu's clearing, a wild cavalcade of youths
swept into view, shouting and yelling, clustered so thickly that it was im-
possible to see the trumpet they were carrying .... [The procession]
blasted and shrilled and growled and bellowed, and it rampaged around
the camp, overturning any of the crude chairs that had been left outside,
scattering the remains of fires in all directions, and beating on the roofs
of huts to wake everyone up .... If anyone had given offense the previ-
ous day, usually by being too argumentative, the youths in the morning
rampage paid particular attention to the offender's hut. Cephu's camp
of course came in for the most attention, and although Cephu com-
plained loudly each time, at the time, he never brought it up later as an
issue for discussion or dispute. One morning, after two brothers,
Masalito and Aberi, had been fighting, the "animal of the forest" [the
trumpet-playing group], making more noise than ever, circled all around
Masalito's hut and finally pounced on it, beating on the roof and tearing
off leaves and sticks. Some of the youths climbed up a tree that over-
hung the hut and broke off a heavy branch, which fell on the hut, block-
ing the entrance, but doing no real damage. The couple inside screamed
their protests; then there was a sudden silence. Masalito had done the
most dreadful thing of all. He had told the youths to take "that animal"
away and throw it back in the water and stop all the noise. This spoiled
the whole illusion, which is only a pretence in itself, that the women
think that molimo is an animal and do not know that it is a trumpet sur-
rounded by a lot of noisy youths. The silence was followed by cries from
all over the camp-cries of shame shouted by both men and women. The
"animal" was galvanized into even greater action, and Masalito's hut
was in danger of being completely destroyed. Then Njobo came sleepily
out into the clearing and told the youths to go away. They had probably
had their fill by then anyway, and they left, making a few last defiant
noises, some in the direction of Njobo. As soon as they were gone the
women came out of their huts, looked around to see how much damage
had been done, then went to wash themselves and get breakfast. Chil-
dren scampered around the irate Masalito as he cleared up the wreckage
outside his hut, and as they danced up and down I heard one of them,
bolder than the others, give a tiny hoot in imitation of the trumpet.
Masalito tried to grab the child but they all ran-away, laughing, to tor-
ment someone else.
For the peaceable Mbuti, arguing and fighting are violations of socially ac-
ceptable behavior. It is these violators who become the victims of the adoles-
cent enforcers.
A different sort of infraction was the concern of adolescent boys and
youths in country villages throughout much of preindustrial Europe. Mar-
riage was necessary for a youth to move into adult status, and a village youth
had to have the wherewithal, a farm or a small business, to support a wife if
he were to marry; thus, marriage and property were interlocked. Other
things being equal, the most desirable brides, usually the ones with the larg-
est dowries, went to the most prosperous grooms. Yet, unlike the practice in
many societies, marriages were not formally arranged by adults, and young
people had veto power over any manipulations their elders might attempt.
Furthermore, not all young men were likely to assemble the necessary prop-
erty. If they were second sons of poor families, they neither were heirs to
what little the family estate contained nor had access to other resources. In
such cases, marriage was problematic. This may account for the popularity
of European fairy tales in which some poor but brave lad wins the hand of
the princess, often with magical help. For many boys, magic offered the best
hope.
Marriage and sexuality, therefore, became the focus of young people's
enforcement of the norms. Not only did the communities consider it un-
seemly for older people (usually men) to marry the young (usually girls); such
an event also threatened the young by reducing their pool of potential brides
(and grooms) and by giving older and wealthier men (and women) an unfair
advantage. Groups of adolescent boys and youths responded to such infrac-
tions, and also to the adulteries and sexual misdemeanors of their elders, by
the charivari, as it was called in France, or rough music, as it was known in
England. (This ritual was given other names in other lands.)
Village youth groups in early modern Europe consisted of all village ad-
olescent boys and youths from about age 14 until marriage, or until about
age 30 if still unmarried. Leaders were the bachelors in their mid-twenties.
Girls sometimes formed auxiliary groups, but the boys' groups were the most
active. Numerous accounts exist of these groups in the English-, French-,
and German-speaking areas. In some parts they served as a local militia, in
others they were mobilized for church or civic festivities; but everywhere, a
primary function was control over marriage and sexuality through' shaming
of offenders. As Gillis (1974:30) stated:
Youth has at its disposal an ancient stock of frightening effigies, rough
music (profane songs), and mocking pantomime with which to deal with
88 ADOLESCENCE
its enemies . Ready with tin pans and horns under the lecher's window,
and quick to join the charivari of the second wedding of an old man and
a young bride, the Bruderschaften [Germany] and the Abbeys of Misrule
[France] were self-interested enforcers of the moral and social equilib-
rium of village life.
In a typical rural charivari, a recently remarried widower might find
himself awakened by the clamor of the crowd, an effigy of his dead wife
thrust up to his window and a likeness of himself, placed backward on
an ass, drawn through the streets for his neighbors to see. Paying of a
"contribution" to the Lord of Misrule might quiet his youthful tormen-
tors, but by that time the voice of village conscience had made their
point.
While the Hopi had no such institution as the charivari, they quite en-
joyed adolescent boys' shaming of villagers who were committing adultery.
If a man were discovered by the roaming boys to be visiting a woman at night
when her husband was away, the village might wake up the next morning to
find a trail of ashes between his house and hers. The message was plain, and
the victims were helpless to protest or to avenge themselves.
The final example comes from contemporary Boston rather than a pre-
industrial society. Kendis and Kendis (1976: 14 and 16) described the commu-
nity service of Chinatown's street boy gangs:
The street boy group performs a function for the larger Chinese society
as well as for the boys; it serves as an interface between the American
and Chinese societies in situations of confrontation. When confronted
by whites the boys identify themselves as Chinese. Chinatown becomes
their community, and it is their job to protect it and its members from at-
tacks by anyone from the outside. The boys see threat and encroachment
in a number of situations. If they feel the prostitutes and pimps are begin-
ning to cause problems in the community or are in any way acting as
though they "owned" Chinatown, the boys run them out of town. If
someone dao [fails to pay] checks from one of the Chinese restaurants, it
is their job to catch him and beat him into submission, thereby getting
him to pay his bill and discouraging him from a repeat offense. If mem-
bers of non-Chinese communities come into Chinatown in order to ridi-
cule the Chinese, the boys make it their duty (as well as their pleasure) to
intercept them and beat them as a warning that neither they nor their ter-
ritory are to be violated. Finally, if one of the street boys should be
beaten up by outsiders, the boys bring out their knives, chains, and lead
pipes and prepare for a "jam." ...
The activities of the boys directed against the members of the outside
community visiting Chinatown serve as a form of community expres-
sion-an expression of hostility. This can be clearly seen in the reactions
of community members to the boys' activities. When the boys are polic-
ing Chinatown and beating dao checks, the old men join in, kicking the
offender once he is down and defenseless. Others express their approval
to the boys, and the restaurant owners may treat them to dinner. In addi-
tion, the activities of the boys are public and the community is aware of
them. As long as they remain functional and not counterproductive the
community permits the continuation of these activities. To the extent
that their activities represent the community's sentiments regarding
American society, the boys are tolerated.
Adolescent boys are used by this community as the first line of attack against
threatening outsiders. Their policing activities are rewarded by the approba-
tion of their elders and, in a more direct way, with treats.
In these cases adolescents are given license to do what under other cir-
cumstances would be intolerable as rebellious or even criminal behavior. As
policing, however, it is approved by the community and even rewarded. It is
clear that final control rests with adults, that adolescents do not simply ram-
page away at will. It is unlikely that Mbuti village men would permit the de-
struction of innocent people's huts, that European peasant boys would be
allowed to carry on their rowdy displays before the houses of village nota-
bles, or that Chinatown elders would tolerate a fatal beating, which would
bring in the police. Adolescents must know and keep their place. In these
closed communities, power is given to them by adults, and it can be taken
from them if they misuse it through excesses or by directly attacking the most
powerful. Like our own Halloween tricks, adolescent pranks can go too far.
As early as the 16th century in some parts of France, youth clubs of the vil-
lage became, in the larger towns, class-based associations of all ages, and
their attendant rambunctiousness was turned against the authorities in ex-
pressions of class conflict. Increasingly, they were banned from the towns,
although they continued to flourish in their original form in the villages well
into the 19th century (Gillis 1974:32-35).
Whether as enforcers of norms and morals, as organizers of local
events, as workers for public welfare, or as entertainers, adolescents can pro-
vide valued community services. They generally do so in groups of same-sex
peers, under the auspices of adults in the community who make available the
resources and provide tangible or intangible rewards. However, as much as
community service may be appreciated or.even needed, it is no prophylactic
against delinquency. We will discuss this further in Chapter 8.
It is striking that so much of the data in this chapter come from boys'
peer groups rather than girls'. That in part results from reporting bias, as
boys' activities are discussed more frequently than are girls' in ethnographic
accounts. Possibly this bias is due to the fact that the majority of ethnogra-
90 ADOLESCENCE
phers in times past have been men, who would either be more interested in
boys' activities or have more access to them.
The cause does not lie entirely in reporting bias, however; for even when
there is ample information on girls, there is generally less variation across
cultures than there is for boys. There are not enough cases of separation
from the family for girls to permit testing; and in the large majority of socie-
ties, the girls' peer group is less important than other social groups, such as
the family. Girls' peer groups in general are smaller and play a lesser role in
their lives than do boys', whereas, as we have seen in the preceding chapter,
contact of girls with their mothers is greater than contact of boys with either
their mothers or their fathers. Taking the test results of this and the preced-
ing chapter, we see a difference in the adolescent experience of girls and
boys. Girls spend more time with same-sex adults than do boys, and in par-
ticular, they have greater contact and intimacy with their mothers than boys
do with either parent. On the other hand, girls tend to have smaller peer
groups that are of less importance to them than peer groups are to boys. Our
major finding regarding the parent-peer question, then, does not bear on
whether parents and peers are opposed to one another, for we have seen that
in general they are not. Rather, there is a difference in emphasis between
attachment to one or the other depending upon gender, which has nothing to
do with the general quality of relationship between adolescents and their par-
ents, as far as can be judged by cultural norms and widely observed behav-
iors. For both sexes, the strongest attachment is likely to be to the family,
which is to be expected in human society in which people cluster in small
mixed-sex groupings related through kinship or co-residence.
This gender difference has several implications. One is that the passage
into adolescence is easier for girls, because there is not so much of a break
from childhood. The transition is less smooth for boys, who experience more
of a decoupling from the family. Girls grow into adult status within the com-
munity of females of all ages, their socialization for adulthood being grad-
ual. Boys spend more time with age-mates, with whom they form horizontal
rather than vertical age-related bonds.
The difference in social setting has its consequences for the nature of
group relationships. As we have seen, for girls, cooperation and competition
are not associated, whereas for boys, competition and cooperation occur
within the same setting. In the roughly egalitarian peer group, one competes
with the same people with whom one cooperates in meeting the goals of the
group. Not only are boys' peer groups more likely than girls' to be of pri-
mary or secondary importance in their lives, but they are also more likely to
be activity-oriented rather than merely a setting for leisure time. Thus the
social setting for boys differs in several ways from the social setting for girls,
which often includes girls and women of differing ages. Girls are frequently
directed in their activities by adult women rather than directing them them-
selves. By structuring the setting of socialization in this way, competitiveness
is reduced. We have found no evidence that girls are innately less competitive
than boys: on an I I-point scale for competitiveness, the highest rating that
any society received was nine, and girls were rated at-this level for two socie-
ties (with 20 cases of this rating for boys.) 1 As girls are certainly capable of
behaving just as competitively as boys, we must look to the social settings
that promote or inhibit competition to explain differences in behavior.
6
Mating, Marriage, and the
Duration of Adolescence
SoME of the character of adolescent life, including the length of adoles-

cence itself, is determined by marriage considerations. While adolescence
predates marriage chronologically, the anticipation of marriage is in the
minds of adolescents and those responsible for them. In this chapter we look
at reproductive concerns of the society as a major factor in the kinds of lives
adolescents lead.
Unlike other species, in which individuals select their mates, humans re-
produce in a social setting that limits and often determines their reproductive
fates. Human reproduction, played out in terms of kinship and household
arrangements, is social as much as biological, since reproductive relations
are embedded in long-term social attachments between the mated pair and
among their kin.
The view of kinship as biologically based has fallen out of favor in some
circles. Schneider (1984), probably the most explicit opponent of this view,
even denied the universality of a common definition of kinship. Whatever
the arguments about definition of kinship and the principles of recruitment
to the kindred and the descent group, there is no society known to us in
which biological parent-child and sibling ties and extensions thereof are not
recognized and are not accompanied by prescriptions for appropriate behav-
iors toward these categories of persons.
There is a direct association between mating and selective advantage for
the individual in species in which individuals control their own mating strat-
egies. Among humans, however, individuals less commonly control their
own mate selection. Modern societies are somewhat aberrant in this respect;
among preindustrial peoples, marriage is often under the control of kin, par-
ticularly the parents of one or both partners, and then the criteria for mate
selection are as much to further their own interests as to benefit the young
people getting married.
92
Mating, Marriage, and the Duration of Adolescence 93
In societies without private property, "economic capital" is nonexistent

or very limited and "social capital," the alliances forged through kinship
and social linkages such as marriage, is the means-to enhance one's position
and enlarge one's support base. Even in complex traditional societies with
private property, marriage seals other kinds of alliances between families.
Dynastic marriages are not just found among the aristocrats of traditional
states, but are commonplace where ties of a political or economic nature are
created or cemented through the marriages of children. Marriage is too criti-
cal a social and political issue to be left to the fancies of the young them-
selves. In only 18 percent of 141 societies do boys make their own selection;
girls select their mates in 13 percent of 131 societies. In the remaining socie-
ties, kin, primarily parents, are involved in the choice. It is therefore the so-
cial arrangements of parents that most frequently determine the reproductive
relations of young people.
The assumption underlying this link between marriage and mating is that
most biological reproduction occurs within marriage. There are two possible
counter-arguments to this: first, the fact that many societies permit premarital
sexual relations for girls and, second, that in a fairly large number of societies,
widespread adultery and such customs as wife sharing or privileged sexual
unions with certain permitted relatives of the spouse can lead to pregnancies that
are socially but not biologically contained within the marriage.
We will return to the question of sexual permissiveness for adolescent
girls in the following chapter. To anticipate, it is rather uncommon for un-
married girls in preindustrial societies to produce children. Either sexual in-
tercourse is prohibited, or, where it is not, infertility in young adolescent girls
reduces the likelihood of conception. When adolescents in permissive socie-
ties do get pregnant, in most cases either marriage legitimizes the child or the
fetus is aborted.
There is considerable variability in the tolerance of sexual partners other
than the spouse. Gaulin and Schlegel (1980), using the same sample that we
did, found that about half of the societies for which there is information are
rated as having high paternal confidence, meaning that the woman's hus-
band can be confident that any given child is his own. In the remainder of
cases, in which there is wife sharing or a moderate to high degree of extra-
marital sexual activity, paternal confidence is lower. However, the authors
point out that even in societies with low paternal confidence, most births are
likely to be the result of marital intercourse, simply because it is the husband
who, over time, has greatest access to the wife. There are the rare exceptions:
the Nayar of southern India (Gough 1961), for example, where the recog-
nized father of a woman's child is her current lover and not her official hus-
band; or the Australian Tiwi (Hart and Pilling 1960), where extreme age
difference between spouses and the frequent albeit illicit access to young
wives by the young bachelors increases the likelihood of adulterous preg-
nancy. These cases are noteworthy because they are so atypical.
94 ADOLESCENCE
Thus, we assert that marriage is the principal way in which biologically

reproductive partners are allocated. In the majority of societies in this sam-
ple, adults control this allocation, at least when the persons to be married are
young. (It is not uncommon for subsequent marriages of older people to be
decided by the prospective spouses themselves.) To be an actor in reproduc-
tive strategies in many societies, one may have to wait until one is a parent
and gains control over the reproduction of one's children, as one's own re-
productive career was designed by others.
The Importance of Marriage in Preindustrial Societies
Peoples of contemporary Western nations put little emphasis on mar-

riage compared to those of most known societies, where few remain single or
childless by choice. Why is marriage such a central issue in preindustrial so-
cieties, and how does this affect adolescents?
Marriage means different things in different places. The romantic love
and sexual exclusiveness of the European and American marriage pattern
would be difficult for the Hima, an African pastoral society, to understand
(Elam 1973). There, the wife who does not give her sexual favors to her
husband's friends is considered churlish and unneighborly, and her husband
upbraids her for her lack of hospitality. The ideal of partnership between
spouses that we carry into marriage is foreign to peoples who live in large,
extended-family households, in which the household members one works
and relaxes with are primarily of one's own sex, and marital privacy and at-
tachment are limited.
Despite the diversity of marital arrangements, however, almost every-
where marriage entails a relation between spouses that includes living to-
gether and cooperating in reproduction in the broad sense, from the child's
conception to its adulthood. Exceptions, such as the Nayar noted above,
among whom adult sisters and brothers live together and women are visited
by their consorts at night, are rare; the overwhelming evidence is toward the
formation of a mated pair, whatever the kinship or residence patterns may
be, who take primary responsibility for feeding and socializing their off-
spring. The pair may be part of an extended-family household, in which case
productive tasks are allocated among household members and many goods
are pooled, and child care tasks are to some degree shared. Nevertheless,
alongside the unity of the group is a sense of unity of the conjugal family,
comprising spouses and their children, which competes with and can over-
ride attachment to a larger group.
Examples of the unity of the conjugal family can be taken from many
kinds of societies with a variety of household arrangements. In the polyan-
drous households of Tibet (Peter 1963), where several brothers share a com-
mon wife, the wife and her children (by whichever brother) accompany the
oldest brother if the fraternal group separates. Among the Hopi, when the
size of the matrilocal extended family outgrows its space, older daughters
split off with their husbands and children into new households. A striking
example of conjugal unity overriding clan affiliation among these very ma-
trilineal Hopi is given by Titiev (1944:92-93) in his discussion of the factional
split of the village of Oraibi in 1906. While various factors entered into fac-
tional alignment for men, in several cases men joined with their wives and in
general women joined with their husbands instead of their brothers as lineage
politics would dictate.
Why should the mated-pair bond and the bond between parents and
children be so widespread in spite of the great variability in the meaning of
marriage and in household structure? The duolocal pattern of the Nayar is
enough to show that other kinds of arrangements could be made, that is,
with siblings forming the cooperative pair. In fact, there would be some ad-
vantages to the primary (but nonsexual) bond being between sisters and
brothers, for that would perpetuate into adulthood the close ties of child-
hood and eliminate such difficulties as sexual jealousy between the cooperat-
ing pair and abrasive relations with in-laws. There must have been strong
selective pressures toward the mated-pair bond for it to have arisen, and
strong pressures of a similar or different kind for it to persist in spite of the
broad diversity in family settings.
A problem with universals or near universals is that they cannot be
tested comparatively but only addressed logically. Fortunately, it is possible
to test pair bonding across species, as Ember and Ember (1979) did. Basing
their finding on a sample of 40 species, they rejected explanations of pair
bonding that rely on division of labor by sex, male sexual competition, and
duration of infant dependency, finding that pair bonding occurs in species in
which the female's feeding requirements would interfere with her care of the
young. Cooperation of two individuals ensures better survival for the off-
spring, whether in birds, some other mammals, or ourselves.
While Ember and Ember disposed of several kinds of cooperative ar-
rangements such as that between two females, two males, or among a group
of promiscuously mated individuals, they did not address the male-female
sibling pair. In spite of the advantages noted above, sister-brother pair bond-
ing would be likely to occur only when large extended-family households
with a stable resource base ensure that enough male kin are contributing at
any one time to the care of sisters' children, and no children are without ma-
ternal uncles in the home. When families are smaller and more mobile, there
is no guarantee that there would be a brother available at all times for a re-
productive sister to rely on, even when the definition of sibling is broader
than it is in the European kinship system and includes many persons whom
we would consider to be cousins. Marriage circulates men among fertile
women, distributing them more effectively than would brother-sister pair
bonding. The privilege for men of producing children is accompanied by the
96 ADOLESCENCE
duty to cooperate in their care. Marriage ensures that all children have a so-
cially acknowledged male who is responsible for them.
Is marriage just for the benefit of children, or do marriage and parent-
hood serve the interests of adults as well? As Ware (1978:2) baldly stated:
"Parents have children because they benefit thereby." Since techniques of
contraception and abortion are widely known, and infanticide may be prac-
ticed as a last resort, we have to assume that the number of children typically
found in families is a consequence of choice. The psychic benefits of parent-
hood are gained with one or two children, who could be born at any time
during the woman's reproductive lifespan of 20 years or more. Additional
children can place a severe economic burden on families in industrialized so-
cieties, which reduce their family size accordingly. Optimal family size may
be very different in other circumstances.
Children can be an economic asset as soon as they are able to relieve
adults of light but time-consuming tasks such as hauling water, caring for
infants, washing laundry and dishes, feeding chickens, collecting sticks or
dried dung for firewood, or scaring birds away from ripening grain. They
can begin these tasks as young as four or five. While they are not very pro-
ductive in their early years, their productivity increases with their increasing
skills and strength, and they may be net contributors rather than consumers
by the time they reach adolescence. In her study of economic activities of
children among the Nigerian Hausa, Schildkrout ( 1978) listed some of the
ways in which children earn money, including the selling of cooked foods
their mothers prepare. Both boys and girls might be market sellers as early as
seven or eight.
It is not only the anticipated labor of young children that makes them
welcome as contributors to the family economy. Even more is the anticipated
labor of adolescents and young adults, as long as there are labor opportuni-
ties for them and the fruits of their labor, cash or produce, are controlled by
adults. Thus, in horticultural, pastoral, or agrarian economies in which there
is room for territorial expansion, as in much of Africa, the limiting factor in
wealth is scarcity of labor rather than scarcity of land. Though additional
labor does not increase the surplus per laborer, it does increase the absolute
surplus of whoever controls the goods produced. Children, and the wives to
bear them, become a valued resource under such conditions.
Of equal or greater weight is the issue of future security. Almost every-
where, support in old age is taken over by children. Though other kin may
provide assistance, the aged person without grown children is unlikely to get
very solicitous care or receive much respect from juniors. Thus, children
have economic value even if their labor does not contribute much to the
household economy. This fact can explain the value of fertility to foragers,
among whom adolescents and children do not generally contribute much to-
ward household subsistence (see Schlegel and Barry 1980b for a discussion of
the theme of fertility in the adolescent initiation ceremonies of girls in forag-
ing societies). When this value is overlooked, as Meillassoux (1981: 19-22)
apparently did in his discussion of reproductive relations among foragers,
one can derive a picture of the foraging band that mistakenly dismisses the
bonds between parents and children and thereby provides no basis for the
importance of marriage to men in band societies.
Even in the extended-family household, in which the elderly childless
man or woman in most cases receives sufficient food and clothing to stay
alive, old age lacks the compensations of loving children and grandchildren,
whose labor allows the elderly person to enjoy leisure. As Ware (1978:21) put
it: "Each lonely old woman gathering sticks is an object lesson in the need
for security in old age, and such crones are not rare in societies with high
mortality." It is widely appreciated that when the mortality of young and
middle-aged people is high, parents expect to lose some children and take this
into account in adjusting family size.
Children can be an economic asset even if they are far from home, as
long as wage labor is available and parents control their wages. The remit-
tances sent back by overseas children at present play an important role in the
domestic economies of many poor countries. A family's best long-term strat-
egy may be to produce many children in the hope that some, at least, will
leave and send remittances home. Considering the low cost of child rearing
in areas with outmigrating labor like Cape Verde or the rural Philippines,
such a strategy makes considerable economic sense. Given the economic
value of children in nonindustrial societies, and the high mortality rate that
creates the need for replenishment, we can see why the reproductive value of
women should be so high in preindustrial societies.
Reproduction is problematic for men. Women, of course, can repro-
duce within or outside of marriage and enjoy the present and future benefit
of children regardless of the presence of a spouse, as long as they have some
way of supporting themselves. Thus, women gain socially from reproduc-
tion, at the same time that they bear heavier physical costs. Men, for whom
physical reproduction bears very little cost, do not gain socially from it un-
less they attach themselves to women who are or become mothers. For men,
marriage is a commitment to a woman to help support her and her children
in return for the social gains of parenthood. Other benefits of marriage for
both sexes, not to be overlooked, are the expectation of domestic services
and sexual relations as a right rather than a privilege, to be taken for granted
rather than to be negotiated. In economies in which services have not become
commodities, activities such as feeding, construction and upkeep of clothing
and shelter, and care in time of illness arise out of personal relationships, and
claims on such services are critical to well-being and even survival.
The benefits of reproduction are not problematic for a woman, but the
support of herself and her children is. Barry and Schlegel (1982) found that
the mean contribution of women to subsistence in the Standard Cross-
Cultural Sample of preindustrial societies is 35.5 percent. Much of the
98 ADOLESCENCE
women's labor goes into reproductive and domestic activities and into the
processing rather than the procurement of raw materials. In almost every
society (the Hadza, an African foraging group, being one possible excep-
tion), women rely heavily on men for assistance. This is most likely to come
from their husbands, who claim fatherhood of their children. One view of
marriage, then, is an exchange between the sexes: men provide support for
children in exchange for claims on them, and women acknowledge these
claims of men who help provide for them.
Such a free-exchange model, however, would apply completely only in
societies in which individuals make their own marriage decisions, and, as we
have seen, such is not the case for the majority of societies in this sample.
Reproductive women are a valued asset to their kin, and the disposition of
women in marriage becomes a political act in the establishment of claims on
loyalty and the maintenance of networks. When children are of value to
men, men assert fatherhood and seek marriage. It is only when other sources
of economic advance, support, and political alliance-building outweigh chil-
dren as a source of these benefits that paternity claims may not be so strongly
pressed and abandonment is a realistic fear for women.
One way of attempting to increase the total fecundity of individual
women is to get them married as soon as they give evidence of becoming
fertile, at or very shortly after puberty. (Ironically, very early marriage and
sexual relations may actually reduce the total fecundity of women, as still-
births and miscarriages, not uncommon with early pregnancies, particularly
when health care is poor, can damage their reproductive organs [cf. Nag
1962:87-88] .) Of 178 societies for which there is information on girls, in 112,
or 63 percent, adolescence ends within two years after puberty, almost al-
ways through marriage. (For boys the corresponding percentage is 31.)
Among the Chatino, Indian peasants of Oaxaca, Mexico, girls may marry as
early as 11, with 13 not being uncommon. However, sexual relations do not
begin until after the bride's menarche; if she marries before then, she shares
a bed with her mother-in-law until her first menstruation. In spite of such an
early age of marriage, she is considered socially to be a woman (James
Greenberg, personal communication). These figures support the assertion of
a widespread interest in fertility in preindustrial societies. The question to be
addressed concerns the remaining 37 percent. We cannot assume a priori that
these societies are less interested in fertility than the majority; rather, we
must look to other factors to explain the delay in marriage and the conse-
quent lengthening of adolescence.
Age of Marriage and Economic Considerations

An important step in understanding the reasons for age of marriage has
been made by Whiting et al. (1986), who examined what they call maiden-
Mating, Marriage, and the Duration of Adolescence 99 ·
hood strategies for a subsample of the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. The

term maidenhood strategies refers to the length of time between a girl's men-
arche and her marriage and to the type of sexual activities permitted, if any.
Length of maidenhood varies from longer than five years to none, when
marriage takes place at or before menarche.
The concordance between the Whiting coding and that for length of ad-
olescence in this study is expectably very high. Our definitions differ some-
what from Whiting's. Coders were asked to determine at what point social
adolescence ends: early (up to about two years after puberty), middle (be-
tween about two and four years after puberty), late (more than about four
years after puberty). Barring other information, early adolescence for girls is
early to mid-teens, middle is to mid- to- late teens, late is late teens to about
twenty. For boys, early is mid-teens, middle is later teens, and late is late
teens to early twenties. As we have noted earlier, we take age 14 to be the age
for puberty for girls, 16 for boys, if there is no information on this. Although
in a very few societies like the !Kung, African foragers, girls may often marry
before puberty, we know of no societies in which boys do.
When the duration of maidenhood was plotted according to level of so-
cial complexity, foragers were shown by Whiting et al. (1986) to have absent
or short maidenhoods, middle-range societies such as horticulturalists and
subsistence pastoralists to cluster around one to three years, and complex
societies such as traditional agrarian states to have either absent or long (five-
year) maidenhoods. These researchers believe that this distribution has to do
with control over fertility, as women married early have a longer reproduc-
tive span than women married late. Given a period of at least two years of
adolescent subfertility after menarche, only societies that delay marriage for
more than three years do not make full use of the woman's fertility. There-
fore, Whiting et al. adduced other factors to account for the choice between
absent and short maidenhood. Parents, they believe, resort to the earliest
marriages when population is sparse and marriages must be arranged for
children before they reach puberty. These authors explained long maiden-
hood in the complex societies in their sample by a diminution of concern over
paternity: these are bilateral societies where descent is traced through both
parents, and Whiting and his co-authors assumed that paternity concerns are
weaker in bilateral than in patrilineal societies, in which one belongs to one's
father's descent line. 1
The focus of their study was on fertility, which, we assert, is a central
concern in preindustrial societies. However, the degree of concern may vary
according to the economic or political value of children, and marriage may
be delayed when large numbers of children are not advantageous or capital
rather than labor is the key to economic success.
Additional factors may advance or delay marriage. One of these is con-
trol over labor, an economic advantage. We looked for a relation between
length of adolescence and residence patterns to assess this factor; and al-
100 ADOLESCENCE
though the difference in the distribution does not reach significance, an early
end of adolescence for girls is most often found for this sample among mat-
rilocal societies, in which daughters bring in husbands (68 percent). Next
come societies in which wives reside in their husbands' households (62 per-
cent). Early end is found least among neolocal and ambilocal (57 percent)
societies, in which both sons and daughters leave (neolocal) or either the son
or the daughter leaves to join the spouse at her or his home (ambilocal). We
suggest that matrilocally residing families tend to encourage very early mar-
riage for their daughters, as this is the means by which male labor is brought
into the household. Neolocal households, on the other hand, might wish to
delay marriage, as they lose the labor of daughters without any replacement
by daughters-in-law. There is, however, no association between end of ado-
lescence and female contribution to subsistence: women's labor is equally
valuable to their parents and their husbands.
Although labor considerations may be of great importance to these fam-
ilies, which constitute units of production in preindustrial societies, we can-
not overlook the emotional bonds that could discourage parents from
sending children out into new households. In neolocal households, the par-
ental couple is left alone after its children leave. The loss of female compan-
ionship may be particularly difficult for the mother, whose social circle is
likely to be somewhat more circumscribed than her husband's. Even for the
patrilocal stem family, in which an in-marrying daughter-in-law replaces a
daughter, one reads of the "psychic cost" of a daughter's marriage. Speak-
ing of Boeotia, Friedl (1963:122) wrote that the mother "loses the compan-
ionship of a friend, confidante, and working partner'' and that mothers
"commonly speak longingly of how much they miss their absent daughters."
Labor patterns differ according to differences in subsistence technol-
ogy, and we tested the covariance of these with the point at which adoles-
cence ends. Like Whiting et al. (1986), we found that the concentration of
early marriages for girls is higher for foragers than for people with other
technologies, although this distribution does not reach significance. Unlike
them, however, we posit an economic rather than a demographic reason.
One of the features of marriage in foraging societies is the frequency
with which bride service accompanies marriage (Schlegel and Eloul 1988). In
such cases, a man works for his father-in-law or mother-in-law for a period
of time to earn the right to his wife, whatever the residence pattern may be.
In horticultural or pastoral societies, property is usually under the control of
men and bride service is generally thought of as a limited period of labor for
the bride's father; a Biblical account is the herding that earned Jacob his
wives Leah and Rachel, told in the Book of Genesis. In foraging societies,
bride service is more commonly defined as the long-term provisioning of the
wife's mother with meat and possibly other goods, as among the !Kung and
the Tiwi. Both parents are to some degree dependent upon the labor of their
son-in-law. Women are scarce in these small communities, there being evi-
dence of considerable competition among men over women in foraging soci-

eties. Each nubile girl is a prize, and men, far from resisting the demands
marriage puts on them, are eager to lay claim to a wife. (For further discus-
sion, see Schlegel and Eloul 1988). Here, as in the matrilocal societies pre-
viously noted, the promotion of early marriage is to the economic advantage
of parents of daughters. That girls in foraging societies do not necessarily
welcome such early marriages is made plain in the recollections of Nisa, a
!Kung adolescent (Shostak 1983); this determined and strong-willed young
person exhausted every means at her disposal-complaints, running away,
refusal to join her husband-to rid herself of the unwanted burden of mar-
riage, finally giving in to pressure from her parents and others.
Another economic factor in determining age of marriage has to do with
transfer of property at marriage. Schlegel and Eloul (I 987) coded marriage
transactions for this sample, the types being bridewealth, token bridewealth,
bride service, gift exchange, women exchange, dowry, and indirect dowry,
along with the absence oftransactions. 2 Using that code, we find that the end
of adolescence is preponderately early for all societies with one exception,
the dowry-giving societies, in which adolescence ends later (cf. Goody and
Tambiah 1973: 10). The difference between dowry societies and others is sig-
nificant at the .002 level (Table 6.1).
In only two dowry-giving societies, the ancient Romans and the Haitian
peasants (who do not give much dowry because they have very little prop-
erty), does adolescence end early. Those in which girls' adolescence ends
after a median duration, about two to four years after puberty, are the Chi-
nese, Korean, Punjabi, Uttar Pradesh, and Basque. Those in which it ends
later, about four to seven years after puberty, are the Irish, Burmese, Japa-
nese, and Russian. These last two categories were collapsed for testing.
In spite of the tendency for dowry societies to delay the end of adoles-
cence, the ancient Romans often had child betrothal with marriage following
the girls' menarche. This deviant case forced us to examine the dowry socie-
ties in the sample.
The puzzle is resolved when we consider the social segments from which
information was derived for coding. The customs coded for Romans were
Table 6.1 End of Adolescence and Form of Marriage Transactions: Girls
dowry other
End of adolescence
early 2 110
middle and late 9 57
102 ADOLESCENCE
mainly those of the aristocracy, whereas peasant villages are the source of
information for the remaining societies. Age of marriage in dowry-giving so-
cieties would seem to vary according to status and wealth, with higher-status
and richer families marrying daughters off early and lower-status families
marrying them off later.
Other evidence supports this hypothesis. In India, it is prescribed for the
higher castes that girls be married early, even sometimes before puberty, al-
though in that case cohabitation should be delayed. A very large portion of
the population does not follow this high-caste rule and marries its girls well
after puberty (Dumont 1970: 110-111 ); thus, very early marriage is a custom
of the elite or of those who emulate them. Considering the financial burden
of providing a dowry-this being the main cause of debt among Indian peas-
ants (Dumont 1970: 110)-it is hardly surprising that poorer families should
not be eager to hasten the marriages of daughters.
The evidence from preindustrial Europe, where dowries were given,
points in the same direction. Without specifying ages, Trumbach (1978: 16)
related that in medieval Genoa, '' Aristocrats married early, artisans married
late." Early modern Europe was highly unusual in having quite late marriage
for both sexes; but even there, the aristocracy generally married somewhat
earlier than artisans and much earlier than the peasantry. In the 16th cen-
tury, daughters of the upper landed classes married at about age 20 (Laslett
1965), and noble brides of the following century were also about that age
(Stone 1977), while among small-property owners and laborers, women were
marrying between ages 24 and 27 (Stone 1977).
The explanation for this discrepancy requires a consideration both of
the economic value of women as laborers and reproducers of laborers and of
the dowry itself. In the most complex societies, those in which dowries are
customary, women of the food-producing sector have a lower economic
value than they do in many simpler societies. Women's contribution to sub-
sistence is high in societies in which gathering or tropical horticulture are
major subsistence activities; but when there is plow agriculture, women
make a lesser contribution to subsistence, although their processing and do-
mestic activities expand (Ember 1983). In addition, in complex societies land
and raw materials are not free, and there has to be a balance between the
number of mouths the farm or shop can feed and the number of hands re-
quired to maintain it. Under such conditions, fertility cannot be unrestricted
among peasants or artisans of limited means, and neither the labor power
nor the reproductive capacity of women is high relative to women in many
simpler societies. (For a more detailed discussion of marriage transactions,
female contribution to subsistence, and other relevant variables, see Schlegel
and Eloul 1988.)
Thus, we propose, first, that there is less pre5sure on peasant than on
horticultural or pastoral families with marriageable daughters to give them
as brides. Second, it is to the advantage of dowry-giving families with limited
means to delay the marriages of daughters. This puts off the time when fam-
ily property must be assembled to accompany her into her new home, and it
also allows for a longer period in which ..she will contribute her domestic
labor to the household, in compensation for the cost of rearing her.
While these factors must be considered in the marriages of girls of peas-
ant or artisan families, they do not apply to the elite. Female domestic labor
is replaced or augmented by the labor of servants or slaves, and there is no
economic advantage in keeping the girls at home. While the elite family may
be no more eager to part with its property in the dowry settlement than the
poorer family, it is in a better financial position to do so. Furthermore, sub-
stantial dowries are used to "buy" the best possible son-in-law (and this is
often the spirit in which these negotiations of property and status are held).
A family can improve its social connections by using wealth to marry a
daughter to a man of a higher social position, a well-known custom in India
and one that was practiced by upwardly mobile families in Europe since at
least the 16th century. While the family loses some of its property, its social
gains are considerable. Mercantile families can bring a poor but clever son-
in-law into the family business with the dowry (or anticipated inheritance),
his loyalty assured by his economic dependence on his wife's family. This
practice has been documented for mercantile families of Latin America
(Socolow 1978).
Dowry, therefore, allows land-owning peasants and elites to use the
marriages of their daughters in order to gain alliances with men who provide
them with economic or social advantages. Dowry as a custom was found
among all propertied classes in Europe, where land ownership even by peas-
ants has been widespread for centuries, and among the property-owning sec-
tors of Asia. In prerevolutionary China, where the elite and the more
prosperous peasants gave dowries, people of lesser wealth, who were renters
of land or poor artisans, engaged in other types of marriage transactions,
such as indirect dowry. Such is still the case in India (see Schlegel and Eloul
1988).
With marriageable daughters as a sort of social capital, there is no ad-
vantage for elite families to delay putting this to use. Furthermore, with no
economic constraints on fecundity, elite women have high reproductive
value when high infant mortality threatens the perpetuation of the family
line and the integrity of the family estate.
To this point, the discussion has been about girls' marriages, but not
only the marriages of daughters are of concern to parents. Kin (primarily
parental) control over the marriages of girls is only slightly greater than over
those of boys in the sample. Low kin control is defined as marriage choice
being made by the individual alone or with only advice from kin. This free-
dom is allowed to boys in 57 percent of the 138 societies with information, to
girls in 50 percent of 129. Kin exert control when they have veto power over
the marriage choice or they make the decision. Families are more likely to
104 ADOLESCENCE
Table 6.2 Control Over Marriage and Form of Marriage Transactions

dowry and indirect dowry other
Control over girl~ marriage
individual primarily 6 59
kin primarily 18 46
x2 = 6.41 p = .0ll
Control over boy~ marriage

individual primarily 6 73
kin primarily 19 40
x2 = 12.18 p < .001
control the marriages of offspring of both sexes when property goes with the
girl into her conjugal household, especially in the form of dowry or indirect
dowry (Table 6.2). 3
Concordance between girls and boys is high for the end of adolescence
as well (Table 6.3). In most societies the sexes are treated somewhat alike in
the length of time between puberty and adulthood, although boys are gener-
ally older at marriage than are girls. Because for both sexes adolescence usu-
ally ends with marriage, this finding indicates that young people usually
marry spouses fairly close to them in age, brides being generally no more
than four years younger than their grooms.
The greatest discrepancy exists in those societies in which adolescence
ends early for girls but late for boys. Discounting seven cases of boys' adoles-
cence not ending with marriage, we are left with 16 cases with a large age
difference between the sexes. Nine of these, all but one in Africa, give
bridewealth, supporting Mair's (1977:56) observation that bridewealth can
delay the marriage of boys, whose families must assemble the goods, at the
Table 6.3 End of Adolescence: Concordance Between

Girls and Boys
Girls
early middle late
Boys
early 50 5 0
middle 38 21 2
late n 18 20
Mantel-Haenszel x2 = 49.09 p < .001
same time it speeds the marriage of girls, whose families are eager to receive
bridal payments. Nevertheless, in the majority (55 percent) of the 56
bridewealth-giving societies for which duration is coded for boys, end of ad-
olescence for boys is not late (16 cases early, 15 cases middle adolescence).
Foragers have the lowest percentage of boys ending adolescence late and
the highest percentage of those ending adolescence early, with societies with
other subsistence techniques generally extending adolescence for a longer
time. The difference in distribution does not reach the level of statistical sig-
nificance, but it suggests that marriage may be delayed in some of the more
complex societies when there are questions of property distribution, or in a
few cases when schooling or other training lengthens the period needed for
boys to learn adult skills. This is not usually the case for girls, as girls marry
early (up to two years after puberty) in 106 of 178 societies for which dura-
tion of adolescence is coded for girls.
We have seen that there is a higher percentage of early-marrying girls in
matrilocal societies and late-marrying girls in neolocal and ambilocal socie-
ties, although the distribution does not reach significance (as the majority of
societies for all residence patterns have early marriage). This pattern is sim-
ilar for boys, and it does reach statistical significance (Table 6.4). However,
almost as many boys have an early as a late end to adolescence in neolocal
and ambilocal societies. We suggest that adolescence is prolonged in those
neolocal societies in which it is difficult for boys to assemble the wherewithal
to establish a household (cf. Stone 1977:51-52) or to achieve by other means
the readiness for adult status that enables them to take a wife. Understand-
ably, parents would be reluctant to give their daughter to a very young hus-
band if the couple had to support itself, and they might insist that he prove
himself capable of carrying the responsibility of male household headship
before he could marry her.
In the majority of societies in this sample, young people of both sexes
have been married within about four years after puberty, girls by their mid-
teens and boys by their late teens or very early twenties. They are likely to
Table 6.4 End of Adolescence and Residence Pattern: Boys

Residence pattern
female neolocal and male
centered ambilocal centered
End of adolescence
early 13 8 33
middle 20 3 39
late 4 10 47
x2 = 15.47 df = 4 p = .004
106 ADOLESCENCE
marry someone close in age. In spite of the high concordance between girls
and boys, however, adolescence ends for boys in most societies at a chrono-
logically later age than it does for girls, and boys' adolescence is longer than
girls' in many societies.
The length of adolescence, we argue, is determined in most societies by
the age of marriage, which in turn is the consequence of decisions made by
persons controlling the marriages of very young people, who are rarely in an
economic or political position to make such determinations themselves. The
result may be either early or later marriage for either sex: there is no associa-
tion between parental control over marriage and length of adolescence for
girls or boys. When exchanges of property take place or when a family stands
to gain or lose a significant portion of its labor force, parents and kin take a
keen interest in the marriages of children and use them to their own advan-
tages. This is not to imply that adults are deaf to the wishes of children, and
in the great majority of cases children can refuse a marriage that is distasteful
to them. However, parents can be much less subtle than they are in modern
societies about directing their children's interest toward appropriate part-
ners; they are usually free to advise about or veto proposed spouses, and they
can use their control over property to advance or delay children's marriages.
Our emphasis has been on the economic aspects, broadly construed, of
age of marriage, not because we minimize the importance of concerns about
fertility, but because we take it for granted that fertility is always a consider-
ation in preindustrial societies, even in those in which child spacing is a nec-
essary consequence of women's labor patterns (cf. Schlegel and Barry 1986)
or excess children are abandoned (Boswell 1989). But marriages serve social
and economic as well as reproductive ends, and these factors must be taken
into account. Important points to consider are labor patterns in conjunction
with household structure, the reproductive value of females and the interest
in accelerating or delaying childbearing, whether or not long periods of edu-
cation or apprenticeship are required for economic success, and whether or
not large amounts of goods must be accumulated to make an individual mar-
riageable or to provide for marriage transactions. The length of adolescence
is not arbitrary but results from a complex of factors in the cultural manipu-
lation of biological givens.
7
Adolescent Sexuality
THE compelling pressures of burgeoning sexuality in adolescence are

channelled into heterosexual relations, homosexual acts, and masturbation.
Some data are available on all three forms of sexual activity. 1 By far the most
information is on heterosexual intercourse and the least on masturbation,
although the latter is probably much more common than the former except
in the very rare cases when other sexual outlets are available on demand.
Homosexual acts are not widely reported, but more data can be retrieved
than one would expect, given the longstanding reticence about discussing the
subject.
In the sections that follow, we discuss permissiveness and restrictiveness
toward heterosexuality and homosexuality. We attempt to identify social
and cultural features leading to one or the other attitude and to test for con-
comitants and consequences. In particular, we are interested in the ways in
which sexual behaviors are associated with other kinds of adolescent behav-
iors.
Permissiveness and Restrictiveness

. Toward Heterosexual Intercourse
As we have seen in Chapter 3, more societies are permissive than restric-
tive toward adolescent sexuality. The variability ranges from the prohibition
of any sort of flirtatious behavior, or even contact, to a kind of amused tol-
erance of the sexual exploits of young people. The Middle Eastern village girl
who should speak to no man outside her family after puberty, and even with
kin assumes a modest demeanor, is a far cry from the saucy girls and boys of
Polynesia, bathed, scented, and decked with flowers, strutting about or
trooping to neighboring villages for festivities that end in amorous embraces.
The Muria described in Chapter 5, and similar societies with unsuper-
vised adolescent dormitories like the lfugao and Bontoc tribes of the Moun-
107
108 ADOLESCENCE
tain Provinces, Philippines, reach the peak of permissiveness. The following

summary of Muria ghotu/ life is taken from Elwin (1968), an abridgement of
Elwin (1947).
During the afternoon, girls sweep and clean the yard. The adolescents
are responsible to the village for keeping the building and its compound
clean and will be fined if it is left untended. At sunset, boys come to start
the fire, the only light for the evening's activities.
After the evening meal taken at home, the boys straggle into the
ghotul carrying their sleeping mats. The smaller boys bring firewood,
and they may be called on to massage the legs of the older boys if they
are tired. Meanwhile, the girls are assembling somewhere outside, and
they enter as a group. A troop of girls from another hamlet may be visit-
ing. Some girls sit with the boys, others sit together and talk, and fa-
tigued boys and girls nap in quiet corners.
For an hour or two the mood is very informal. People gather in groups
to talk; someone will tell a story or pose riddles; plans for a dancing expe-
dition to another ghotul may be made or duties at a village wedding allo-
cated; or there may be dancing. Sometimes boys sing taunting songs to
the girls, who reply in kind.
By about 10 o'clock, the girls collect around the girl leader, who allots
to each her sleeping partner. Every girl then goes up to a boy, often but
not necessarily this partner, to comb his long hair and massage his back
and arms. This, of course, brings them into close contact with one an-
other, and the boys often call out sexy remarks about themselves or oth-
ers.
When the massages are finished, it is bedtime. Girls visiting from an-
other ghotul are now expected to leave. (If any visiting girl is discovered
by her own ghotul boys to have remained the night, they get very angry
and she is punished with a heavy fine.) The younger children go to sleep
in a row. The adolescents pair off, two on a mat. Extra boys share a
mat. Elwin notes that there are more often extra boys than girls. This is
possibly because menstruating girls do not go to the ghotu/. Those who
intend to have intercourse may retire to a small hut in the compound.
Soon all is quiet. Everyone arises before dawn, for they should be at
home and working when their parents arise.
While girls are expected to have intercourse at least some of the time,
forcing the girl is extremely offensive and can result in a heavy fine. In
some ghotuls, couples are paired off and expected to remain faithful to
one another, although it is unlikely that one's "ghotulhusband" or
"ghotul wife" will be one's eventual spouse. In others, there is a rule
against sleeping together too often, which the boy and girl leaders en-
force. Even in this sexually charged atmosphere, there are strong rules of
propriety and sanctions against speech or actions in bad taste. Elwin
speaks of a boy who tried to peep under the skirts of the girls when they
Adolescent Sexuality 109
were dancing. They stopped, grabbed him and bound his hands, tying
them to the roof. He remained in this uncomfortable and undignified
posture for 15 minutes and had to apologize to each girl before he was re-
leased.
In such a society, the adolescent years must seem idyllic to those who
have passed beyond them, particularly to young adults who have to bear the
burdens of adult responsibility and yet have not attained the satisfactions
and honored position of middle age. The Muria, certainly, look back with
fond nostalgia on those days. Nevertheless, they appreciate the privacy of the
home and the generally greater freedom of sexual expression with a spouse.
There are several snakes in this adolescent paradise. One, of course, is
pregnancy. The Muria have various beliefs about conception, that it is likely
immediately after the girl's menses or that it is unlikely if one changes part-
ners frequently, and they take steps to avoid it. The young people in the
ghotul practice coitus interruptus when they fear the possibility of a preg-
nancy, and abortions are performed. Probably most often, though, the cou-
ple are married, or she is married to her betrothed, who is expected to accept
the child as his own.
Jealousy is another problem. Younger boys are jealous of older ones,
and the "drab-looking older girls" of 18 or so (!) may be jealous of the
"young and beautiful" ones in their early teens (Elwin 1968:216). Ghotul
members resent it when others are assigned to sleep with their preferred part-
ners and are known to have temper tantrums.
The effects of such extreme permissiveness on one's sex life in later years
are in dispute. Elwin speaks of the apparent marital happiness and fidelity
and the low divorce rate among the Muria. On the other hand, Barton con-
trasts the low divorce rate among the Kalinga, who do not have adolescent
dormitories, with the high frequency of adultery and divorce among the
neighboring Ifugao and Bontoc, who do. He believes that this "period of
promiscuity" (Barton 1969:54) establishes habits that are hard to break and
lead to discontent and boredom with one partner.
The findings from our study support Barton, although not necessarily
for the reasons he gave. As Table 7 .1 shows, adultery is likely to be frequent
among men when adolescent boys have sexual freedom, and it is likely to be
frequent among women when adolescent girls have sexual freedom. Thus,
there is consistency in behavior between adolescence and adulthood. This is
also true for the double standard, or the attitude toward adultery: for both
sexes, adolescent permissiveness is related to the absence of a double stan-
dard. We note especially the association between restrictiveness toward boys
and the presence of a double standard. Restricting the sexual freedom of
women, adolescent girls, and adolescent boys is part of a general pattern of
control over subordinate persons, most likely to be found where sexual free-
dom is one of the privileges accorded to dominant adult men only.
Whatever the cause of marital infidelity among the Bontoc, Ifugao, and
110 ADOLESCENCE
Table 7.1 Adolescent Sexual Freedom Related to Adulterya
Adolescent Sexual Freedomb

Boys Girls
N Mean N Mean
Double standard c
absent 34 6.5 32 5.8
present 60 5.1 63 4.5
F = 9.20 p = .003 F = 6.37 p = .013
Frequency: mend
high 31 6.1
low 15 4.2
F = 8.19 p = .006
Frequency: womend
high 26 5.9
low 23 4.1
F = 6.14 p = .013
1
Source for data on adultery: Broude and Greene 1980.
b Adolescent sexual freedom is measured on an 11-point scale, a higher mean indicating greater
freedom.
cAbsent means allowed equally or punished equally; present means allowed to husband, or wife
punished more.
dHigh means almost universal or moderate; low means occasional or uncommon .
others, Elwin's report suggests that it does not necessarily lie in permissive-
ness toward adolescent sex. As one Nigerian ljo informant, quoted by Hollos
and Leis (1986:404), averred, one can never tell: "A young woman with
much sex experience before marriage may never commit adultery after mar-
riage, whereas one who has not could go to other men after marriage."
Finally, Elwin brought up the question of whether the continual contact
does not reduce desire, and he suggested that the massages and other intima-
cies are a stimulus to the boys for impulses that otherwise might flag. His
own account, however, contains evidence that boys are always eager but girls
are not always willing, even though the Muria maintain that women are insa-
tiable and take the lead in seduction. Elwin took note of Havelock Ellis's
(1906) belief that sexual feelings are dulled between those who have been
brought up together. However, his reports of passionate attachments that
lead to elopement, cause extreme jealousy, or result in long periods of de-
spondence when the beloved ghotul partner gets married to somebody else
belie his concern. Recent research on sexuality indicates that the inhibition of
sexual impulses toward another is strong if the intimate contact occurs when
at least one of the pair is a young child (cf. Parker 1976); however, the con-
tinual contact of Muria adolescents does not begin until the children are into
middle or late childhood.
Some societies may allow a great deal of freedom to girls and yet expect
them to maintain their virginity. The East African Kikuyu in earlier times
had a youths' dormitory, to which adolescent girls came for entertainment
and what American teenagers have called "heavy petting," that is, all but
penetration. This custom, termed ngweko, involved lying together with in-
tertwined legs while fondling and going through the motions of copulation.
The girl kept her leather pubic apron in place all the while. It seems quite
certain that the young men would come to orgasm. Whether the girls did or
not is not stated. These girls had had clitorectomies; but only the tip was
removed, so perhaps there was enough erectile tissue for girls also to be stim-
ulated to climax. This sexual activity was encouraged. It would have been
shameful for the girl to get pregnant, however, and so the precaution of the
apron was taken.
It is not uncommon for people to feel ambivalent about the sexuality of
their adolescents, and this is often reflected in the ethnographic reports, in
which one can read about parents admonishing and scolding girls but not
going to any great lengths to keep them away from boys. When adolescents
have freedom of association and can get away from adult supervision, some
instances of sexual contact are almost assured. Among rural Haitians, for
example, a tolerant attitude toward premarital relations is combined with a
strong disapproval of pregnancy and threat of punishment for shaming the
family (Herskovits 1971 ). To avoid this, girls use magical contraceptives and
the more effective abortions. On the contrary, the Hopi supervised their
daughters to some degree and considered out-of-wedlock pregnancy unfor-
tunate, but neither the family nor the girl was strongly sanctioned and the
child suffered from no stigma.
Broude (1981) provided a detailed summary of cross-cultural studies of
the management of sexuality, induding premarital sex norms for females.
(Little attention has been paid to males.) As most girls in most traditional
societies leave social adolescence at marriage, the females in question are by
and large adolescent girls.
Two kinds of studies have been done. One tests the influence of features
of social structure on premarital sex norms to determine the kinds of societies
that are permissive and restrictive. The other considers psychological factors
such as anxiety over sex in promoting or inhibiting premarital heterosexual
relations. None, to our knowledge, compares permissive with restrictive so-
cieties for other regularities of behavior.
The summary by Broude (1981) greatly simplifies our task in present-
ing relevant material. Studies by Murdock (1964), Goethals (1971), and
112 ADOLESCENCE
Eckhardt (1971), and a later one by Paige (1983) all examined the influence
of social structural features. In brief, premarital sexual permissiveness for
females has been found to be associated with the simpler subsistence technol-
ogies, absence of stratification, smaller communities, matrilineal descent
matrilocal residence, absence of belief in high gods, absence of bridewea1th'
high female economic contribution, little or no property exchange at mar:
riage, and ascribed rather than achieved status. In addition, Barry et al.
( 1980b) reported an association with an evaluation of girls as equal to or
higher than that of boys. All of these variables are characteristic of lower
social complexity and, as Broude pointed out, are highly intercorrelated.
The influence of psychological factors has been assessed by Ayres (1967)
and Broude ( 1975), who considered restrictiveness to be the result of sex anx-
iety. They found associations with their measures of sex anxiety-for Ayres,
long pregnancy taboos; for Broude, severe socialization for sexual propriety
and inaccessibility of the caretaker, which, she posited, lead to distrust. Both
assumed that premarital restrictiveness results from an aversion of adoles-
cents to sex. It seems more likely, however, that it is adults who impose their
standards of sexual behavior on adolescents. In other words, restricting ado-
lescent sexuality is done by adults for reasons of their own. We should note,
as Broude (1975) pointed out, that premarital sex norms show no significant
association with adult sex anxiety, measured by a scale constructed by
Minturn et al. (1969), thus casting doubt on sex anxiety as a factor in premar-
ital sexual permissiveness or restrictiveness. 2
Earlier work by the first author and the research of others described in
Chapter 6 led us to consider two other factors in the determination of pre-
marital sex norms: the age at which adolescence ends and the absence, pres-
ence, and type of marriage transactions as described in Chapter 6. 3 The latter
are highly correlated with social complexity: indirect dowry and especially
dowry are found in the most complex societies, while bride service, women
exchange, and absence of transactions are more often found in the least com-
plex (cf. Schlegel and Eloul 1988). Following Whiting et al. (1986), we hy-
pothesize that parents are not so concerned about premarital pregnancy, and
therefore girls' sexual activities, if marriage follows soon after menarche.
Common observation shows that early postmenarchial sexual intercourse
rarely results in pregnancy, a phenomenon known as adolescent sterility or
subfecundity. We also hypothesize that permissiveness and restrictiveness
are related to the type of marriage transaction, on the grounds that families
are more concerned about a girl's virginity when some forms of property
exchange are part of the marriage arrangement. When parents wish to con-
trol her choice of marriage partner, a daughter's pregnancy might force them
into an unwanted alliance if the seducer makes paternity claims on the child.
(This hypothesis has been developed in Schlegel 1991.)
The association between the end of adolescence and sexual permissive-
ness and restrictiveness was tested. Ending age was divided into early and
later, or up to two years after adolescence begins and later than that. Permis-
siveness means that sexual intercourse is tolerated or expected, and restric-
tiveness means that it is prohibited. The result is significant (Table 7 .2).
However, even when adolescence ends later, more societies in the sample are
permissive than restrictive. Thus, premarital sex norms are not simply a
function offemale biology.
The relation of marriage transactions to premarital sex norms was as-
sessed and found to be significant (see Tables 7 .3 and 7 .4). Marriage is also
more likely to be late in dowry-giving societies; in all other cases, there is no
association between the age of marriage and the type of marriage transaction
(see Chapter 6). Societies are more often permissive than they are restrictive
except those having dowry, indirect dowry, and gift exchange. 4 Permissive-
ness characterizes most societies in which exchange is absent, women are ex-
changed, or bride service is performed, that is, when either nothing is given
or something other than property changes hands. When property is ex-
changed, people are less permissive. However, contrary to the assumption
that with bridewealth men "buy" a virgin, bridewealth-giving societies are
more frequently permissive than restrictive. A typical example of a permis-
sive bridewealth-giving society is the ljo of Nigeria, among whom "many
men claim to want to marry women who have already proven to be fertile"
(Hollos and Leis 1986:402).
Societies with gift exchange, indirect dowry, and especially dowry devi-
ate from the more general pattern. The case of dowry is of historical as well
as ethnographic interest because dowry has been the preferred form of mar-
riage transaction in most of Eurasia and was a European tradition until fairly
recently. The rationale for restrictiveness when dowry is given has been dis-
cussed by Schlegel (1991).
By seducing and impregnating a girl, a man could press his claim to take
her as wife along with her property. Her parents would be reluctant to re-
fuse, since the well-being of their grandchildren depended upon their in-
heritance from both of their parents; and another man would be unlikely
to marry the mother if it meant that he had not only to support her chil-
Table 7 .2 End of Adolescence and Premarital Sex Norms: Girls

End of adolescence
early later
Sexual intercourse
prohibited , 24 27
permitted 76 35
x_2 = 5.90 p = .015
Table 7.3 Distribution of Marriage Transactions and Premarital Sex Norms: Girls
Token
Bride bride Bride Gift Women Indirect
,__. wealth wealth exchange exchange Dowry dowry
,__. service Absent
.$::.
Sexual intercourse
prohibited 15 3 3 8 I 9 9 4
permitted 32 4 22 8 6 2 5 32
Source: Schlegel and Eloul (1987).

Table 7.4 A Test of Marriage Transactions and Premarital Sex Norms: Girls
Dowry
plus
Bride Bride Gift indirect
-
C/1
Sexual intercourse
wealth8 service exchange dowry Absent Total
prohibited 18 3 8 18 4 51
permitted 36 22 8 7 32 105
-x_2 = 33.14 df= 4 p < .001
Source: Schlegel and Eloul (1987). Women exchange is omitted because of the small number of cases.
3
lncludes token bridewealth.
116 ADOLESCENCE
dren but also to make them his heirs. The widow with children would be
a different matter, since these children would have received property
through their father and would make no claims on their stepfather be-
yond support, for which in any event their labor would provide compen-
sation.
To illustrate that upward mobility through marriage with an heiress is
not foreign to dowry-giving societies, consider a common theme of Euro-
pean fairy tales, already offered in Chapter 5 as an indicator of men's
anxiety about marriage. A poor but honest young man goes through tri-
als to win the hand of the princess, who inherits her father's kingdom.
Or he wins her heart, and through the good offices of a fairy godmother
or other spirit helper, they evade her wrathful father and eventually are
reconciled with him. This more or less legitimate means to upward mobil-
ity is not so different from the illegitimate one, by which he wins the heir-
ess through seduction.
Families guard their daughters' chastity in dowry-giving societies in

order to protect their property against would-be social climbers and to ensure
that they can use their daughters' dowries to attract the most desirable sons-
in-law (cf. Chapter 6). The Mediterranean world, the home of the "honor-
shame" complex that links family honor to the chastity of its female
members, has been a center of dowry-giving since the ancient civilizations of
Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Other historical centers are northern Europe,
China, and India. Indirect dowry, as in the custom of the mahr almost uni-
versal among Muslim peoples, has often been confused with bridewealth; in
fact, it was so coded in the Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock 1967). (The confu-
sion results from considering only the transfer of goods from the groom's
family to the bride's while ignoring the equally important transfer of goods
from the bride's family to the new conjugal couple.) Perhaps it is the well-
known emphasis on virginity in Muslim societies that has given rise to the
erroneous impression that bridewealth-giving societies are overwhelmingly
concerned with premarital virginity.
The two exceptions to restrictiveness among dowry-giving societies in
this sample deserve comment. The Haitians turn a blind eye to a daughter's
sexual activity but punish her severely if she should become pregnant. Hai-
tian peasants have so little property that, while they do give some goods to a
marrying daughter and therefore are classified as dowry-giving, they are un-
like the prosperous land-owning peasantry, bourgeoisie, and elite that con-
stitute the bulk of the dowry-giving category. The Burmese allow sexual
intercourse before marriage, but only between-those who have become pub-
licly betrothed and are thereby considered to be as bound to each other as are
married partners elsewhere. These cases have been more fully described in
Schlegel and Eloul ( 1988).
One factor that may account for an emphasis on virginity in many soci-
eties that give neither dowry nor indirect dowry is inheritance of titles, which
are a form of inherited property. A case in point is Samoa. Although untitled
girls have considerable sexual freedom, titled girls, particularly the taupou,
the village "princess," are expected to go to marriage as virgins. As titles
pass through both parents in Samoa, it is important that daughters not pro-
duce bastard children-the maternity of bastards is undeniable, unlike their
paternity-or form unsuitable attachments (cf. discussion in Schlegel 1991).
Another feature of the Samoan elite that promotes virginity is the ex-
change of valuable gifts between the marrying families. Although no one
comes out ahead economically in such an exchange, it serves to ensure that
marriage occurs only between people of comparable wealth or social power,
in that they can call up wealth from kin and dependents. Here also, an ambi-
tious boy might try to impregnate an elite girl in order to force her family to
recognize him as a son-in-law, even though his social status would not nor-
mally make him an eligible spouse for her. In many gift-exchanging societies,
virginity is not an issue for ordinary people, for whom status concerns are
not major factors and few gifts if any are exchanged. The Omaha, a Plains
Indian tribe, are similar to the Samoans in this respect: high-status families
exchange valuable gifts and expect virginity, while ordinary people do nei-
ther. Similar arguments apply to variations by class in maintaining daugh-
ters' virginity in Europe and Asia at different historical periods.
Families do not simply rely on sex norms to ensure the chastity of their
daughters. As we have seen in Chapter 4, the patterning of subordination of
daughters to parents is consonant with the form of marriage transaction, low
subordination being linked to the absence of transactions. We have inter-
preted this association as an indication that subordination of adolescents to
parents is partially a function of property relations. When these property re-
lations focus around marriage, parental control of girls is strict, a major ob-
jective being to ensure the daughter's virginity for reasons already discussed.
Parental control is looser when property relations are absent and virginity
for girls is not at issue.
It seems likely that both age of marriage and type of marriage transac-
tion together have an effect on sexual permissiveness. The relations with pre-
marital sex norms are indicated in Table 7 .5, which shows that the
percentages follow the predicted direction even though they are not statisti-
cally significant.
We conducted further tests controlling for the end of adolescence to de-
termine whether property is or is not a factor in premarital sex norms. When
adolescence ends early, that is, when girls marry early, societies that give no
property are more often permissive (91 percent) than those that do give prop-
erty (63 percent). The difference is significant ( p = .002 by Fisher's Exact
Test). However, when adolescence ends later, the difference between socie-
118 ADOLESCENCE
Table 7. 5 Property Contribution, End of Adolescence, and Premarital Sex

Norms: Girls
Premarital sex norms
Endo/ %
adolescence restrictive permissive permissive
Contributor
groom's kin early 9 26 74
onlya later 9 10 53
bride's kinb early 11 8 42
later 14 7 33
none:no early 4 42 91
propertyc later 4 18 82
aBridewealth and token bridewealth.
bDowry, indirect dowry, and gift exchange.
cwomen exchange, brideservice, and absence of transactions.
ties that do give property (43 percent permissive) and those that do not (82
percent permissive) is also significant ( p = .003 by Fisher's Exact Test).
It seems likely that whenever families attempt to marry their daughters
to men of equal or higher status, that is, when status considerations are an
important feature of the marriage, they restrict the girls' premarital sexual
activity. This is most likely in property-owning societies, those that give
dowry and those in which the elite exchange gifts; it is also the case for some
peoples giving indirect dowry. To allow sexual freedom would make it too
easy for a social-climbing suitor, seeking to better his social position or at
least that of his children, to seduce and impregnate the girl and then press
paternity claims. These concerns will be strongest in societies in which girls
marry later, when there is greater danger of pregnancy.
Although both age of marriage and property exchange have an effect on
sexual permissiveness, there are other factors, outside of the scope of this
study, that should also be considered for a fuller understanding in specific
cases. Along with dowry, there is the girl's future inheritance at the time of
the parents' death, another source of goods that she will, in time, bring to the
marriage. Emulation of those of higher status, particularly when a rise in
status through marriage by daughters is possible, is another factor. So is the
assumption of a new morality after religious conversion. The value placed on
chastity as linked to spiritual purity, promoting celibacy and aversion (at
some historical periods) to the remarriage of widows, is a feature of religions
that arose in the ancient dowry-giving areas of the world: the Mediterranean
and Anatolia (Christianity) and India (Hinduism and Buddhism).
Adolescent Sexuality · 119
Concomitants of Permissiveness and Restrictiveness
We have seen that subordination to parents is associated with types of

marriage transaction, and these factors in turn are associated with premarital
sex norms. It seems likely that subordination to parents is related to permis-
siveness and restrictiveness toward premarital sexual relations. We found
this to be the case: girls are more likely to be highly subordinate to their
mothers in societies that prohibit sexual relations (Table 7 .6).
Because control over one's body is fundamental to personal autonomy,
the control of others over one's sexuality is likely to be highly associated with
control in other areas. (In some mammalian social units that are hierarchi-
cally structured, high-ranking animals react aggressively to sexual activity
among subordinates and reserve that privilege for themselves [cf. Bischof
1975a:51].) For this sample, premarital sex norms are significantly associ-
ated with control over the choice of spouse. When kin rather than the indi-
vidual are primarily responsible for selecting the spouse, sex norms are more
likely to be restrictive (Table 7. 7). On the other hand, sexual relations may
become part of the courtship pattern for adolescents who choose their own
spouses.
Subordination does not seem to affect other aspects of the relations be-
tween girls and their mothers, as there is no significant association between
premarital sex norms and contact, intimacy, or conflict between mothers and
daughters. Apparently, autonomy is not so much desired in these commu-
nally based societies that its absence sours the relations between parents and
children.
Boys' relations with family members seem little affected by permissive-
ness or restrictiveness. Subordination to the father and contact, intimacy,
and conflict with him show no association with premarital sex norms for
boys. Nor does separation from the family affect whether or not adolescent
boys have sexual freedom. There is, however, an association between sex
norms for boys and control over selection of spouse, as there is for girls
(Table 7.7). For parents who control their children's marriages, it simplifies
Table 7.6 Girls' Subordination to the Mother and Premarital Sex Norms
Subordination
low high
Sexual intercourse
prohibited 15 19
permitted 47 22
x_2 = 4.52 p = .034
120 ADOLESCENCE
Table 7. 7 Premarital Sex Norms and Control over Marriage
Control over marriage

individual primarily kin primarily
Sexual intercourse
Girls
prohibited 11 29
permitted 49 30
x2 = 11.32 p = .001
Boys
prohibited 7 17
permitted 64 31
x2 = 10.09 p = .001
matters if young people are not permitted to form sexual attachments that
may be at odds with their wishes.
We hypothesized that sexual restrictiveness might lead to aggression, on
the assumption that sexual frustration makes itself felt in antisocial ways.
That is the basis for Stone's (1977:52-53) interpretation of youth of the 18th
and 19th centuries, when marriage was delayed for many:
In view of the low recorded level of illegitimacy, it is reasonable to as-

sume that for many young men this delay involved considerable sexual
denial at a time of optimum male sexual drive, despite the usual non-
procreative outlets. If one follows Freudian theory, this could lead to
neuroses of the kind that so regularly shattered the calm of Oxford and
Cambridge colleges at this period; it could help to explain the high level
of group aggression, which lay behind the extraordinary expansionist vio-
lence of western nation states at this time.
There is no evidence from this study to indicate that sexual frustration,

inferred from the prohibition of heterosexual intercourse, leads to aggressive
behavior. Premarital sex norms are not significantly associated with aggres-
sion among peers, a high level of aggressiveness as a character trait, or anti-
social behavior toward the community. We propose that the young men to
whom Stone referred were expressing the effects more of social than of sex-
ual frustration, as their immediate prospects for marriage were dim and their
unmarried state kept them from attaining full social adulthood.
We further hypothesized that competitiveness among boys as a charac-
ter trait would be exacerbated in societies that are sexually permissive to ad-
olescents, on the grounds that boys would compete with one another for the
available girls. That hypothesis was not supported by our data. It is possible
that in some societies sexual success with girls is a reward for achievement in
Table 7.8 Premarital Sex Norms Comparing Girls and Boys

Sexual intercourse, boys
prohibited permitted
Sexual intercourse, girls
prohibited 29 14
permitted 2 108
x_2 = 78.39 p< .001
other areas. In such cases, there may be an association; however, it does not
show up as a widespread pattern.
The data from our study allow us to assess the prevalence of a sexual
double standard for adolescents. Overwhelmingly, societies that are restric-
tive for one sex are restrictive for the other (Table 7 .8; see also Frayser
1985:203).
We do not have the relevant data on the youth stage, but we suspect that
the double standard is most likely to exist if marriage is long delayed and
both sexes pass through a youth stage. Attempts to suppress the sexuality of
young men who have moved somewhat beyond parental control are proba-
bly seen as futile, whereas young women can be kept in line through fear of
pregnancy or withdrawal of support. In such cases, the young men will visit
prostitutes, as do Muslim youths of Thailand (Anderson and Anderson
1987), if they are available, or attempt to seduce girls of a lower social class
in class-stratified societies.
When heterosexual relations are permitted, the partner is most often
limited to another adolescent: in 72 percent of 120 societies for boys and in
77 percent of 111 societies for girls. Sexual activity seems to be primarily an
amusement. While the occasional passionate attachment can develop, for
most people sexuality lacks the emotional meaning it has in the more restric-
tive societies.
Courtship
Courtship implies at least the stimulation if not the satisfaction of sexual

desire, even when desire hides beneath a veil of romanticism. When there is
sexual freedom or clandestine sexual adventures are permitted even though
the sexes maintain distance in public, courtship may be merely an intensifica-
tion of the usual attentions that boys and girls pay one another. A more for-
mal kind of courting occurs along with strict segregation between the sexes.
Hoebel (1978:28) related the anxiety-laden courtship of the North American
Cheyenne boy:
122 ADOLESCENCE
After adolescence [Hoebel means puberty], boys and girls do not associ-
ate with each other, so there is no direct opportunity to develop camara-
derie. Once a boy has seen a girl whom he hopes to make his sweetheart,
he approaches her furtively. He knows the path from her family lodge to
the stream where she gets water or the grove where she gathers wood.
Hopefully, he stands along the path. As she passes, he gives her robe a
little tug. Perhaps he feels this is too bold. If so, he whistles or calls to
her. She may stonily ignore him, much to his mortification. Or she may
make the stars shine by stopping to talk about this and that, but never of
love. If all goes well, they may later begin to meet and talk outside her
lodge. In time, they may exchange rings (either the old-time horn ones or
those of metal obtained from traders) that young people wear. They are
then engaged. Except for the exchange of rings, a suitor rarely gives pres-
ents directly to a girl. When the time comes, these go to her male rela-
tives.
Tootling on a medicine flute is supposed to be a means of casting a
love spell over a reluctant maiden. Certain medicine men can concoct a
spruce gum to help a hapless swain to win his goal. If the girl chews the
gum, her thoughts cannot leave the boy ~ho gives it to her.
Hopi courtship also has its anxious moments, but for the girl rather than
for the boy (cf. Schlegel 1973).
Getting a husband is not easy for the Hopi girl. In this matrilocal society
in which houses are owned by women, it is up to the girl to invite her pro-
spective husband into her home, thus putting the burden of initiating
courtship on the girl. She does so by presenting the boy of her choice
with a special cornmeal cake. He is obliged to receive it, but he does not
have to act on its invitation. The girl waits for a few days to see if he will
respond, for no self-respecting boy would appear so eager that he would
rush to accept unless they had already discussed marriage. If he does not
let her know in a few days, the girl becomes anxious. After a week or so,
she realizes that he is refusing her proposal, and she will, according to
her temperament and the attraction she feels toward the boy, either cast
her hopes elsewhere or become despondent. Adolescent girls, the Hopi
believe, are susceptible to depression, particularly at rejection by a
hoped-for bridegroom.
The Hopi are not unique in making the initiation of courtship the re-
sponsibility of the girl. The Garo of Assam, also matrilocal, do this too. This
description is drawn from Nakane's (1967) account.
A Christian Garo girl writes a letter of proposal to the boy of her choice,
who initially replies in the negative, even if he has hinted to the girl that
he is willing. (Boys often receive such letters from several girls.) After a
time, his amour propre permits him to accept. The custom among the
pagan Garo is for the girl's father to propose the marriage to the boy and
his family, which is always refused at first. If it is not a serious refusal,
the prospective bridegroom at sol11€ later point is kidnapped by boys of
the girl's lineage and brought to her house, where self-respect obliges
him to run away. Once again, he is kidnapped. After one or a few times,
he will stay if he truly wants the girl. If not, he will keep running away
until she and her family finally give up.
Although research into courtship customs is beyond the scope of our

study, it is probable that the burden of courtship falls upon the partner who
will have the greater domestic power, at least initially, in the marriage. We
propose that when households are matrilocal and the in-marrying husband
stands in a rather lowly position, the initiative will be taken by girls or their
parents. Sharing of initiative seems likely for more egalitarian neolocal
households. When the husband is the head, we suggest, it is up to him to
invite his prospective wife to join him. Any of these forms of courtship may
be conducted chastely or be accompanied by sexual intercourse.
Lovers and Peers
We pointed out in Chapter 5 that peer group attachments fade some-

what as men marry and take on adult responsibilities. This change may be
due in part to the greater attention paid to household economic status and
activities and, frequently, to the corroding effect that inequality among adult
men has upon the esprit de corps of the peer group. There is an emotional
factor to be considered as well, affection toward a wife competing with at-
tachment to peers.
The love of a man for his wife and the hold that her sexuality has on him
are widely recognized as dangerous to the solidarity of various kinds of male-
bonded groups. In patrilocal extended families, whose core is the cluster of
father and sons and brothers, attachment to these men is supposed to over-
ride attachment to the wife, and it is considered unseemly for husbands to
show any public signs of affection to their wives. Wife sharing can be inter-
preted as an attempt to enhance bonds among men.
Love and war are also at odds. In some parts of New Guinea where war-
fare is endemic, men normally sleep in the men's house in order to be ready
to rush to the defense of the village if attacked. Men's loyalty to their peers is
expected to supersede that to their wives. Men are teased if they spend too
much time in their wives' huts when they visit them for meals or in the eve-
ning for sex, and the secret male lore contains many themes and beliefs that
devalue women and reinforce male-male ties (cf. Schlegel 1990).
Accordingly, we looked at whether peer group attachments are weaker
when adolescent girls and boys are permitted to have sexual relations with
124 ADOLESCENCE
one another. We found no significant association between the importance of

the peer group and sexual permissiveness, perhaps because many permissive
societies discourage the formation of close ties between couples by encourag-
ing or enjoining boys and girls to spread their favors widely. We have already
observed this among Muria adolescents, among whom, in the majority of the
ghotuls, girls and boys are expected to rotate partners. As already noted, this
does not entirely prevent the formation of strong attachments, but such at-
tachments are not encouraged.
Another example is the traditional Kikuyu, discussed earlier. As in other
age-graded societies of East Africa, male peer bonding is-and is expected to
be-strong. Efforts are made to reduce close attachments to girls. The sum-
mary below is drawn from Worthman (1986) and Whiting et al. (1986).
Circumcision marks a change in status for both sexes. Girls are circum-
cised, i.e., the very tip of the clitoris, the "male" part, is removed, just
before menarche, and they pass into the adolescent stage. Boys are not
circumcised until about age 18, when the "female" part, the prepuce, is
removed. They move into bachelor huts for a period of several years and
their responsibility to the community changes as they assume a warrior
role (we would call this a youth stage). Young men and adolescent girls
have sexual relations without penetration, as described earlier. They are
expected to change partners, and it would be selfish and unsociable to re-
strict one's attentions to a special friend.
Lovers, not parents, are the enemies of the peer group.
Adolescent Homosexual Behavior

Homosexuality has emerged as a subject of anthropological investiga-
tion in the past few years, following paths broken by literary and historical
scholars. Reports, often only passing mentions, of homosexual activity
occur in the ethnographic literature, particularly in the accounts of peoples
of parts of Melanesia, but only recently has much of this material been as-
sembled and made readily accessible. Much of the credit goes to Herdt, who
wrote an ethnography (1981) of the Sambia (a fictitious name), a Melanesian
people practicing ritual homosexuality. He also edited a collection of papers
(Herdt 1984) on ritualized homosexuality in Melanesia.
One of the pervasive themes in the parts of Melanesia in which ritualized
homosexual behavior occurs is the growth-giving quality of semen. In order
to grow, boys must be rubbed with semen, one of the practices of the
Kimam, or inseminated by older boys or adult men, through either fellatio or
anal intercourse. Adolescent boys in such societies are either the inseminated
partners of older men or, as among the Sambia and the Kimam, the insemi-
nators of younger boys.
The following description of the Kimam is drawn from Serpenti ( 1977).

The practices had been defunct for some time before Serpenti lived among
the Kimam, so there are some lacunae in his account.
The lives of adolescent boys and youths center around the men's house,
where a series of rituals is held and where they sleep from first initiation
until marriage. Boys go through their first initiation at about 10, before
puberty, when they enter the first grade and become munakas. Each
munaka has as a mentor a member of the second grade, a tjutjine, a boy
from about 14 to perhaps 17. The munakas go through various hard-
ships during the initiation, and their arms and legs are periodically
rubbed with semen. The initiatory process consists of several major
feasts and a number of rituals over a period of about three years. At this
time new boys enter the cycle, the munakas become tjutjines, and the
tjutjines graduate into the highest grade of older teenagers, the
mabureede, those apparently about 17 and older. These youths remain in
that grade until they marry, seemingly one to several years later.
The mabureede are permitted to have discreet sex with unmarried
girls, with the exception of their fiancees. For the younger boys, homo-
sexual activity is expected. Each tjutjine is fellated by the munaka for
whom he is the mentor.
The Sambia, also, practice fellatio between preadolescent boys and ad-
olescents. Unlike Serpenti, whose account is rather matter of fact, Herdt
(1981 ), who had the advantage of witnessing initiations and talking with par-
ticipants, discussed the meaning of these practices to the boys who conduct
them. We summarize his account:
Although the younger boys often have to be pressured into performing,
once they get accustomed to it they do not object, and some enjoy it.
Most adolescents, who are the fellated, enjoy it very much, often engag-
ing in it with any appropriate initiate. After they marry, to girls not yet
mature, they continue to be fellated by the smaller boys at the same time
that their little wives are also fellating them, since young girls as well as
boys need semen in order to grow. Once the wives reach menarche, or at
least by the first birth, men give up fellatio and restrict their activity to
vaginal intercourse-to do otherwise would be considered odd, and only
a few cases were reported to Herdt about men who continue in homosex-
ual practices. Most men claim to prefer coitus.
Not surprisingly, this and similar information on ritual homosexual ac-
tivities caused a sensation when it first appeared. It indicated that early ho-
mosexual behavior, even when approved and enthusiastically practiced and
enjoyed, did not necessarily imprint the sexual proclivities of the mature
years. Even though the Sambia consider women dangerous and polluting-
much of the initiatory ritual is to remove female contamination and create
126 ADOLESCENCE
masculinity through the "milk" of males, the semen-they are not sexually
inhibited toward them; nor do most Sambia men prefer sex with other men
although a few do and there is certainly experience in it and the opportunit;
for it. Except for a brief period between the wife's menarche and the birth of
the first child, most men do not even behave bisexually and appear to see
little attraction in doing so.
Herdt was primarily concerned to make explicit the symbolic system
that incorporates homosexual activities. In a penetrating analysis of institu-
tionalized homosexuality, which included a discussion of Herdt's book,
Creed (1982) pointed out that symbolic analyses of the subject have over-
looked the power dimension. He proposed that these systems, whereby older
males dominate younger ones sexually as well as socially, are extreme cases
of sex and age hierarchy: men over women, and seniors over juniors. (This
criticism is more applicable to those societies in which adult men are fellated
than those, like the Sambia, who restrict fellatio to adolescent boys.) It ap-
pears highly plausible that when male gender dominance over women is ex-
pressed as sexual dominance and through metaphors of sexual penetration, it
is but a short step to the expression of men's dominance over other men
through homosexual acts, the dominant partner always taking the insemina-
tor role. It is certainly the case that the sexual lives of adolescent and prepu-
bertal boys in these societies with ritual homosexual activity are highly
controlled. Homosexual acts between adult men and adolescent boys have
been noted in militaristic states such as the African Azande and among an-
cient Greek and Germanic peoples (Dumezil 1967). A study of sexual and
social dominance over boys, when man-boy or youth-boy sexual relations
are institutionalized, would be timely.
The most common kinds of homosexual relations reported for adoles-
cents in the sample are of a casual, transient nature. In virtually all cases, if
homosexual relations are tolerated or permitted for one sex they are for the
other as well (Table 7 .9). There are 13 societies with information on boys but
not on girls. In general, as more information on all subjects is available for
boys than for girls, we believe that the concordance would approach 100 per-
cent if full information were available on girls. The two exceptions of which
we are aware are the Papago, Indians of the American Southwest, who toler-
ate these relations for boys but do not recognize them as occurring among
girls, and the Chiricahua of the same general region, who tolerate them for
girls but prohibit them to boys, except for berdaches (transvestites, discussed
later).
In most instances, homosexual relations appear to be a substitute for
heterosexual intercourse when intercourse is prohibited or access to girls is
problematic. The Nyakyusa, who do permit adolescents to have heterosexual
relations, are an example of the latter. Wilson ( 1963: 87-88) stated:
Homosexual practices are said to be very common in the boys' villages-

they begin among boys of ten to fourteen herding cows, and continue
Table 7.9 Homosexual Behavior Comparing Boys and Girls
Girls
Boys
prohibited 8
permitted 0 15
Fisher's Exact Test p < .001
Note: Prohibited means coded as prohibited. Permitted means tolerated or
expected. Societies where homosexuality is coded as unrecognized are
omitted.
among young men until marriage, but they are said never to continue
after that, and are regarded simply as a substitute for heterosexual plea-
sure .... If a boy's own father, or a village father, finds a son with an-
other youth he will beat him, but provided both parties were willing,
there is no court case, and the older men treat the practice tolerantly as a
manifestation of adolescence.
These relations among the Nyakyusa generally take the form of inter-
femoral intercourse, also the common form of sexual activity with adoles-
cent girls.
As permissiveness toward homosexuality shows no significant associa-
tion with either permissiveness or restrictiveness in heterosexual relations, it
cannot be said to be an indication of general sexual permissiveness or restric-
tiveness. Nor is such an attitude significantly associated with any of the fea-
tures that might be thought to promote it, such as those that enhance strong
male bonding like separation from the family, the importance of peer
groups, the separation of male and female peer groups, or participation in
military activities. (This last does not imply that a people are particularly
bellicose; as we have seen in Chapter 5, it is most commonly in the simpler
societies that adolescent boys go to battle.) Permissiveness toward homosex-
uality also shows no association with any of the measures of the father-son
relationship: contact, subordination, intimacy, or conflict. In most cases, it
appears to be a more or less tolerated substitute for heterosexual intercourse,
a concession to the sexual desires of adolescents until they are socially ready
for mature sex. It is what Gregersen (1982) labeled "youthful experimenta-
tion."
To address the question of whether there is an association between ado-
lescent and adult homosexual activity, we assessed the relation between atti-
tudes toward homosexual behavior among adolescent boys (using our data)
and the attitudes toward adult male homosexuality and its frequency (using
data from Broude and Greene 1980). As Table 7 .10 shows, there are no cases
in which homosexuality is permitted to adolescents but punished among
128 ADOLESCENCE
Table 7.10 Attitudes toward Male Homosexual Behavior in

Adolescence and Adulthood
Adolescence
Adulthood
tolerated 9
punished 4 0
Source: Broude and Greene 1980.
adults. In the societies that prohibit homosexual behavior by adolescents,

only one (Trobrianders) tolerates it among adult men. Frequency of adult
homosexuality shows no association whatsoever with attitudes toward ho-
mosexual behavior in adolescent boys. While the number of cases is very
small, these findings suggest that tolerance toward adolescent homosexual
activity goes with tolerance of adult male 'homosexuality. However, the ma-
jority of the societies that tolerate adult homosexuality actually disapprove
of it, indicating that they regard adolescent homosexuality as a harmless out-
let for boys' sexual urges but as inappropriate to adult life.
Contrasting with this casual kind of homosexuality is the institutional-
ized role of the recognized homosexual assumed by the occasional man in
certain societies. Although the North American Indian berdache or transves-
tite was by no means always a homosexual, he (or rarely she) often was, and
this role transition frequently began in adolescence. That is the case for the
Chiricahua noted above. A similar sort of institutionalized homosexual role
was available to Tahitian men: the mahu, a male homosexual transvestite
recognized by these Polynesian people, seems also to have made his role
change in adolescence (Levy 1973).
We have asserted that lovers, not parents, are the enemies of the peer
group. That assumption may have to be qualified when the sexual partners
are of the same sex. In a cross-cultural study of adolescent initiation ceremo-
nies (Schlegel and Barry 1980b), we discussed the promotion of solidarity
among those who go through the ceremony together. Although the age range
within an initiation cohort is variable across cultures, in most cases the range
is rather small and the set of initiates consists of age peers. Boys are initiated
in groups in more than half of the societies with information, whereas girls
are single initiates in 87 percent of the cases (Schlegel and Barry 1980a). Ini-
tiation ceremonies are one, although by no means the only, way of inducing
solidarity and gender consciousness in adolescent boys. In those societies
that put boys through a ceremony, adults are more likely to accept their ad-
olescent homosexual behavior and less likely to prohibit it than in those that
do not (Table 7 .11). (For girls, the relation between attitude toward girls'
Table 7.11 Adolescent Initiation Ceremonies and Boys' Homosexual

Behavior
Homosexual Behavior
prohibited tolerated accepted
Ceremony
absent 11 12 5
present 2 1 7
homosexual behavior and girls' ceremonies is in the same direction but short
of significance: p = .139). We are not suggesting that male solidarity pro-
motes homosexuality-we do not have the data to make that claim-but
rather that there is more acceptance of adolescent homosexuality when male
solidarity is valued and encouraged.
Sexual Abuse of Adolescents
Adolescent sexuality has been painted here as generally lighthearted,

leading in some cases to despondence over unrequited passion or frustrated
love but rarely having more serious consequences. There is a darker side,
however, of adolescent (or even younger) girls as the sexual objects of older
men, against their will. It is difficult to find information on this subject, be-
cause it is part of the hidden side of social life. Usually there is only anecdotal
information. Instances of abuse are reported from societies in which women
are sexually subordinate, that is, men control women's sexual activities and
"benevolent" control can be perverted into brutality. Homosexual abuse is
also not unknown.
One must be cautious in making assumptions about the disturbing ef-
fects of sexual experience on very young girls, a suggestion to the contrary
coming from early accounts of marriage among Australian Aboriginal peo-
ples of Arnhem Land. Infant girls were betrothed to young men who "grew
up" their young wives, providing them with food and paying a good deal of
affectionate attention to them. Sometime before menarche, after their
breasts had begun to develop, the girls joined their husbands, with whom
they were thoroughly familiar. It was believed that this long and affectionate
acquaintance gave rise to a deep attachment, particularly on the part of the
girl (cf. Burbank 1987). Under such conditions, even prepubertal sexual rela-
tions with an adult man were probably not traumatic or even unpleasant.
Adolescent girls, like adult women, might be raped. It is not easy to get
information, but there are some scattered accounts. According to Henry
(1964), rape by an adult man is the usual introduction to sex for young girls
of the Kaingang of tropical Brazil. In lipite of this, these girls grow up to be
130 ADOLESCENCE
sexually assertive women who take on a number of lovers. No mention is

made of their attitude toward men in general or those who raped them. We
are not told whether this rape is violent, whether girls are prepared for it, or
what the relation is between the rapist and the girl, so it is wise to be cautious
in judging the trauma of the experience.
A culturally accepted practice that can cause severe physical and emo-
tional distress and long-lasting bitterness is gang rape, the punishment in ·a
number of tribal societies for females who have violated a cultural proscrip-
tion. The Mehinaku of central Brazil, for example, thus treat a woman or girl
who has accidentally seen the men's sacred flutes (Gregor 1985). Gang-rape
for another purpose is resorted to by the Kimam, mentioned earlier, and the
victim is frequently an adolescent girl. Serpenti's (1977) account is summa-
rized here.
The Kimam believe that semen has the power to give life and is needed
by the sick to be cured and by young boys in order to grow. Women, and
very often young girls, are selected as the vessels for the collection of the
semen that will later be rubbed on the bodies of those deemed to require
it. When the time comes, as many as IO to 15 men take away the girl,
who is not supposed to resist, and have intercourse with her. Everyone
else pretends to be ignorant of what is happening. The early mission re-
ports indicate that girls were often absent from school for a number of
days due to illness following this treatment.
We simply have no idea of how much rape of adolescent girls occurs
where virginity is highly valued, as in Latin America or the Muslim nations,
particularly rape by relatives like uncles or older cousins who have more con-
tact with girls than unrelated boys and men do. Incidents are reported, but
there is no way, to our knowledge, of estimating frequency. In such cases,
the family usually hushes it up, to protect both the allegedly virginal status of
the girl and the reputations of the man and the family.
A final bleak addition to the sexual abuse to which adolescents may be
subjected is the use of young people as prostitutes. Child and adolescent
prostitution has not been a subject of much ethnographic investigation until
recently, and accounts of it in the older literature tend to be incidental.
Korbin (1987) summarized and gave references to much of the current re-
search on child sexual abuse, including prostitution in such traditional states
as Thailand, Turkey, and prerevolutionary China. This abuse is not foreign
to Europe and the United States, either: adolescent prostitutes of both sexes
are on view to anyone who walks the streets of our large cities. With no mar-
ketable skills to offer, these unfortunate young runaways or "throwaways"
have only their bodies to sell.
All the evidence leads to the conclusion that permissiveness toward het-
erosexual intercourse by adolescent girls in preindustrial societies is heavily
influenced by two factors. The first is the age of marriage. When marriage
follows closely upon menarche, girls are often allowed to enjoy their sexual-
ity to the fullest extent. The second is the presence and type of property
transferral. If no property accompanies marriage, there are likely to be few
sexual restrictions. Restrictions are found to be more often associated with
property exchanges and become predominant when status is an important
consideration in the marriage. Both of these factors are related to premarital
pregnancy. Parents are less worried about daughters' pregnancy when expe-
rience has shown that no or few girls get pregnant. Parents are very con-
cerned, however, if a daughter's pregnancy could result in a paternity and
marriage claim by an undesirable son-in-law. Although we did not ask about
abortion, some of the ethnographies do give accounts of girls resorting to it,
as among the Haitians and the Muria. Considering the danger of abortion
under primitive medical conditions, it can only be considered a backup to
other precautions, of which abstinence is the most certain. 5
Our evidence indicates that the double standard is rare at the adolescent
stage. This is a curious finding, because the double standard is so widespread
for adults, most societies being more tolerant of male than of female adul-
tery. We ask: if boys were permitted to have sex but girls were not, whom
would the boys seek out for sexual partners? When prostitutes are available,
boys can be directed to them. In societies divided by rank or class, elite boys,
not having access to girls of their own status, may turn to lower-status girls.
This may be somewhat condoned, as it was in Samoa, where the child of a
low-ranking girl by an elite boy could be an asset to its family as a claim on
the father's favor. Alternatively, it may be deeply resented by lower-status
parents trying to protect the reputations (and possible upward mobility) of
their own daughters, as in much of Europe and America. If neither prosti-
tutes nor other females were available to adolescent boys, sexual permissive-
ness for boys but not for girls would encourage boys to seek out the wives of
adult men. Men are hardly likely to allow a double standard for adolescents
if their wives would be the objects of seduction.
There is no evidence from our study that permissiveness or restrictive-
ness per se have much effect on personality features. Neither competitiveness
nor aggressiveness show any relation to the frustration or satisfaction of sex-
ual desires. Girls tend to be more subordinate to their mothers in restrictive
societies, which we interpret as an indication of parental watchfulness over
the daughter's virginity. Subordination does not, however, seem to affect the
level of intimacy or conflict between mother and daughter.
While adolescents in permissive societies can legitimately satisfy their
sexual desires, they are not necessarily freer of conflicts or anxieties over sex
than are adolescents in restrictive ones. Partners are in theory available, but
getting one, or the right one, may not be easy. We have seen the distress of
disappointed Muria adolescents, and how Nyakyusa boys resort to homosex-
ual acts for lack of access to girls in their permissive setting. Sexual intimacy
can only increase the attachment to a special friend and thus make jealousy,
132 ADOLESCENCE
despondence over a breakup, or the pain of unrequited love even harder to

bear. In permissive societies there can be a conflict between attachment to
the lover and bonds to peers, and adolescents who love each other may face
the censure of their peers and the disapproval of their elders.
The ethnographic information makes it clear that there are several vari-
eties of homosexual experience, with different causes and consequences. The
form most commonly reported is the very casual sort, which is seen as a sub-
stitute for heterosexual intercourse. There is no evidence that this bespeaks,
or leads to, a preference for homosexuality or even to the performance of
homosexual acts in adulthood. Nor does the institutionalized homosexuality
of some New Guinea societies seem to result in a preference for such rela-
tions, although we need information on more societies on this question. Per-
missiveness toward homosexuality does allow the individual with a
homosexual preference to express that preference, which he or she cannot
do, or can do only clandestinely, when homosexuality is prohibited.
It would seem, thus, that homosexual acts among our own adolescents
should be regarded with tolerance. It is particularly unwise to label a young
person a homosexual for youthful experimentation or for turning to mem-
bers of the same sex because he or she is too shy and socially awkward to
approach one of the opposite sex. There is no evidence here to suggest that
people are "by nature" bisexual; it appears that even when homosexuality is
not restricted, most people prefer heterosexuality. The tolerance that mod-
ern society is finally beginning to show toward homosexual persons should
also be extended to those adolescents who are not by preference homosexual
but who occasionally engage in a homosexual act. 6
Other findings about adolescent sexuality across cultures are also rele-
vant to contemporary Western society. Given the absence of property ex-
changes at marriage, along with alternatives to abstinence for preventing
pregnancy, it is understandable that Europeans and Americans have become
tolerant toward premarital sexuality (cf. Schlegel 1991). It is unlikely that an
earlier morality could be reinstituted, even if that were deemed desirable. A
sensible course of action in a world in which young adolescent mothers and
their children are highly disadvantaged and sexually transmitted diseases are
a serious threat to health and even life would be to educate our young people
to be responsible about their sexual freedom and to induce them to take pre-
cautions against pregnancy and disease. The success of the Kikuyu in pre-
venting pregnancy, using the girls' pubic apron as a sort of external
diaphragm, indicates that socialization for responsibility can work.
Violating Cultural Norms
A major topic of research on adolescence has been social and psychologi-

cal deviance, particularly in the form of delinquency. In this chapter we ad-
dress some types of violation of behavioral norms and examine some of the
antecedent and current conditions in the lives of adolescents that seem con-
ducive to such deviance. We emphasize three areas for which there is good
information: antisocial behavior; sexual license, or deviance from the cul-
tural ideal of sexual behavior; and running away as a means of escape from
stressful situations. 1
Deviant behavior is, by definition, behavior that departs from what is
generally accepted as appropriate. It may be tolerated, mildly punished, or
severely sanctioned. Cross-cultural research forces us to be very specific in
defining what is and is not appropriate; inducing a trance may be deviant in
contemporary America but quite normal in many other societies; in other
places, responding to a grave insult with fisticuffs indicates a pathological
lack of self control. Therefore, deviance must be defined cross-culturally as
violation of a particular society's standard of appropriate behavior, not
from some arbitrary standard based implicitly on our own expectations and
values.
A problem for researchers is how to interpret a high degree of deviance.
On the one hand, it could represent disregard of norms; on the other, it could
indicate changing norms, such as the increasing openness about sex among
American and European adolescents. What was considered deviant 40 or 50
years ago is accepted by many today as normative.
For our purpose, antisocial behavior is defined by community stan-
dards. We are concerned with expected antisocial behavior, not the occa-
sional deviant who is probably found everywhere. Expectations vary from
culture to culture. If a sizeable proportion of adolescents are observed to
commit antisocial acts and if people acknowledge that a number of adoles-
cents behave in this way (always hoping their children will not), we coded the
presence of expected or regular antisocial behavior. This is the case for the
133
134 ADOLESCENCE
United States, in which theft and violence, while deplored, are expected and
observed to be committed by a significant number of adolescents. We would
code expected antisocial behavior as present in this nation.
Antisocial behavior is not always so disruptive as it is among modern
urban peoples, who seem to be at the high end of the continuum. For exam-
ple, among the Basques, for whom the difficult age (la edad deffcil) is be-
tween 14 and 18 for boys, Caro Baroja (1944: 137) described it thus:
Esta edad es la mas desdichada de todas. Es cuando el chico quiere
paracer hombre, y para romper su natural timidez se finge el borracho,
aunque no haya bebido mas que agua cristalina; quiere hacer chistes y
cae en patoso; es grosero con las chicas, porque no sabe ser galante, y
tiene instintos daftinos, residuos de la infancia, contra plantas y an-
imales. (This age is the most miserable of all. It is when the boy wishes to
appear manly and to cover his natural timidity he feigns drunkenness,
even though he has drunk nothing more than plain water. He wants to be
funny but falls flat. Not knowing how to be gallant, he is boorish to the
girls. He is childishly destructive of plants and callous toward animals.
[Trans. A.S.])
The boy may be irritating to his elders, but his antisocial behavior would not
be considered delinquent under American or European law.
Most ethnographies concentrate on the social norms, and deviance is
poorly documented. Nevertheless, we were able to make judgments about
expected deviance in a substantial number of societies. We could identify
characteristics of societies in which particular types of deviance are present
or absent and compare features of societies that have one but not another
form of deviance.
Deviance is often thought to be less frequent or less intense in tribal so-
cieties that are more homogeneous and socially cohesive than are modern
industrial states. There may be some truth to that; the scarcity of informa-
tion on serious deviance in the ethnographies of many such societies may
reflect reality. Nevertheless, without better direct evidence, such an assump-
tion is unwarranted and tends to romanticize the little community. In the
small-scale society in which the first author did fieldwork, the Hopi, it was
recognized in earlier times that adolescent boys sometimes behaved badly,
mainly by destroying property. This was in a society renowned for its empha-
sis on social harmony and its suppression of violent acts and angry words.
Antisocial Behavior
Antisocial behavior includes such diverse activities as hostile speech,

fighting or crimes against persons, theft, sexual misbehavior (as socially de-
fined), destruction of property, and drunkenness or misuse of other drugs (as
Violating Cultural Norms 135
socially defined). There is direct information about expectations of antiso-

cial behavior by adolescent boys in 54 societies, present in 24 and absent in 30
(Table 8.1). There is less information about girls, for whom such an expecta-
tion is coded present in six societies, absent in 28. Reliable differences be-
tween these categories of societies are difficult to demonstrate for girls
because of the small number of cases coded present, although the sample for
boys is adequate to permit testing.
In all but one of the 30 societies in which this expectation is coded absent
for boys, it is coded absent for girls as well. In one society (Tiwi) it is coded
present for girls and absent for boys. In four societies (Abkhaz, Burmese,
Trobrianders, and Cubeo) it is coded present for both sexes. In one society
(Hadza) it is coded present for girls but information on boys is lacking. In the
remaining 20 societies listed in Table 8.1, in which the expectation is present
for boys, there is no information on girls.
There may be several reasons for the scarcity of information on girls:
inattention to girls' antisocial behavior by the ethnographer, failure to report
observations of such behavior, or true absence of this expectation, the eth-
nographer neglecting to mention that such behavior is not expected. As we
shall discuss further, we believe that the last of these reasons provides a plau-
sible explanation for many of the "no information" cases .
Among the 24 societies in which boys' antisocial behavior is expected, it
takes the form of theft in nine, physical violence in seven, verbal abuse in
four, sexual activity in three, drug use in two, destruction of property in one,
and "other" (a residual category) in six. These different forms add up to
more than 24 because in several cases two or more forms were identified for
the same society. Among the six societies in which girls' antisocial behavior
is expected, sexual activity is the form in three, theft in one, physical violence
in one, and ''other'' in two. In addition to the cases coded present, there is
evidence of theft, violence, or sexual deviance in some societies that either do
not expect deviance or on which information on expectation is lacking.
The Social Setting

In the large majority of societies, same-sex adult kin are the principal
companions of adolescents of both sexes. The first two variables of Table 8.2
refer to adult companions. In most cases, the adult men (first variable) are
fathers, and the adult men who are principal companions outside the home
(second variable) are kinsmen. The findings indicate that deviance from this
pattern is associated with deviance from social norms. This is also true for
the following variable: in most societies, productive work is the principal
skill area in which adolescents are trained.
We thus infer that the majority of societies select socializing agents and
locations that are conducive to adolescent conformity (discussed further in
Chapter 9). We also infer that the negative association between regular anti-
136 ADOLESCENCE
Table 8.1 Antisocial Behavior Expected in Adolescent Boysa
Present (N = 24) Absent (N = 29) Not coded (N = JOjh

Bambara !Kung Bushmen Nyakyusa (S-B)
Fur Ashanti Turks (V)
Masai (T) Songhai Basseri (S-G)
Amhara Hausa (S-G)b Balinese (S-8)
Rwala Bedouin Azande (V) (S-B)b Fijians (V)
Basques (V) Teda Kaska (V)

Lapps (T) Egyptians Wadadika (V) (S-B, G)
Abkhaz (T) Uttar Pradesh Callinago (T)
Burmese Lakher Yanomamo (T)
Alorese (T) (V) Lamet Mundurucu (S-G)
Kapauku (T) Vietnamese

Trobrianders (S-8, G) Rhade
Siuai Andamanese
lngalik (T) (S-B) Tanala
Gros Ventre (T) Negri Sembilan
Hidatsa (V) Javanese

Omaha (V) Tiwi (S-B, G)
Creek (V) Kimam
Huichol (V) Tikopia
Aztec (T) (S-B, G) Pentecost
Quiche (T) (S-B) Samoans (S-B)

Goajiro Yapese
Cubeo (V) (S-8, G) Palauans
Nambicuara Ifugao
Yukaghir
Slave
Comanche
Zuni
Warrau
Lengua
aWhere one of the three following types of antisocial behavior is reported for boys, the type is
indicated: violence (V), theft (T), and sexual deviance (S-B). It is also indicated where girls show
sexual deviance (S-G).
bin these societies, antisocial behavior is not expected or there is no information. However,
when such behavior is mentioned, it is of the type indicated.
Table 8.2 The Social Setting of Adolescent Boys and Their Expected
Antisocial Behavior
N r p
Relations with adults

Adult men are principal companions 50 -.36 .024
Adult men are principal companions
outside the home 42 -.43 .014
Productive work is principal
skill area 48 - .59 <.001
Relations with peers

Principal peer activity is leisure 44 -.37 .033
Peer competition is high 37 .36 .029
Peer group has a name 25 .51 .020
social behavior and the variables related to adult companionship signifies

that boys are less likely to misbehave when they are included in adult society.
(As productive work by adolescents in this sample is in most societies done in
or near the home, that variable indirectly measures activities with the family
and socialization by older family members.) The first variable related to
peers supports this conclusion, for antisocial behavior is more likely to be
expected when peer groups have names, that is, when they are institutional-
ized.
We also see that misbehavior is less likely when leisure is the principal
activity of the peer group. This variable reflects the same social dynamic as
· the productive work variable, that is, most activities in which the adolescent
is engaged are in the company of adults.
In our discussion of peer activities in Chapter 5, we noted that antisocial
behavior is more likely when adolescent boys are organized into groups that
engage in religious or military activities. This association challenges the pop-
ular belief that getting adolescents to do something worthwhile, as deter-
mined by adults, is a sure way to keep them occupied in good works and out
of mischief. The reverse seems more likely (cf. Table 5. 7). We interpret mis-
behavior as a consequence of time spent with adolescents away from adult
companionship, rather than the direct result of peer activities. It is the setting
more than the form of the activities that appears to influence how they be-
have.
The nature of adolescent interaction has consequences for social devi-
ance. Competitiveness is high when antisocial behavior is expected. We
should note that status competition is less likely in mixed-age groupings like
the family: there the lower status of adolescents compared to adults is given,
and adolescents have no incentive to compete with adults for status because
138 ADOLESCENCE
to do so would be pointless. In the more egalitarian peer groups, status com-

petition can arise, even to the point at which fighting breaks out or boys steal
to acquire more goods than their age mates.
We find no association between boys' antisocial behavior and intimacy
with either the father or the mother. Thus, there is no evidence that antisocial
behavior in these societies is a protest against parental distance or lack of
warmth. There is also no evidence that boys' antisocial behavior is associated
with heightened conflict with either parent.
To summarize, in this sample, antisocial behavior is less likely when ad-
olescent boys are more in the company of adults, more likely when peer
groups have organized activities and peer relations are unusually competi-
tive.
As we pointed out in Chapter 4, adolescents in most preindustrial socie-
ties spend much of their time with their families and with same-sex adults.
Expected antisocial behavior is most often found in communities whose so-
cial settings deviate from the norm. For this reason, we feel confident that
adolescent antisocial behavior is not likely to be a regular feature of most of
the societies in this sample for which there is no information; that is, it is
limited rather than widespread.
We can ask why some societies are organized in ways that appear to pro-
mote adolescent misbehavior. A certain amount of deviance may be carried
by a society, no matter how much it is deplored, beca·use the conditions that
lead to it are not recognized or to correct them would be too costly or would
disrupt other arrangements. For example, it may be advantageous to the do-
mestic economy to have adolescent boys working apart from adults and out
of their supervision. For various reasons, boys may be thrown in the com-
pany of other boys much of the time, resulting in aggressive or otherwise
antisocial acts.
Such is the case for the African Masai, whose adolescent boys herd cat-
tle. Boys are suspected sometimes of stealing cattle to add to their own herds.
For the Abkhaz of the Soviet Union, whose boys also spend much time to-
gether, theft is such a central feature of economic and political life that boys
are trained to steal. However, sometimes this thievery is turned against com-
munity members and even other peers, and then it is punished. Temptation
and opportunity join to make theft possible and attractive. Gros Ventre
boys, roaming in packs, are also expected to steal, robbing women of meat
placed on drying racks. This is tolerated by these Indians of the North Amer-
ican Plains even though it is not approved.
Among the Aztecs of pre-Columbian Mexico, prepubescent and adoles-
cent boys spend much of their time in school (see Chapter 9). The great
chronicler of the Aztec people shortly after the conquest, Fray Bernardino de
Sahagun, recorded the following observation (translated from the Aztec into
English, with annotations from Sahagun's Spanish translation, by Dibble
and Anderson 1961 : 12, 13, and 87):
The bad boy [is] always inhuman, incorrigible, disloyal, corrupt, per-
verse. He flees constantly; [he is] a thief; he lies; he does evil, is perverse.
The bad youth goes about becoming crazed; [he is] dissolute, mad; he
goes about mocking, telling tales, being rude, repeating insults.
The lewd youth is a madman. He goes about drinking crude wine-a
drunkard, foolish, dejected; a drunk, a sot. He goes about eating mush-
rooms .... [He is] vain, proud, debauched; a pleasure seeker, a liber-
tine-revolting, filthy, vicious, a keeper of mistresses; a talker. He lives
in concubinage; he is given to pleasure.
From this unflattering picture, we can see that some Aztec boys are
liars, thieves, runaways, tale bearers, consumers of alcohol and hallucino-
genic mushrooms, and libertines, all misdemeanors for which they are se-
verely punished. Girls are very closely guarded by at least the noble and
"respectable" families, so it must be to wayward daughters of the lower
classes that the following description applies:
The bad maiden [is] one who yields herself to others-a prostitute, a
seller of herself, dishonored, gaudy. She goes about shamelessly, pre-
sumptuously, conspicuously washed and combed, pompously.
From the evidence in Table 8.2 and the illustrative cases, we draw the
conclusion that some degree of antisocial behavior is predictable in our soci-
ety and in any that draws youngsters from the company of adults into the
company of other adolescents for many of their waking hours.
Antisocial Behavior and Pea tures of Adolescence

The findings reported in Table 8.3 show that many demands are made
upon adolescents whose antisocial behavior is a regular occurrence. Adoles-
cence is recognized as a sharp break from childhood. Adolescence itself is
characterized by new roles in the family and community, which contribute to
the break from childhood. Adolescents own productive property, thus re-
ceiving strong pressure to behave responsibly. New roles in family and com-
munity exert similar pressures. The result can be a conflict between
compliance and assertion.
It is in adolescence that adult character is established, putting pressure
on boys to behave maturely. Furthermore, boys have considerable opportu-
nity to choose a spouse, thus adding the need for them to make a critical
decision about their future along with the potential for anxiety and frustra-
tion that accompany real or feared rejection. This decision and others affect-
ing their future must be made within a rather short period of time, as
adolescence ends early.
Finally, adolescent antisocial behavior is found in conjunction with de-
140 ADOLESCENCE
Table 8.3 Characteristics of Adolescent Boys and Their Expected Antisocial

Behavior
N r p
Adolescence as a new stage
Sharp break from childhood 54 .37 .007
Characteristics of adolescence
New roles in the family 25 .65 .001
New roles in the community 34 .50 .006
Ownership of productive property 37 .44 .008
High degree of opportunity to own property 30 .52 .005
Anticipation of adulthood
Adult character established in adolescence 52 .49 < .0()1
High degree of opportunity to choose spouse 52 .38 .006
Early ending of adolescence 54 .26 .060
Antisocial behavior by adult men 27 .55 .005
viant adult behavior. Deviant adults do not provide role models for confor-
mity. A case of this type is the Alorese, a tribal people of the eastern Indones-
ian islands. DuBois (1944:62) related:
The responsibility of boys for misdeeds, especially theft, is illustrated in
a number of incidents in the autobiographies. Perhaps even more far-
reaching in its implications is the inclination of people to blame any mis-
hap, destruction, or theft on children. On several occasions when I
complained of the theft or destruction of my property, I was answered
with a shrug and the comment that boys must have done it and that there-
fore there was little chance of discovering the guilty one. Actually, in
those instances that could be followed up adults were the real culprits.
When infractions are minor, it may be perceived as better all around to
blame children and adolescents, known to be imperfectly socialized, than to
identify the actual adult perpetrator, with unpleasant consequences far ex-
ceeding the magnitude of the offense. Adult lies and concealment of their
own misdeeds lead to cynicism and do not help adolescents learn to control
their antisocial impulses.
AntececJ.ents of Adolescent Antisocial Behavior

Expected antisocial behavior is likely when the socialization of infants
and children tends to be more harsh than is commonly found (Table 8.4).
Mother and infant do not share the same bed, the infant's movements are
Table 8.4 Antecedents of Adolescence and Boys' Expected Antisocial
Behavior
N r p
Infancy and early childhood
Mother and infant sleep apart 27 .50 .005
Bodily restrictiveness in later infancy 36 .35 .036
Child is trained by examplea 41 .42 .007
Child is trained by giftsa 46 .39 .009
Later childhood
Child is trained by examplea 41 .47 .003
Child is trained by giftsa 48 .38 .009
Child is trained by Iecturinga 40 .42 .009
Fortitude is inculcated 44 .35 .021
8This indicates not only the mode of training but also the intensity with which it is administered,
that is, frequent showing by example, giving of gifts, or lecturing.
restricted, and fortitude is inculcated in the older child. This sort of socializa-
tion is neither permissive nor indulgent.
The measures for socialization in infancy and early childhood were in-
dependently coded for this sample (Barry and Paxson 1980; Barry et al.
1980a). Several direct techniques for child socialization were coded; they in-
clude training by example, training by public opinion, training by lecturing,
teasing, scolding, warning, corporal punishment, rewarding with ceremo-
nies, and rewarding with gifts. Two of these variables show a strong associa-
tion with the presence of regular antisocial behavior: a high reliance on
training by example and by gifts. A high reliance on training by lecturing is
also significant in later childhood.
When children are frequently lectured or shown how to do things, they
are not allowed to discover the world for themselves. Rather, they are con-
stantly under pressure by adults to perform well. This does not make for a
permissive environment. These findings support the others in this table re-
lated to permissiveness. Training children through the use of gifts rewards
the good behavior but does not punish the bad.
In addition to the intensity of training, it is likely that these modes are
not very effective in stopping antisocial behavior in childhood, thus setting
the stage for antisocial behavior in adolescence. In a study of "problem"
boys age two to 15, the large majority between five and 12, Patterson (1982)
examined various methods of punishment. He found that lecturing (rule-
giving) alone, without a backup punishment, is largely ineffective when deal-
ing with antisocial children. Example and gifts may be equally ineffective in
stopping misbehavior. If antisocial behaviors are not checked in childhood,
142 ADOLESCENCE
they can persist into adolescence. In some of the societies with expected anti-
social behavior, those boys who misbehave may be the products of child so-
cialization that failed.
Varieties of Expected Antisocial Behavior

The two most frequently reported forms of antisocial behavior are theft
and physical violence (Table 8.1). They correspond to the distinction be-
tween theft and personal crimes included in a cross-cultural study of crime by
adults, coded for a different sample (Bacon et al. 1963). These are also the
forms that we consider the most troublesome in modern society. Analyses in
our study indicate under which conditions these types of behavior are most
likely to be found among adolescents.
Adolescent violence in this sample is rarely life-threatening. Among the
Amhara of Ethiopia, for example, physical aggression is the result of verbal
aggression that gets out of hand. The Amhara consider the appropriate use
of insult and mockery to be a form of verbal art, and adolescent boys are
learning to become adept at this as they disparage and taunt one another.
Although fights do not generally occur among adult men, mockery and in-
sult among boys can lead to shoving and wrestling.
When weapons are involved, adolescent violence is dangerous. Among
the Huichol, Indians of northern Mexico, the adolescent boy is allowed to
join the older men at feasts, where a considerable amount of alcohol is con-
sumed. As Zingg (1938: 127) described:
He drinks too much at feasts, is too apt to insult his elders, sometimes
going so far as to engage in fights and knife-play. Oftener than others,
the youth sobers up with his feet in the stocks in the dark room of the
Casa Real.
As indicated in Table 8.1, physical violence is a form of antisocial be-
havior in seven societies in which antisocial behavior is expected. In addition,
it is present in one society in which antisocial behavior is not expected and in
four societies for which there is no information on the regularity of antisocial
behavior. These 12 societies are compared with the remaining 50 societies for
which regular antisocial behavior is coded either present or absent or for
which theft or sexual deviance are reported present. The results are reported
in Table 8.5.
Child socialization in these societies is neither indulgent nor permissive.
There is low contact with the mother in infancy, and in later childhood there
is strong training for self-restraint. This non-indulgent socialization may be
an attempt to train children to conform, when the danger of violent behavior
in adolescence is perceived. That total conformity is not achieved is indicated
by antisocial behavior and lack of sexual restraint on the part of adult men.
Boys' peer activities are characterized by high competition and low co-
Table 8.5 Violence as the Form of Boys' Antisocial Behavior

N r p
Antecedent socialization
Contact with mother in infancy 44 -.55 <.001
Self-restraint inculcated in
early childhood 51 .29 .040
Peer competition is high 42 .47 .002
Peer cooperation is high 40 -.41 .010
Conformity is inculcated 44 -.33 .032
Trust is inculcated 20 -.59 .Oll
Competitiveness is inculcated 39 .36 .028
Choice of vocation 31 .55 .003
Adult men commit antisocial behavior 31 .44 .015
Adult men indulge in sexual license 35 .40 .021
Frequent deviance by adult men 25 .56 .006
operation. Neither trust nor conformity is inculcated, although competitive-

ness is. Boys have before them the example of men who indulge in sexual
license, engage in antisocial behavior, and rate high on frequency of devi-
ance.
Societies in which some adolescent boys are expected to steal show a
different constellation of features. Theft is the primary form of antisocial
behavior in nine of the societies in which antisocial behavior is expected. Ad-
ditionally, it is found in two societies without information on the regularity
of antisocial behavior. These 11 cases are compared with the 51 remaining
societies in which antisocial behavior is coded either present or absent or in
which violence or sexual deviance is reported present. The results are re-
ported in Table 8.6.
There is no evidence that infancy and childhood in these societies are
particularly harsh. Beginning in childhood, importance is attached to mate-
rial reward by means of training children through gift-giving. Aggressiveness
is an inculcated character trait (to be discussed further in Chapter 9).
Adolescent boys are likely to own productive property, such as animals,
but unlikely to receive much training in productive work. Thus, a desire for
material reward is instilled, but there is little emphasis put on working for it.
One obvious way of gaining desired objects without work is through theft.
Leisure is not a principal peer group activity, suggesting that boys are spend-
ing more time together on activities other than just relaxing. Since
144 ADOLESCENCE
Table 8.6 Theft as the Form of Boys' Antisocial Behavior

N r p
Training by example in early childhood 48 .35 .016
Training by example in later childhood 48 .31 .032
Training by gifts in later childhood 51 .28 .046
Aggressiveness is inculcated in later
childhood 52 .32 .021
Opportunity for property 34 .36 .037
Productive work is principal skill area 56 -.36 .013
Principal peer activity is leisure 50 -.36 .010
Differentiation from adults in work
is expected 54 .38 .017
adolescents' work differs from that of adults, boys are not likely to be work-
ing alongside men.
Theft by adolescents is usually directed against the community rather
than the family. In small communities where everyone is known and people
are always about, much theft would have to be planned. It is therefore less
likely than violence to be a spontaneous act.
Patterns of theft and violence are quite distinctive. Violence is always
hostile, the infliction of harm on others; theft may be a disapproved way of
gratifying wishes for ownership rather than necessarily a response to anger.
The underlying impulses are different. A case-by-case analysis would show
variation within these patterns; for example, the Gros Ventre "meat raid,"
committed by the peer group, appears to be of a different order from the
clandestine individual theft of a cow by a Masai or a reindeer by a Lapp.
Patterson ( 1988) distinguished between violence and theft as different
tracks in the misbehavior of American children. Working with ten-year-old
boys in the Oregon Child Aggression project, Patterson and others found
that many of the stealers, in contrast to the other antisocial children, follow
"a sneaky aggression path that does not include fighting" (Patterson
1988:127). In an earlier study, Patterson (1982:262) found that the stealer
tends not to have close ties with family members, who "did not want to be
responsible for training him" and "are not attached to the role of parent."
In our sample, boys who steal tend to be infrequently in the company of
adults and family members. We are not suggesting that parents are indiffer-
ent to sons in places where boys steal, but there does appear to be a generally
]ow level of contact and continuing socialization by adults in these cases. In-
tracultural variability in a large, complex society like the United States, with
a multiplicity of socialization styles, has its counterpart in cross-cultural vari-
ability. 2
Taken together, the findings on violence and theft do not suggest that ex-
pected antisocial behavior necessarily represents hostility toward parents or even
toward the adult world generally. These forms are not associated with either a
low level of intimacy or a high level of conflict with either parent in adolescence.
Rather, they result from situations that stimulate impulsive behavior and the
failure of early socialization in teaching how to control it.
Violence in almost all cases is directed either toward peers or toward
persons outside the community; either adolescents do not wish to behave vi-
olently toward adults or children in the community, or such behavior is not
allowed. When violence is directed toward peers, it may be deplored but tol-
erated: "boys will be boys." Since boys' fights rarely lead to death or perma-
nent injury, adults may not think it important to prevent them. In our view,
fights can best be interpreted as an extension of the competitive behavior
fostered by social settings that emphasize relations with peers rather than
adults, coupled with imperfect socialization for self-restraint. This impul-
siveness, also seen in adult men's sexual license, is an ironic outcome for such
rigid child socialization.
While thieving is most often from community members rather than
peers or family-in fact, theft is sometimes committed by groups of adoles-
cent boys-it need not be interpreted as hostility toward the community.
There may be secret admiration of boys who steal successfully, as in the case
of the Gros Ventre mentioned above: boys who steal meat will one day trans-
fer their daring to the theft of horses from other bands. In such cases, adult
ambivalence toward theft makes it clear to boys that stealing is tolerated if
they can get away with it. Theft appears to be more of a device for getting the
material possessions one has been trained to desire, without seeing the neces-
sity to earn them, than an expression of alienation or hostility.
A further consideration is that in misbehaving, adolescent boys may be
imitating the antisocial behavior of their elders. Of the 24 societies in which
there is expected antisocial behavior by adolescent boys, in 17 cases boys are
believed to misbehave more than men. Even in these 17 cases, antisocial be-
havior by men is often reported. To the determinative features of delin-
quency we have identified, we have to add socialization for antisocial
behavior in some cases, those in which boys imitate men.
Sexual Deviance
Only a few societies give clear evidence of sexual deviance in adoles-
cence, 12 for boys and 8 for girls (Table 8.1). They are compared with the
remaining 50 societies for boys and 32 societies for girls for which expected
146 ADOLESCENCE
antisocial behavior of the same sex is coded either present or absent or for
which violence or theft is coded present for the same sex.
Sexual deviance means that adolescents are violating the accepted stan-
dard of sexual behavior. We have already seen in Chapter 7 that the majority
of societies permit sexual intercourse with other adolescents. Deviant behav-
ior includes more than occasional sexual intercourse when this is prohibited,
rape, homosexual behavior when this is prohibited, and sexual relations with
forbidden partners such as married people.
Sanctions on sexual deviance may vary from mild, as when Nyakyusa
elders ignore or mildly punish the homosexual play of boys (see Chapter 7),
to shaming, beating, or even incarceration. Sexual offenses are just one of a
list of misdemeanors for which adolescents may be imprisoned, at the re-
quest of their parents, in the Quiche Indian village of Chichicastenango,
Guatemala. If boys have relations with prostitutes, the parents may lodge a
complaint, and sexual affairs with Ladinas (non-Indian Guatemalan women)
may be punished by whipping.
It is not adults, but rather other adolescents, who punish the sexual of-
fenses of Trobriand Island young people. The following account of this
Melanesian society is drawn from Malinowski (1932).
Boys from one village will alert their secret girlfriends in another village
that they are coming on a u/atile, an amorous expedition. As previously
arranged, the girls go surreptitiously out to meet their lovers in the bush
or at some pre-arranged meeting place. If the boys of the visited village
detect this, they will try to chase the visitors away and fights might
ensue. In former times, such fights could lead to war between the com-
munities, as in those days the boys went armed.
Girls have their expeditions as well, but these are public and, in the-
ory, decorous. On some pretext, such as the desire to see a new yam
house, the girls dress in their finery and go to visit a neighboring village.
They sit openly in the village grove, where the entire community comes
to sit facing them except for their rivals, the girls of the host village, who
are sulking. After a time, each boy gets up and presents a small gift to
the girl of his choice. The young people retire to some spot in the jungle,
where they sing and chew betel nut-but no one remarks if a couple with-
draws to a more private place. On returning home, the girls try to sneak
into the village, for if their local boyfriends catch them, they may be
abused or beaten, no matter how loudly they protest their innocence.
Social practices associated with sexual deviance are shown in Table 8. 7.
Only one antecedent condition emerges as significant for boys, training by
involving children in ceremonies. For girls, training by rewarding with gifts
is significant. These may not be effective ways of teaching self-control, as we
have suggested earlier. The remaining antecedent conditions for girls are
those that push toward social maturity: the inculcation of responsibility, in-
dustry, and most strongly, achievement. The most common form of sexual
Table 8. 7 Sexual Deviance as a Form of Antisocial Behavior
Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Training by gifts in early
childhood 49 -.04 31 .41 .025
Training by gifts in later
childhood 51 - .11 31 .37 .040
Training by ceremonies in later
childhood 55 .30 .028 32 . 17
Responsibility inculcated in
early childhood 52 .11 34 .35 .044
later childhood 56 -.01 35 .41 .016
Industry inculcated in later
childhood 60 .09 37 .35 .037
Achievement inculcated in later
childhood 55 .05 32 .56 .002
Opportunity for current work 55 .34 .013 36 .33 .051
Choice of current work 47 .10 29 .55 .004
General permissiveness 51 -.08 31 -.51 .005
Opportunity for drug use 43 .36 .020 24 .27
Achievement is inculcated 30 .42 .025 15 .29
Contact with father 51 -.13 26 .41 .042
Anticipating adulthood
Sexual license by adults 35 .60 <.001 23 .49 .022
deviance for girls is disapproved sexual intercourse. Girls who have been en-
couraged to behave maturely, like women, may feel ready to assume adult
privileges like sexual relations.
Opportunity for work means that there are many tasks that adolescents
can do, while choice of work means that they can decide whether or not to do
them. Girls' sexual deviance is strongly associated with choice of work, that
is, girls have opportunities to do various productive activities and they can
choose among them. This implies a measure of independence. However, a
low level of general permissiveness is associated with sexual deviance. For
boys, the opportunity to indulge themselves with drugs is related to physical
indulgence in sexual behavior.
Contact with the father has opposite effects on girls and boys. A high
degree of contact is positively related to girls' sexual deviance, negatively re-
148 ADOLESCENCE
lated to boys', although the latter is short of statistical significance. It is pos-

sible that when girls are in frequent contact with their fathers, they are less
under the control of mothers and other fem ale kin who are more likely to
monitor their sexual behavior. Both sexes are likely to be sexually deviant
when there is sexual license by adults.
Adolescent and Adult Antisocial Behavior

Although the number of societies in which antisocial behavior is ex-
pected of adolescents is rather small, in quite a few at least one form of anti-
social behavior appears to occur more among adolescents than among
adults. For boys, there is more antisocial behavior in 32 societies, equal or
less in 58. For girls, the figures are 19 and 64 respectively. This finding sug-
gests that adolescence is commonly a period of less rather than of more mis-
behavior. Table 8.8, based on a composite subsample combining several
measures of antisocial behavior, indicates the socialization features associ-
ated with greater occurrence of antisocial behavior in adolescence. Some of
these are associated with expected antisocial behavior, such as features of
antecedent socialization. We will comment on the new correlations.
More deviant behavior is found for boys than for men when adolescents
are visually differentiated from adults. This is a measure of the distinctive-
ness of the adolescent stage, similar to another such measure, a sharp break
from childhood (Table 8.3). The exclusion of younger children from recrea-
tional activities also emphasizes the distinctiveness of the adolescent stage.
Another feature is the inculcation of obedience in boys during adoles-
cence, a continuation of socialization for this trait in childhood. It is likely
that mothers are exerting pressure to comply, since boys have conflict with
the mother but only in a few cases with the father. Greater antisocial behav-
ior for boys than for men is here shown to be associated with low intimacy
with the father. The pattern appears to be one in which fathers do not partic-
ipate as strongly in the socialization of boys as do other adults, in many cases
probably the mother. (In most of these societies, adolescents live in homes
that contain both parents.) The implication of these results is that when the
burden of socialization of adolescent boys falls most heavily on mothers,
they are more likely to exert pressure for obedience and less likely to get it. In
these societies, misbehaving boys are likely to receive corporal punishment,
possibly because deviant behavior generally is not as tolerated as it is in soci-
eties in which adults often deviate from what is expected.
Only three features of adolescent life are significantly associated with a
greater likelihood of misbehavior of girls than of women. First, this likeli-
hood is found when girls have less contact with peers, suggesting that for
girls, unlike boys, peers socialize for conformity to community standards.
Second, there is conflict with the father, possibly as a result of the misbeha-
vior, but there is no indication that this behavior leads to conflict with the
mother. Third, a higher degree of girls' misbehavior is likely to occur when
Table 8.8 Deviance More Likely for Adolescents than for Same-Sex Adults 8
Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Training by ceremonies in
early childhoodb 66 .27 .032 63 .17
Training by ceremonies in
later childhoodb 74 .29 .013 67 . 15
Training by gifts in early
childhoodb 71 .35 .003 68 - . 13
Training by gifts in later
childhoodb 74 .36 .002 72 - .15
Obedience inculcated in
early childhood 83 .26 .017 81 .16
Obedience inculcated in
later childhood 84 .27 .014 81 .18
Differentiation from adults
by visual markers 55 .44 .003 62 .01
Corporal punishment 37 .44 .022 36 .30
Low intimacy with father 34 .49 .005 32 -.05
High conflict with mother 19 .56 .018 29 .17
High conflict with father 38 .32 .053 32 .40 .025
Contact with peers 69 .04 54 - .30 .031
Younger children excluded
from recreational activities 44 .32 .034 37 . 17
High evaluation of adolescents
of this sex 58 .17 57 .28 .037
Obedience inculcated 55 .26 .053 53 .12
8
8ased on a composite subsample combining several measures comparing adolescents and adults
for antisocial behavior.
blndicates not only the mode of training but also the intensity with which it is administered, that
is, frequent ceremonies or gift-giving.
girls are given a high evaluation, suggesting that fathers concern themselves
more with daughters' misbehavior when the daughters are valued and that
girls in such societies feel freer to misbehave.
Running Away
Reversing the pattern of information on antisocial behavior and, in-

deed, on almost all other topics, there is more information for girls than for
150 ADOLESCENCE
boys on running away, that is, escaping from difficult situations. It was
coded present for girls in 22 societies and absent in 14, whereas for boys it
was present in 17 societies and absent in 14 (Table 8. 9). These figures imply
that running away is resorted to more by girls than by boys. For most cases
there is information about both sexes rather than about only one, and th;
correlation between the sexes is very high.
Running away is highly correlated with other antisocial behavior; when
one was coded absent, the other was seldom coded present. But in many so-
cieties, one was coded present or absent while there was insufficient informa-
tion to code the other. Table 8.10 excludes those variables that are as strongly
associated with regular antisocial behavior as with running away. In many
Table 8.9 Societies with Information on Running Away
Presenf (N = 23) Absent (N = 15)

Bemba (G) !Kung Bushmen
Hadza (G) Luguru
Mbuti Ashanti
Tiv Azande
Tallensi Kenuzi
Fur Uttar Pradesh

Rwala Bedouin Garo (G)
Gheg Albanians (G) Tiwi
Kurds Kimam (8)
Santai Yapese
Burmese Ifugao
Alorese (B) Comanche
Kapauku (G) Zuni
Siuai Mundurucu
Tikopia Aweikoma
Manchu
Chukchee
lngalik
Klamath
Huichol (G)
Quiche
Abipon (G)
Mapuche
8
Unless otherwise indicated, coding applies to both sexes. Where indi-
cated for one sex only (G =girls; B =boys), there is no information for
the opposite sex.
Table a.JO Running Away
Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Infant and mother sleep apart 25 .42 .073 28 .54 .006
Inclusion in adult activities
in early childhood 29 .49 .009 33 .28
later childhood 28 .40 .040 32 .26
Industry inculcated in later
childhood 30 .38 .038 35 .24
Sharp break from childhood 31 .30 33 .38 .034
High degree of separation from
family 31 -.60 .001 34 -.21
Adolescents take on new roles
in family 13 .92 .001 9 .94 .008
Adolescents take on new roles
in community 25 .45 .079 18 .71 .004
Adult character is established
in adolescence 30 .51 .009 31 .55 .005
Adolescence ends later 31 -.49 .008 36 .02
cases, running away is what adolescents do to escape the consequences of

their misbehavior.
As we have no information about children's running away, we do not
know whether socialization results in a pattern of running away that is estab-
lished prior to adolescence. It would not be surprising to find such a pattern.
Girls are generally socialized for industry and responsibility; boys are to a
lesser degree. Boys are less often under direct parental surveillance. When
industry and responsibility are emphasized for boys, as indicated in Table
8.10, it appears that the boy is under more than usual constraint to meet a
high level of performance, and he may be punished, reprimanded, or shamed
if he fails to do so. Flight is one response as an escape from either restrictions
or punishment.
Running away was observed by the first author among the Hopi in 1968.
In earlier times, Hopi boys as young as four were given important duties,
such as watching the donkey to keep it from getting into the cornfield. In
more recent years, as well, there has been training for industry and responsi-
bility throughout childhood. The following account is from Schlegel's 1968
field notes.
152 ADOLESCENCE
I had only been in the village a couple of days when a distraught

neighbor came to ask if I had seen her eight-year-old son, with whom
my son had been playing. Taking flashlights, we searched the village
without success. The boy turned up safe the next day, having hidden
in an outbuilding. His mother told me that this is not uncommon for
young boys to do.
By adolescence, a Hopi boy has so much freedom of movement that
there is no incentive to run away. He frequently sleeps away from home, and
in times of family tension he can eat with kin without having to return home.
For an adolescent girl, however, running away is a response to conflict with
her mother, usually over restrictions placed on her. She typically takes refuge
with a kinswoman, who encourages her to return home when all tempers
have cooled down.
Adolescents in this sample are more likely to run away when adoles-
cence is sharply differentiated from childhood or they are burdened with
adult responsibilities. These features are associated with expected deviance in
adolescence for boys (Table 8.3). Boys are unlikely to run away when there is
considerable separation from the family, probably because they can readily
absent themselves from stressful situations. Family conflicts that initiate
flight may have to do with the assumption of new roles and the establishment
of adult character, as family members exert pressure for conformity.
In a recent survey of psychological research on adolescence, Petersen
(1988) cited studies linking running away in modern society with pervasive
parent-child conflict. We find no such linkage, indicating that running away,
in most of the communities in our sample, is a response to an immediate need
rather than to long-standing bad feelings. For most of these adolescents, to
run away is to absent themselves for a short time from the home, not to es-
cape into anonymity. The meaning and consequences of running away differ
in small-scale societies and large ones, in which escape can be permanent and
can put the runaway into danger.
Fleeing is a sure way to avoid punishment in the short term. It helps in
the longer term, too, if the adolescent can remain away until adult anger sub-
sides. The close association of running away with the variables correlated
with antisocial behavior suggests that flight is a measure taken to avoid pun-
ishment. It is also a way to avoid embarrassment. If the adolescent does not
perform well in the new roles taken on in the family or the community,
shame can impel the boy or girl to flee.
Antisocial behavior is not expected of adolescents in most societies of

this sample; in fact, adulthood rather than adolescence appears to be the
time in life when norms are more commonly violated. When such social de-
viance is expected, we have no way to know how common it is. As in Western
society, it is likely to be a minority of adolescents who seriously misbehave.
Exceptions might be cases like the Gros Ventre, among whom antisocial be-
havior (in this case, theft) seems to be socialization for raiding, even though
its victims are not happy about it. Societies in which antisocial behavior is
expected socialize adolescents in ways different from the majority of socie-
ties in this sample. Thus, regular antisocial behaviors and their associated
features appear in atypical preindustrial societies.
A feature associated with all forms of expected antisocial behavior is the
removal of adolescent boys from the company of adult men. There are sev-
eral ways of accounting for the regular occurrence of good behavior when
boys are much involved with men and misbehavior when they are not. One
explanation might be that boys, being marginal to adult activities, feel frus-
trated by their exclusion and act out their frustration aggressively. However,
as we have seen, not all antisocial behavior is aggressive. While adolescent
misbehavior of all kinds results from the failure to control impulses, these
impulses can be acquisitive or sexual rather than aggressive. Furthermore,
there is no independent evidence from this study that antisocial behavior ex-
presses hostility toward the family or the community.
Another explanation is that adolescents, being imperfectly socialized,
are predisposed to misbehave, and the supervision of adults keeps them in
line. A variation of this explanation suggests not that adult supervision
thwarts antisocial behavior but rather that adolescents who are often in the
company of adults are motivated to control their impulses in order to win the
approval of their principal companions and significant figures.
Neither of these latter two explanations is completely satisfactory. Ex-
pected antisocial behavior is not a feature only and always of societies in
which boys are free from much adult supervision; furthermore, the associa-
tion of misbehavior with other features of child and adolescent life indicates
that the social setting is not the only influence. Although child socialization
practices in many societies predispose some adolescents to antisocial acts,
they will be committed only in social settings conducive to deviance.
An important feature of the social setting, reflected in various mea-
sures, is the nature of the boys' peer groups. When these groups are institu-
tionalized or adolescents perform important activities with peers rather than
with adults, there is likely to be regular antisocial behavior. We have seen in
Chapter 5 that both cooperation and competition are characteristic of boys'
peer groups. Boys compete with one another for scarce resources in the pres-
ent and the future: positions of leadership, the attention of girls, eventual
wives. At the same time, the group must cooperate in its daily activities and
learn the balance of private interests with public good that characterizes har-
monious adult relationships. Peer groups vary in accentuating competition
and cooperation. When competition has the edge, antisocial behavior is
likely to appear, violence rather than theft being the more usual form that
such behavior takes. This is not surprising, since theft can be a cooperative
group enterprise.
154 ADOLESCENCE
Another feature is the distinctiveness of adolescence. Adolescents who

are sharply set off are discouraged from free interactions with adults (cf.
Gadpaille 1984).
The stage for adolescent antisocial behavior is set in childhood, even as
early as infancy. Greater than usual separation of mother and infant charac-
terizes the fighters, but not the stealers, and also the runaway girls. These
findings suggest that the early bonds of child and mother are weaker than
they are in the majority of societies.
Generally lower permissiveness toward infants and children is associ-
ated with adolescent misbehavior, particularly physical aggression. It is pos-
sible that training primarily by lecturing, setting examples, or rewarding with
gifts are not effective in dealing with children's misbehavior and do not redi-
rect them toward more constructive forms. Rewarding with gifts character-
izes the childhood socialization of stealers rather than fighters; this has been
explained by the value on reward that is instilled without a concomitant value
on earning it.
Unsurprisingly, antisocial behavior occurs among adolescents when it
occurs among adults. Part of the adult character established in adolescence
in these societies is a tendency toward misbehavior. Adolescent violence, a
physically impulsive form, is likely to be found along with adult sexual li-
cense, also physically impulsive. While violence, primarily fighting with
peers, is impulsive, theft in these societies may be instrumental as well as
impulsive. Sexual deviance in adolescence is socialization for sexual license
in adulthood.
There is little evidence that adolescent antisocial behavior is expressive
of strong alienation from or hostility toward adults, either the family or the
community at large. There is no evidence that conflict with parents
accompanies regular antisocial behavior. Conflict exists, however, in socie-
ties in which adolescents commit more misbehavior than do adults, most of
these being cases in which antisocial behavior is not an expected pattern. We
have interpreted this conflict as a response to misbehavior rather than a
cause of it.
Antisocial behavior, while generally deplored, may be tolerated for var-
ious reasons. We commented in Chapter 5 on how adolescents may be desig-
nated as enforcers of community norms, even when this includes harassment
of adults or destruction of property. Antisocial behavior is redefined when it
is in the service of community welfare. The same can be said about some
parental reactions to antisocial behavior: fighting or stealing may be pri-
vately tolerated or even condoned if it serves family interests, such as fight-
ing with the child of an enemy or stealing from a disliked or envied neighbor.
Furthermore, it would be hypocritical of adults to take adolescent misbeha- ·
vior too seriously if they themselves are delinquent.
Our findings are consonant with conclusions of other researchers on an-
tisocial aggression in adolescence. In their classic study, Bandura and Wal-
ters ( 1959) viewed aggression as a reaction to frustration engendered by the
family. As they stated (p. 29): "It appears that frustration arising from a lack
of affectional nurturance and a punitive attitude on the part of one or both
of the parents is an essential condition for the occurrence of generalized an-
tisocial aggression.'' Whether or not one wishes to accept their inference of a
motivational predisposition, their conclusions parallel our finding of an as-
sociation between violence and a lesser degree of early contact with both the
mother and the father than usual for the sample. Severe punishment also
characterizes the societies in which violence is expected of at least some ado-
lescent boys .
.The same authors discovered through their interviews with aggressive
and nonaggressive boys that the aggressive boys spent ''considerably less
time in their fathers' company than did the control boys" (Bandura and
Walters 1959: 54), echoing our finding of reduced contact with men when
there is expected antisocial behavior. Like the boys in our sample who be-
have antisocially, the aggressive boys in the Bandura and Walters study ex-
pressed aggression more outside the home than in it; however, there is no
evidence from our study that boys are resentful or critical of their fathers as
were the aggressive boys in their study.
Bandura and Walters viewed aggression as resulting from child-training
practices and family interrelationships. Savin-Williams (1987), who dis-
cussed aggression within the context of dominance and altruism in adoles-
cent groups, was concerned with the structure of the peer group. In our view,
features of the family and child socialization must be combined with features
of the social settings of adolescence, as both contribute to an understanding
of adolescent behavior. 3
Earlier theories of aggression linked it to frustrated sexuality: this was
the basis for Stone's (1977) explanation of youths' aggressive behavior in the
18th century (see p. 120). The more recent theorizing by sociobiologists
about male-male competition over females in much of the animal kingdom
contains a corollary, that males-including men and boys-are predisposed
to act aggressively. With this in mind, we looked at the relation between an-
tisocial behavior and sexual permissiveness, hypothesizing one of two possi-
ble outcomes: either antisocial behavior is positively related to sexual
restrictiveness, indicating that boys are sexually frustrated and more likely to
commit antisocial acts, or it is positively related to sexual permissiveness,
indicating that boys are competing for the favors of girls and therefore will
aggress against one another as do males in the so-called ''promiscuous'' spe-
cies of animals. We found no association.
In this chapter, we have presented evidence of more antisocial behavior
on the part of boys than of girls, a finding consistent with the evidence of a
sex difference in modern society. 4 It is also consistent with observations of
the disruptive behavior of some other primates. Speaking of subadult male
baboons, De Vore ( 1971 :306) stated:
156 ADOLESCENCE
In the savanna baboon, the young juvenile male, as he matures, must

fight his way up through the female-dominant hierarchy until he reaches
a kind of limbo above all the females but still below any of the adult
males, much less the ones in the central hierarchy. There is, in other
words, a kind of delayed social maturity in the young male baboon
which is, I submit, the classic opportunity for frustration and, indeed,
we find in such groups that the most aggressive animals are these young
subadult males constantly quarrelling with the females and constantly
being put down by the adult males. In some respects they are totally dis-
ruptive-the juvenile delinquents of the primate world. Not only are
they unable to get into the establishment, they are literally into the hair
of all the adults in the baboon group. 5
Here too, there is diminished involvement with adults for the young male ba-
boon (De Vore 1971:306):
During this period of life, he often becomes spatially quite peripheral to
the group. In some species of macaque, the young males simply leave.
They go off into young all-male groups together. In species like the sa-
vanna baboon where no animal leaves the group at any time during his
lifetime unless he is changing groups, they become socially marginal.
We have already observed the difference between the settings that ado-
lescent girls and boys inhabit. Along with whatever else may differentiate the
sexes, there is clear evidence that girls are more involved with same-sex adults
and less with peers than are boys. The opportunity to behave in socially inap-
propriate ways is greater for boys; it is our position that the stimulus for boys
to do so is also greater.
Another sex difference may be the nature of the control that the peer
group has over its members. Whereas the boys' peer group may encourage
antisocial behavior, there are suggestions that the girls' peer group does not.
There are too few cases of expected antisocial behavior of girls to permit
statistical testing, but we were able to determine that when there is greater
contact with peers, adolescent girls exhibit less deviant behavior than do
women. This may be because a fair amount of girls' contact with peers takes
place in the company of adult women, as mothers and female kin bring
daughters, nieces, and granddaughters along to work or take their leisure
with other women. It is also possible that girls' peer groups themselves tend
to reinforce conformity to social norms. We will consider this possibility in
Chapter 10, in conjunction with other sex differences.
9
The Adolescent Self
IN recent years, the concept of the self has again become a central one in
psychological and symbolic anthropology. Earlier studies of personality,
heavily influenced by Freudian theory, attempted to find resonances between
personality and culture, often through the use of projective tests like the Ror-
schach. Dissatisfaction with constructs such as basic personality type (Kardi-
ner 1945), modal personality (DuBois 1944; Wallace 1952), and national
character (Gorer and Rickman 1949) led researchers to divert their attention
from psychological interpretations of culture to studies of child rearing and
its effects. As a result, researchers have conducted a number of single-case
and comparative studies. Beatrice B. and John W. M. Whiting, with col-
leagues and students at Harvard University and elsewhere, were leaders in
this development in anthropology.
The renaissance of interest in the self is expressed in two somewhat dif-
ferent, although overlapping, approaches: the interpretive and the behav-
ioral. Both utilize the concepts and methods of the psychoanalytic school,
but in different ways. Interpretive psychological anthropologists are more
likely to use Freudian symbolism (e.g., Gregor 1985) or to be influenced by it
in their analyses of ritual, myth, and action. Behavioral psychological an-
thropologists turn to the emphasis on early childhood socialization and the
assumption that the expressive aspects of culture are in part projections of
conflicts and anxieties engendered during this time. An early version of this
position is associated with Abram Kardiner and Ralph Linton (Kardiner
1939). Currently, it is associated with the Whitings (cf. Whiting and Whiting
1978), among others.
The interpretive mode of studying the self has received impetus from a
new way of thinking about cultures, as though they were texts requiring in-
terpretive reading. The "text" contains not only the elements of culture,
such as discourse, ritual, and patterns for action but also the actors through
which it comes into being and is preserved or rewritten. This reconceptualiza-
tion has led to an interest in emotion (e.g., Rosaldo 1974; Lutz I 988), a sub-
157
158 ADOLESCENCE
ject that has appeared with some regularity, since about 1979, in Ethos, the
journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology. The interpretive ap-
proach depends upon an intimate knowledge of the culture in order to link
analytically the elements of the culture and these in turn to the selves of the
actors.
In this study, we take the behavioral approach, drawing from both psy-
choanalytic and social learning theory to ask questions and interpret the an-
swers. In Whiting and Whiting's (1978) model for psychocultural research,
maintenance systems-which include subsistence patterns, social structure,
and division of labor, among others-affect the child's learning environ-
ment, to which personality and behavior are adaptive. Read as a linear
model, maintenance systems-+child's environment-+personality and behav-
ior. However, they asserted, and we agree, that causation does not move in
only one direction. In studying behavior and personality in humans, who cre-
ate their environment while they adapt to it, an interactive model is more
plausible than a linear, unidirectional one.
We begin this chapter by looking at character traits inculcated in adoles-
cents. We next consider training for adult skills. Work skills are primary for
this sample. Schooling as we know it is seldom represented, although our
study has implications for societies in which schools are principal settings of
adolescent life. Finally, we consider how adolescents are perceived by adults
and what the consequences may be, in adolescence and later, of favorable or
unfavorable perceptions.
Character Traits
The 12 traits selected for the assessment of adolescent character as it

varies across cultures derive from a series of cross-cultural studies of person-
ality by psychologists and anthropologists. The first of these, begun in 1952
under the direction of Irvin L. Child, and assisted by Herbert Barry III and
Margaret K. Bacon, was applied to a sample of 110 preliterate societies. The
purpose was to study the modification in childhood of the original dependent
behavior of infants. Six measures were rated separately for girls and boys:
responsibility, nurturance, self-reliance, general independence, achieve-
ment, and obedience. Concurrent projects of research on related issues were
directed by John W. M. Whiting, on identification of the child with the par-
ents and the development of superego, and by William W. Lambert, on ag-
gressive behavior of children.
In several resulting publications, these traits have been related to other
variables, e.g., social organization (Barry, Bacon, and Child 1957), subsis-
tence economy (Barry, Child, and Bacon 1963), adult crime (Bacon, Child,
and Barry 1963), and consumption of alcoholic beverages (Bacon et al.
1965). These 6 traits, with the exception of nurturance and independence,
The Adolescent Self 159
were later coded for the Standard Sample of 186 societies. Added to the four
original traits were several others that included fortitude, aggressiveness,
competitiveness, sexual restraint, and trust. The code is reported in Barry et
al. (1980a).
For the purpose of our study, traits were sorted into pairs of opposite or
contrasting traits: trust and competitiveness, responsibility and achievement,
and aggressiveness and obedience. Impulsiveness was added to contrast with
fortitude; conformity, with self-reliance; and sexual expression, with sexual
restraint. The 12 traits are given quantitative scores on a scale from Oto 10.
The principal criterion is indoctrination by the society, especially authority
figures, who are in most cases parents. The behavior of adolescents them-
selves is a secondary criterion for these scores (Table 9.1).
Among these 12 traits, sexual expression and sexual restraint were rated
in more than 80 percent of the 186 societies. Obedience and conformity were
rated in more than 50 percent. The remaining variables were rated in fewer
societies, the smallest number for girls being 35 (19 percent) with informa-
tion on fortitude and for boys 63 (34 percent) with information on trust.
These data allow us to assess cross-cultural variability in the inculcation
of character traits, part of the adolescent self. Most of the societies in our
sample had also been coded previously for early and late childhood by a dif-
ferent group of coders (Barry et al. 1980a). This allows us to determine
Table 9.1 The Inculcation of Character Traits in Adolescence

Number of
societies a Average intensity b
Boys Gris
Measures of Compliance
Sexual restraint 149 4.1 4.8
Obedience 91 6.9 7.2
Responsibility 67 6.7 6.7
Conformity 103 7.5 7.6
Trust 61 5.8 5.8
Measures of Assertion
Sexual expression 149 5.2 4.5
Self-reliance 56 6.3 4.8
Competitiveness 56 4.0 3.2
Aggressiveness 45 4.2 3.4
Achievement 69 5.0 4.8
alncludes only societies with a score on both boys and girls for the designated measure.
blntensity score is the average of individual society scorings on a scale of 0-10.
160 ADOLESCENCE
whether there is continuity or discontinuity in the socialization for these

traits. Here we report those traits that show significant associations with se-
lected measures of the social setting.
Obedience
Obedience rises with social stratification, that is, the average inculcation
of obedience is higher in societies that stratify by wealth and even higher in
societies with social classes (Table 9.2). One interpretation of this finding is
that as social structures become more complex they become more coercive,
the advanced chiefdom and the state demanding greater compliance from its
members. At the same time, wealth and property rights are greater consider-
ations in more complex societies than in simpler ones, and children have to
be trained to submerge their private wishes to the good of the family in the
management of its estate. The implication for modern societies of training
children to manage the family estate is that classes that do not own property
are less likely to stress obedience than those that do. There might seem to be
little reward to parents who do not own property for the effort expended in
the discipline necessary to produce obedient children.
Contrary to our expectation that girls generally are socialized more for
docility, that is, obedience, than boys, the mean scores for the two sexes are
very close (Table 9.1). Obedience is negatively correlated with matrilocal res-
idence for both sexes. Male authority declines when families live in the
household of the mother, even in those cases in which the in-married hus-
band is the acknowledged household head. Women have greater authority in
this household type, often equalling or exceeding that of men. Obedience
appears to be less of an issue in such households, in which subordination to
the father is low (cf. Table 4.5) and persuasion (intimacy) rather than coer-
cion (subordination) is used to motivate and coordinate family activities.
The size of the peer group is positively related to the inculcation of obe-
dience for both sexes, although for girls it is only a trend. Larger peer groups
are found in permanent communities that have higher levels of political inte-
gration (cf. Table 5 .6). Thus, this finding replicates the finding that obedi-
ence is associated with higher levels of social stratification.
Table 9.1 Obedience as an Inculcated Trait
Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Social stratification 102 .47 <.001 95 .35 .001

Matrilocal residence 95 -.29 .005 87 -.32 .003
Size of peer group 47 .47 .002 37 .30 .066 (trend)
Achievement
The inculcation of achievement is another character trait significantly
related to social stratification. As stratification ""increases, the mean score for
inculcation of achievement rises (Table 9.3). The more complex societies
contain a larger variety of adult roles with more diversity of reward than do
the simpler ones, thus encouraging efforts to succeed as an individual. The
association is particularly strong for girls, suggesting that advanced chief-
doms and states offer females, in particular, markedly more opportunities
for individual advancement than do the simper societies.
Inculcation of this trait is somewhat lower for boys in societies having
extended families than in those having other family forms, possibly because
the boy is trained to coordinate his activities with those of the group rather
than to succeed as an individual (Table 9.3).
Achievement and competitiveness in boys are related in a linear fashion:
societies with stronger inculcation of achievement also inculcate competitive-
ness more strongly. These variables are not related in girls. Achievement is
reliably associated with peer competition in boys (Table 9.3) but not in girls.
As Table 9.1 shows, girls' score on inculcation of achievement is comparable
to boys', but there is a fairly large difference in the rating of competitiveness.
Competitiveness
The inculcation of competitiveness in boys is significantly associated
with achievement, but it is independently related to other features as well. It
is positively associated with the size of the peer group (Table 9.4), an associ-
ation not found for girls. This finding implies that status within the group is
more of an issue for boys than for girls. Competitiveness is correlated with
peer competition for both sexes (Table 9.4).
Inculcation of competitiveness is also associated with the structure of
the household. Competitiveness tends somewhat to be low for boys in socie-
ties having the stem-family household, and it tends more to be high in those
Table 9.3 Achievement as an Inculcated Trait

Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Social stratification 79 .27 .017 74 .31 .007

Extended family 79 -.20 .079 (trend) 74 - .12
Inculcation of
competitiveness 51 .34 .016 31 -.03
Competitiveness within
the peer group 46 .51 .001 28 .21
162 ADOLESCENCE
Table 9.4 Competitiveness as an Inculcated Trait

Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Size of peer group 52 .29 .036 28 .05
Competitiveness within
the peer group 79 .84 <.000 40 .87 <.001
Stem family household 94 -.18 .087 (trend) 57 - .19
Nuclear family household 94 .20 .052 57 .24 .076 (trend)
having the nuclear-family household (Table 9.4). There is also a trend for
competitiveness to be higher for girls who live in nuclear-family households.
The nuclear family is the classic setting of the Oedipus complex, which rests
on the assumption that boys compete with the father for the attention of the
mother. A more general interpretation is that with a small number of adults
in the household, siblings compete for their attention more than in other
household forms.
The stem family, on the other hand, is structured in a way that mini-
mizes competition. It contains three generations: the older couple, the heir
and his (or her) spouse plus the heir's unmarried sisters and brothers who still
live at home, and the children of the younger couple. With several adults of
both sexes in the household-parents, grandparents, and unmarried uncles
and aunts-the child need not focus all of its efforts to gain attention on one
or two adults. Competition among siblings is also likely to be muted in most
stem families, for the rules of inheritance are usually dictated and have little
to do with parental preference. In most cases, primogeniture is the norm, the
oldest son (in the patrilocal stem-family household) inheriting the bulk of the
family estate. There are cases of ultimogeniture as well, the form in which
older siblings leave and the youngest of the appropriate sex remains in the
natal household with his or her spouse. The Hopi are a society with matrilo-
cal ultimogeniture, the youngest daughter and her husband remaining with
her mother and father until she inherits the house. When the cultural basis
for competition is absent, it is unlikely to be a significant feature of socializa-
tion.1
The extended-family household falls in between. This category is more
diverse than the other two forms, nuclear and stem. Competition has been
widely observed between sets of siblings in patrilocal extended-family house-
holds, the children of the different brothers who constitute the older house-
hold members. This competition is often found when the extended family
lives in anticipation of eventual fission of household and property. It also
occurs between half-siblings, children of the same father but different moth-
ers, when there is nonsororal polygyny, that is, the co-wives are not sisters.
In both of these cases, a sibling set constitutes an interest group whose bene-
fits, especially from inheritance, are likely to be at the cost of another sibling
set. The prospect of inheriting tangible property such as animals or land or
intangible property such as titles or high-status positions promotes competi-
tion for future advantage and makes it a fixture of the older child's and
adolescent's life. However, when there is little property to inherit, there is
little to compete over.
Aggressiveness
Inculcation of aggressiveness also co-varies with the household struc-
ture. For boys, the difference between the lower mean inculcation of aggres-
siveness in six societies with stem families and the higher mean in 63 societies
with nuclear or extended families is significant (Table 9.5). For girls, the
trend in the same direction is small and not significant. Without detailed case
studies, any interpretation of this finding must be tentative, but it is associ-
ated with a higher ratio of adults to children in stem families, as we have
suggested in the association between the stem family and low inculcation of
competitiveness.
Assuming four living children per woman, in the nuclear-family house-
hold the ratio is 1:2. In the extended-family household, in which virtually
every adult is married, the ratio is likely to be similar or even lower, particu-
larly in polygynous households, in which the husband-to-wife ratio is lower
than it is when marriage is monogamous. The stem-family household, how-
ever, consists of four married adults, the children's parents and grandpar-
ents, plus unmarried adult siblings of the parents. Thus, given four living
children, the adult-to-child ratio with just parents and grandparents is 1: 1,
and with uncles and aunts present it is higher. Extensive involvement with
adults seems to dampen adolescent boys' aggressiveness.
Although the stem family is a distinctive form for boys, the nuclear fam-
ily stands against the other two forms for girls. Girls' aggressiveness is higher
in nuclear families than in other forms. A weak association in the same direc-
tion for boys is not significant. We explain this in the following way. The
relation of girls to women is somewhat different from that of boys to men. In
both the stem- and the extended-family households, the mother shares her
Table 9.5 Aggressiveness as an Inculcated Trait
Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Stem family household 69 -.26 .031 46 -.11

Nuclear family household 69 .10 46 .35 .020
Peer competitiveness 44 .54 <.001 20 .62 .007
Peer contact 51 .30 .036 30 .04
164 ADOLESCENCE
work with other women and has time to relax with her adolescent daughter.
Mothers are more burdened in nuclear-family households; they have less
time to pay attention to their daughters, and they are likely to demand more
help with housework, shifting some of the burden onto the girl. In the other
household forms, women and girls work together, but this is less likely or
occurs less frequently in nuclear families, resulting in diminished contact for
the adolescent with other girls and women. Restraints on the aggressiveness
of adolescent girls are thus weakened. (There are, of course, variants of the
nuclear-family household in which girls do have continuous contact with
other girls and women. This happens when unmarried female relatives live
with the married pair and their children or when girls work alongside female
servants, as often in the farms and villages of preindustrial Europe.)
We have seen in Chapter 8 that boys' contact with men is inversely re-
lated to antisocial behavior. Contact with men is inversely related to aggres-
siveness also, but the trend is weak and not statistically significant. Judging
from the finding that aggression is lower in households with a higher adult-
child ratio, it seems that it is not mere contact with men that inhibits aggres-
sion (as it does antisocial behavior) but rather level of involvement. It stands
to reason that men will not tolerate aggressive boys if they have to be in-
volved with them a good part of the time. The argumentative adolescent is
very tiring in large doses. However, there is a trend toward an association
between high inculcation of aggression in adolescence and infrequent contact
with the father in childhood ( p = .07). This association supports the position
(Burton and Whiting 1961) that aggression can be a form of masculine pro-
test, engaged in by boys as a way of asserting a masculinity about which they
are in doubt. Their weakness of masculine identity results from an absent or
uninvolved father in childhood.
Aggressiveness in boys is significantly correlated with high peer compe-
tition and high peer contact (Table 9.5). The peer contact variable is espe-
cially interesting in light of the absence of a significant correlation between
aggressiveness of boys and contact with men. It suggests that the peer group
is more instrumental as a determinant of aggressiveness than the family or
other adult structures, once boys reach adolescence.
Aggressiveness in girls is significantly correlated with high peer compe-
tition (Table 9.5) but, unlike in boys, not with high peer contact. Like the
household, the peer group can have different effects depending on the sex of
the adolescent.
Sexual Restraint
Socialization for sexual restraint and its converse, sexual expressiveness,
varies by social stratification. Restraint is lowest when stratification is ab-
sent, intermediate when stratification is by wealth only, highest when there
are class divisions (Table 9.6). As we saw in Chapter 7, marriage in tradi-
Table 9.6 Sexual Restraint as an Inculcated Trait

Boys Girls
N r p N r p
Social stratification 154 .26 .001 158 .27 .001

Matrilineal descent 154 - .18 .022 158 - .26 .001
tional stratified societies serves to maintain or enhance family status. We

presented our rationale there for why the virginity of girls is valued in such
societies and for why, if girls are sexually restrained, boys tend also to be
restrained.
It is widely observed that sexual restraint is less in matrilineal societies,
the rationale being that all children belong to the matrilineage of the mother
regardless of paternity. The findings in Table 9.6 support this. 2
Self-Reliance
Boys are trained to be self-reliant under a very large variety of condi-
tions, as it is most often men who go to battle and on long-distance trading
expeditions or take other kinds of risks. There is a trend for greater self-
reliance in foraging societies, in which men are often alone or in small groups
out hunting or deep-sea fishing (Table 9.7). The association is significant for
girls, who are less sheltered as foragers than in other economies (Table 9. 7).
The girl or woman who is gathering wild foods miles from home must be
self-reliant in case of injury or threat from enemies or predatory animals.
Adolescents are being socialized to take their place in the adult world; at
the same time, they are being socialized by it. We have seen a general distinc-
tion between those societies with simpler technologies and social structures
and those with more complex ones. The simpler societies emphasize high
self-reliance and lower obedience, achievement, and sexual restraint. The
more complex societies emphasize lower self-reliance and high obedience,
achievement, and sexual restraint. Competitiveness and aggressiveness do
not follow this track, however; they respond to other cultural influences.
Table 9. 7 Self-Reliance as an Inculcated Trait

Boys Girls
N r p N r p
8
Subsistence economy 79 -.19 .102 (trend) 55 -.28 .040
8
The same three ordinal categories of economy were tested in Table 5 .4.
166 ADOLESCENCE
Variations in Character Traits by Sex and Age
The principal setting for adolescent socialization in this sample is the

household. Two forms that emerge as significantly associated with opposite
character traits are the nuclear and the stem. The nuclear-family household
is related to high inculcation of competitiveness and aggressiveness, while the
stem-family household is related to low inculcation of these traits. The mid-
dling position of the extended-family household is probably due to the fact
that this form characterizes so many societies, of so many types, in this sam-
ple. Character traits are correspondingly varied. The differing effects that
family structure and relations have on girls versus boys are illustrated in the
findings on these two variables.
In this sample, the nuclear-family household is the one associated with
competitiveness, and it is likely that this trait is inherent in a social unjt with
a low adult-to-child ratio. In such a setting children compete with one an-
other for the time and attention of the significant adults. This explanation
seems particularly plausible when we consider that societies with the stem-
family household, where there is the highest adult-to-child ratio, have the
lowest score on competitiveness. Inculcation of aggressiveness is strongest in
the nuclear family for girls but not for boys. This was interpreted as resulting
from the girPs more problematic relation to her mother in that family form
and to a reduction in her contacts with other girls and women.
The stem-family household has the lowest average score for socializa-
tion for aggressiveness in boys as well as competitiveness, possibly for the
same reason of high adult-to-child ratios in these families. The stem family
also appears to be a form in which there is likely to be high trust and low
responsibility, although the association does not reach significance: of five
stem-family cases with information on trust, four are well above the mean
and one is below but close to the mean; and of the six cases with information
on responsibility, five are below and one above the mean. When there are
one or more adults per child, the child's needs are likely to be quickly met,
but he or she will not have to assume much responsibility for the household.
Character traits were generally more highly correlated with cultural
variables for boys than for girls. In this section, the data were the mean
scores for girls and boys on the character traits at three stages: early child-
hood, late childhood, and adolescence. We looked for continuity or discon-
tinuity by age and by sex. Table 9.1, divided into traits that measure
compliance and traits that measure assertion, gives the mean scores for the
two sexes in adolescence.
Mean scores for girls and boys on many traits are very close, a reminder
that individuals are socialized to be members of their society as well as mem-
bers of their gender class. For the compliance scores the difference in each
case is not significant, although for each variable the score is slightly higher
for girls than for boys. However, boys are more strongly socialized for asser-
tion-self-reliance, aggressiveness, and competitiveness, the difference be-

tween the sexes reaching significance.
The similarity in socialization for achievement bet\\CCn the sexc~. both
in late childhood and in adolcs.cencc, calls into question the belief that girls
in modern ~ociet y tend to be socialized less than boys for this character trail,
at least in the sen-,e that we apply it, ~uccess in the public domain. Thi!'! one-
sided view of achievcme·nt recognizes only one type of succes~. that identified
with men, and ignore social skills a~sociated with coordinating and admin-
istering productive task when the hou,ehold is the dominant unit of produc-
tion or behind-the-scene management of status-related activitie~ r,uch a, the
couple's so1.:ial life (cf. Papanek 1979). In this sample, the gender roles in
most societies are clearly defined, and girls and boys arc sociali,cd to imilar
Jegree for achievement within their own adult role,.
The changes from early childhood to late childhood to adolescence, m,-
se. sed by mea ures coded for all three stages, indicate omc difference, he-
tween compliance and assertion (Fig. 9.1). Mean ~cores on the compliance
measures-sexual restraint, obedience, and responsibility-increase or at
least do not decrease at each stage. Barry, Bacon, and Child (1957). in their
study of traits in children, found that girls are ocializcd more strongly for
responsibility than are boys. As seen in Figure 9.1, thi. difference does ap-
pear in late childhood. By adolescence, however, the two ,cxc, are ,imilar,
indicating that pre~sure for re~ponsibility may be \\eaker for boys in child-
hood but is increased during adolescence. \ilean score~ on the a , ertion mea-
sures-self-reliance, competitiveness, aggre~sivenc\s, and achic\ement-
increase from early childhood to late childhood but then decrease from late
childhood to adolescence. The decrease is more marked for girls than for
boys.
The distribution of compliance and as,ertion means by age and e, indi-
cates that both sexes are sodalized for greater compliance and less assertion
during adolescence. but the pressure arc greater on girls than on boys. The
cheeky ten-year-old becomes the more re~trained teenager. The increase in
ocialization for compliance come at a time when adolescents, with their
more adultlike bodies and capabilities, are straining against the confining
bonds of discipline. Probably for this \·cry rca on the pressure~ increase, and
the behavior that is tolerated and considered amusing, or at least harmless, in
the d1ild is disappro ed and possibly punished in the adolescent.
Childhood and Adole. cence
Figure 9.1 illustrates the direction and degree of change of mea ure of
compliance and assertion, showing that compliance tend~ to rise or remain
level, whereas assertion decline~ in adolescence. The degree of continuity
3
from early childhood to adolcsceni.:c is indicated in Table 9.8. For both
168 ADOLESCENCE
THREE MEASURES FOUR MEASURES

OF COMPLlANCE OF ASSERTION
10
~ to
UJ
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. LLI
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STAGE 10
f-,
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BOYS X• , ... •• • • • • •Jl
GIRLS ►-----------.
EARLY CHILDHOOD
LATE CHILDHOOD
~
~
t!:
l:
5
... .... -
A ADOLESCENCE. ~
0
EC LC A
STAGE
Figure 9./ Compliance and Assertion in Boys and Girls from Early
Childhood to Adolescence
sexes, there is greater continuity of compliance between early childhood and

adolescence than of assertion. Only responsibility in girls is not continuous.
Among the traits measuring assertion, however, only competitiveness is con-
tinuous, although there is a trend for self-reliance to be continuous for girls.
Figure 9.1 shows that there is a drop in the traits measuring assertiveness.
Table 9.8 Continuity in Inculcated Traits from Early Childhood to
Adolescence
Boys Girls
Na ,. pt, ,. pt,
--- --
Measures of compliance
Sexual restraint 124 .38 < .001 .52 <.001
Obedience 80 .41 < .001 .40 <.001
Responsibility 59 .28 .036 .11
Measures of asser rion

Competitiveness 41 .33 .039 .37 .020
Aggressiveness 28 .23 .29
Self-reliance 51 .06 .25 .074 (trend)
Achievement 57 -.11 .02
aOnly societies with scores for both. exes are included for each rnea ·ure.
hcalculatcd by the Mantel-Haenszel rest and the cro s-1abulation program.
This drop indicates socialization for control of assertive behavior, that is,
greater maturity.
The settings in which adolescents act, whether the family or a group of
age-mates, are concordant in some aspects with childhood settings. Contact
with parents in infancy is positively related to contact with parents in adoles-
cence for girls (Table 9.9) but not for boys. Girls experience greater continu-
ity than boys in family relations generally, for they remain more tied to the
home than do boys, whose activities may take them out of contact with fam-
ily members.
For both sexes, there is continuity between the authority figure in child-
hood and adolescent subordination. When the mother has authority equal to
or greater than the father in childhood, subordination to the father tends to
be below the median in adolescence. When he is the principal authority fig-
ure in childhood, his control persists into adolescence and subordination is
above the median. Maternal authority is a counterweight to paternal author-
ity rather than a reinforcement.
In most societies, the principal companions of children are parents or
siblings rather than other children. When this is not the ca e for girls, that is,
when other children are the principal companions of the younger girl, adoles-
cent girls are likely to have a high degree of contact with their peers (Table
9.10). For girls, but not for boys, there is continuity between childhood and
adolescence in contact with age-mates. Boys' peer contact, like their contact
with parents, appears to be determined more by what adolescent boys do
than by patterns established in infancy or childhood.
170 ADOLESCENCE
Table 9. 9 Continuity in Relations with Parent

Contact with mother by adolescent girls
Low High %High
Nonmaternal caretakers
in infancy for girls
infrequent 16 48 75
frequent 34 28 45
x2 = 10.50 p = .001
Contact with fat her by adolescent girls

Low High %High
Contact with father
in infancy for girls
rare 26 5 16
occasional 33 13 28
frequent 18 12 40
Subordination of adolescent boys
to father
Low High %High
Authority figure of
young boys
mostly father 22 60 73
mother equal or more 28 21 43
x2 = 10.69 p = .001
Subordination of adolescent girls

to father
Low High _%High
Authority figure of
young girls
mostly father II 47 81
mother equal or more 35 38 52
2
X = 10.68 p = .001
Table 9. JO Continuity in Contact with Peers for Girls
Contact with peers by adolescent girls
Low High %High
Principal companions
of young girls
parents or siblings 46 20 30
other children 13 21 62
x2 = 7.93 p = .005
Training for Adult Skills
For almost all of the societies in this sample, adolescence is a time for
the individual to prove himself or herself in ways that will affect the
individual's future social position and attractivenes as a potential spouse or
child-in-law. This challenge goes beyond the mere expectation of a minimum
level of competence; there is pressure to excel, with an eye on the future.
For the majority of societies, the skills that are emphasized for adoles-
cents of both sexes are primarily in the area of productive work: for boys, in
62 percent of 152 societies; for girls, in 73 percent of 141 societies. The sec-
ond most important area of excellence for boys is physical skills, which are
number one for boys in 8 percent of the societies and in 4 percent for girls.
For girls, the second most important area is sexual attributes, which for girls
is number one in 5 percent of societies and in 2 percent for boys.
Work
Few ethnographies discuss the work of adolescents, simply indicating
that adolescent boys work alongside their fathers and girls alongside their
mothers, unless boys have some specialized task like herding cattle. Balikci
(1970: 105, 107) had the following to say about Netsilik Eskimo boys and
girls (similar to the Copper Eskimo in the sample):
By the time he was ten or eleven, the boy had become his father's helper.
On the migration track, he no longer sat on the sledge, but tried to push
and pull with the others. He accompanied his father on hunting and fish-
ing trips, performing various light but useful tasks. He rarely asked ques-
tions. Instead his father would briefly instruct him before or after a task,
when necessary. This always took place in context and in reference to the
particular situation at hand. During adolescence the authority of the fa-
ther remained very strong, and the boy undertook no hunting trips on his
own without his father's approval. His attitude was one of complete sub-
172 ADOLESCENCE
missiveness. It was only very gradually that the son acquired autonomy
of action ....
Already at the age of seven or eight a girl began to interrupt her play in
order to participate in her mother's activities. First she collaborated with
the mother, accompanying her while cutting fresh ice, getting water, or
gathering moss. Gradually she began to perform many of the women's
tasks by herself whenever asked to do so by her mother. Soon her fune-
tions as household helper became very important. Often young girls were
. een carrying infant siblings on their backs. Sewing and skin work were
learned somewhat later. After a girl reached the age of eleven or twelve,
just as father and son began to collaborate closely, so mother and daugh-
ter worked on similar tasks.
The Eskimo adolescent works alongsjde his or her parent doing the same
tasks. Such a distribution of work is likely to be the case in a society in which
tasks are fairly repetitive and within the physical capacity of the child.
If a higher level of skill is required, the adolescent might be considered
an apprentice of the parent or whatever adult is teaching him or her produc-
tive skills. Until the transformation of production in Europe from handwork
to industrial manufacture, the large majority of adolescent boys living in eit-
ies and towns were in apprenticeships (Gillis 1974:17-18, 51). Apprentice-
ships also have their place in the tribal world, where a talented young person
learns carving or weaving or another skilled craft under the guidance of a
recognized master.
Warfare can be an important economic activity, and then specialized
training for war can be considered a type of apprenticeship. The young pages
of the Middle Ages were in training for the time when it would be necessary
to win or defend their fortunes by means of arms. We meet their tribal coun-
terparts on the Great Plains of North America, where raiding for horses was
a principal economic activity. Among the Mescalero Apache (similar to the
Chiricahua Apache in the sample), boys began their military training at 13 or
so, accompanying war parties as what Opler (1969:64), quoting his infor-
mant, called "novices":
Novices training for raiding wore one feather in the hair. It was easy to
recognize them by this, one eagle tail feather, that's all. A novice does
not scratch himself with his fingers; he has to use a stick. The rules that
the novice follows hold around camp as well as in raid or war. He is re-
quired to do the jobs, to build fires in camp when they are out on a raid.
He takes the water bag made from intestines and fills it. Whether or not
it is rainy or dark or dangerous he has to do it. They tell him that the
way he acts as a novice is the way he is going to be through life. If he
minds and is prompt, that's the way he will be. In the old days a boy had
to be a novice whether he wanted to or not.
The industrialization of Europe brought with it the rise of a domestic

servant class, including persons of all ages. Previous to that, household help
at all class levels was most frequently recruited from among the young. Gilli
(1974: 15-16) described this among the peasantry:
The number of live-in servants required by particular families depended
on both the size of the holding and the age of the household ' s own off-
spring. The more well-to-do peasants were able ro hire more servants
than their poorer neighbors; and it was the case in most parts of Europe
that the wealthier a householc', the larger it was in terms of numbers, due
to the number of servants who wuld be brought under its roof. Most of
these servants were teen-aged boys and girls recruited by the wealthier
households from the poorer, a practice which thus served the function of
providing relief to those families who found themselves overburdened by
surplus children. Paid in terms of room and board, and subordinate to
the authority of the head of the household in which they were employed ,
these youths were effectively provided for, both economically and so-
cially.
Many of these young people were eventually to marry. From the meager
wages they earned during their adolescence and youth, boys whose families
could not help them might be able to acquire a small farm, and girls without
dowries could assemble a trousseau to bring into the marriage. The Irish
maid earning her trousseau was a stock character in London or New York
into the 20th century. The young girl from the country who worked as a do-
mestic in town before her marriage was a common feature in Europe and
America, even as late as the years just before the Second World War, and she
is only now beginning to disappear from those areas of Latin America and
Asia, like northern Mexico and Malaysia, that are rapidly industrializing.
The large majority of adolescents in preindustrial societies work, and
through their diligence and skill they are judged as worthy of serious consid-
eration by adults of their communhy. In state societies, schooling has been
available for the elite, but until recently most adolescents have not been in
school. We will consider schooling later in the chapter.
Physical Skills
Physical skills are the principal ways by which boys prove themselves in
a number of societies, primarily foraging or pastoral ones. Indeed, in socie-
ties of these types that rely so heavily on physical endurance and agility, it is
difficult to separate physical skill from productive activity, as the former is a
prerequisite for the latter.
The Masai of Kenya are a pastoral society in which males are assorted
into three age sets: uncircumcised boys, circumcised but unmarried adoles-
cents and youths from about 15 to about 30, and married elders. The adoles-
174 ADOLESCENCE
cents and youths, known as moran, were described by Llewelyn-Davies

(I 981 :349) as follows:
For example, moran are expected to be very brave. They live in the for-
ests, hunt lions, and face death on raids. Opportunities for the display of
courage are, indeed, actively sought. For example, moran hunt buffalo
for sport because raiding is very difficult to organize. A cowardly moran
is utterly despised by his fellows and although he will acquire a wife if his
economic prospects are good enough, he is unlikely to find any
girlfriends. The importance of bravery to the moran may be demon-
strated by the use of the word osuuji. Osuuji describes bad qualities in
persons. In the case of a girl or a woman, it implies that she is slovenly or
a poor housewife; in that of an elder, it usually means that he is poor.
But in the case of a moran, it almost a]ways means that he is a coward. I
have personally never heard a man referred to as cowardly, except in
jest. The insult is too serious to be used lightly and the imputation of
cowardice to any member of an age set would disgrace the age set as a
whole. Physical courage is thus an important element of moranhood and
mothers exhort their small sons to be brave "like little moran."
As in many societies in which physical skills are highly esteemed, the

period of adolescence and youth is the time when the individual reaches his
or her peak of selfhood. As Llewelyn-Davies (1981 :332-333) explained:
[l]t would be hard to exaggerate the importance of the institution of

moranhood to the Maasai .... moranhood is also a fundamental to the
way in which Maasai think about themselves as Maasai. ... elders look
back upon their own period of service with pride and nostalgia; women
ostentatiously express admiration for the courage and beauty of the
young men and compare them favorably, as lovers, to the elders to
whom they are married.
In all societies that we know of, adolescent boys gain the attention of
girls and adults through displays of strength and grace in such activities as
games or dancing. This is taken seriously when much of a man's success in
life depends on his physical skills, including skill in combat among the elite.
When that is the case, one way, if not necessarily the principal one, that the
boy proves himself is likely to be through some form of athletic endeavor.
When physical skills are particularly admired in boys, they are often ad-
mired in girls as well. An example comes from the Abkhasians, a Caucasus
Mountains ethnic group today located in the Abkhasian Autonomous Re-
public of the U .S.S.R. (Benet 1974:72):
At puberty, the young people become intensely involved in sports, danc-

ing, and courting, but they never touch those of the opposite sex whom
they are eligible to marry. The boys show off as sportsmen (there is com-
petition on this level) and the girls sit around and admire them. Their
courtships are quite prolonged and very romantic, with a great deal of
fantasy. Little things are exaggerated-a glance, a chance encounter on
the street-for it's a long, long way from courtship to the marriage bed.
Young women are not always passive spectators, however. They are
expected to have a great deal of stamina and endurance. To be a really
good dancer, a girl should be able to wear out three male partners since
the steps he is required to perform are more strenuous. Physical fitness
and beauty are important for both sexes.
Although the Abkhasians practiced agriculture for centuries, pastoralism
was traditionally the major source of subsistence and trade. Raiding and
fighting were a part of this economy, as they so often are for pastoralists, and
skill at horsemanship for both sexes was extolled where the occasional
woman might go to battle on horseback (Benet 1974:42; Schlegel's data col-
lected in J990). Strength, endurance, and agility were expected of everyone,
and those who excelled in these qualities were highly esteemed.
Sexual Attributes
Sexual attributes include both sexual attractiveness and sexual capacity.
Attractiveness to the opposite sex, whether or not young people sleep to-
gether, is one way that adolescents can be judged as successful by their peers
and adults. This is particularly true, although not exclusively so, of girls
when the girl's attractiveness can be a major factor in determining how good
a marriage she makes.
Sexuality is given a great deal of cultural elaboration in many parts of
the Pacific. (New Guinea rituals that require semen, sometimes obtained
through homosexual practices, have been discussed in Chapter 7 .) There is
widespread tolerance, and sometimes even encouragement, of adolescent
sexual adventures, but these are not merely for the amusement of the young.
Weiner (1988:71), who has analyzed adolescent sexuality in the Trobriand
Islands, a Melanesian society, stated:
Attracting lovers is not a frivolous, adolescent pastime. It is the first step
toward entering the adult world of strategies, where the line between in-
fluencing others while not allowing others to gain control of oneself
must be carefully learned. The procurement of magic spells "that de-
stroy someone's mind" leads to dangerous actions because effective
spells collapse a person's autonomy and establish control over the other
person's thoughts. Sexual liaisons give adolescents the time and occasion
to experiment with all the possibilities and problems that adults face in
creating relationships with those who are relatives. Individual wills may
clash, and the achievement of one's desires takes patience, hard work,
and determination. The adolescent world of lovemaking has its own dan-
176 ADOLESCENCE
gers and disillusionments. Young people, to the degree they are capable,
must learn to be both careful and fearless.
When sexual attractiveness can lead to status improvement, it is serious

business. The story of Cinderella only thinly veils the desire to marry up,
using beauty to attract a superior husband. This tale, first recorded by
Charles Perrault in 1697, reflects the fantasy of upward female mobility
through marriage. Although the likelihood of this happening was remote in
18th and 19th century Europe, the possibility was a resonant theme in popu-
lar culture, worthy of adult drama; for example, the opera "La Ceneren-
tola," composed by Jacapo Ferretti in 1817, is still performed.
Sexual attractiveness as a vehicle for social improvement through mar-
riage is not limited to women. We saw in Chapter 7 how the value placed on
virginity is patterned across cultures by type of marriage transaction, and we
interpreted this value in gift-exchanging and dowry-giving societies as an ex-
pression of parental concern that their daughter not be seduced by an unwel-
come suitor who then claims her and her child. The other side of that coin is
the po.<isibiHty that an ambitious and lucky young man can do just that.
Jnterest in seducing virgins is probably present whenever virginity is val-
ued: many boys and men may be tempted to seduce virgins just for the chal-
lenge, which adds an element of uncertainty and even danger to an already
highly charged act. In some societies boys and youths are obsessed with the
possibility and go to great lengths to achieve it. This has been noted again
and again in Polynesia, where the seduction of a virgin of high rank is a spe-
cial coup. It is not only the spice of the forbidden; when status considerations
enter strongly into marriage and the marriage of a low-status boy with a
high-status girl is virtually impossible to negotiate, the interest in defloration
has as much to do with social mobility as with pleasure.
Winning the heart of a higher-status woman as a path to a better life
may be a male fantasy in all societies that are divided by rank or class, or at
least in those in which men will not be killed or severely punished for the
attempt. Adolescent boys have nothing to lose and much to gain if they can
make a paternity claim on the child of a high-status girl. In such a setting,
where only a few can succeed, all boys will be tempted to refine their skills
with virgins of their own rank, while hoping for their big chance with a
taupou (the Samoan "village princess") or her equivalent.
Lt is well recognized that some women use their sexual attractiveness to
try to improve their position through a socially advantageous marriage or
liaison. It should not surprise us that men and adolescent boys do the same if
the opportunity exists. When sexual success can be translated into social suc-
cess, it is predictable that men and boys not only make themselves attractive
to women but also make sexual exploits a major topic of discussion, teasing,
and boasting. In such cases, male competitiveness is channelted into overt
sexual competitiveness (Schlegel I 991).
Schooling
One important avenue to success in rno'ctern society is schooling. This
opportunity, or burden as the case may be, is not part of adolescent Ii feint he
large majority of societies in this sample. Education for adult skills comes
through working alongside parents and other adults and through apprentice-
ships to master craftsmen. Understanding of tribal lore, inculcation of be-
liefs and values, ritual knowledge, and the like come to the adolescent
through participation and informal explanation. Cautionary tales are proba-
bly a universal way of conveying lessons in morals and etiquette. Opler's
Mescalero Apache informant reminisced about this form of education in ear-
lier times (Opler 1969:63):
Old Man Luntso and his wife ... were good storytellers too .... We
used to get these old people to tell us about Goose. I'd go to their camp
and say, "Uncle and Aunt, tell us stories." They were not relatives to
me, but I'd call them this just so they wouldn't refuse .... If they were
willing, a whole bunch of us would come to their camp. Then they'd
begin the story and take turns telling it. They would often stop right in
the middle of a story to explain the meaning and give a lesson .... They
would tell stories till dawn.
Slightly more formal instruction, to groups of young people, was given

in the so-called "bush schools" of sub-Saharan Africa (cf. Watkins 1943).
Societies in which these schools are prominent in the sample include the
Mende, Wolof, Songhai, and Tallensi. They were held at sites at some dis-
tance from the village, and boys entered them for a period of several months
to several years. Age of entry varied, usually being in late childhood to early
biological adolescence. Schools for girls were similar, but their period of
schooling usually did not last as long as the boys'. During this time, children
and adolescents were given training in specific gender-linked tasks such as
warfare (boys) or cooking (girls), as well as general instruction in tribal Ii fe
and lore. Small groups of children and adolescents had intensive contact with
a number of adults of the same sex. This was considered to be a time of spir-
itual transformation, and when the young people emerged from the school,
they were reborn. While in the bush school, children were expected to elimi-
nate undesirable traits and to perfect themselves through diligence and the
endurance of hardship. Weaklings and deviants might not be reborn; if they
failed to appear at the end of schooling, their parents were expected not to
grieve.
The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan had something like a bush school (but
without the seclusion) for most boys, as well as a special school, more like the
traditional schools of Eurasia, for the chosen sons of nobles and a few espe-
cially talented young commoners. The following description is drawn from
Peterson (1959).
178 ADOLESCENCE
It is not clear how early boys entered these schools, but they were partici-
pants during their adolescence if not before. The boys in the ordinary
school, the Telpochcalli (House of Youth), got moral training along with
instruction in religion, history, music, and martial arts. The purpose was
to turn them into good citizen-soldiers. They slept at the school but were
released for part of each day to go home to eat and to work with their
families. Punjshment for infractions of discipline was severe: an illustra-
tion in the Codex Mendocino shows a disobedient boy who is being pun-
ished by a man sticking maguey spines into his naked body while his
hands and feet are tied. The curlicue indicating speech emanates from
the punisher's mouth, and we can imagine that the young victim must lis-
ten to a lecture while he endures the pain of his corporal punishment.
The more selective school, the Calmecac (Row of Houses), gave boys
training in cognitive skills as well as in history and the arts. Jn a monas-
tery-Ii ke setting, they learned how to calculate the calendar, serve the
gods, read and write, and do arithmetic. In addition, they were given
moral, civic, and military instruction. lt was from this school that the
priests and the higher political officials were drawn.
Schools, in the sense of special institutions for the inculcation of cogni-

tive skills as well as large bodies of knowledge, are confined to states among
the preindustrial societies. Their students are drawn primarily from the aris-
tocracy and the urban mercantile and professional classes, although in many
cases in both Europe and Asia in earlier times an intelligent and ambitious
son of peasants or the urban poor could advance himself through education.
One reason that the Catholic Church in Europe was open to clergy drawn
from lower-status sectors may have been that through its educational system
it was able to use the talents of these boys and men; at the same time, clerical
celibacy avoided the embarrassing question of marriage for such persons of
humble origin who nevertheless occupied high positions.
Our coding schedule included questions about the importance of teach-
ers as socializing agents and the opportunity, choice, and frequency of
schooling available to adolescents. Although a fair number of societies were
coded for these variables, the terms teachers and schooling have different
meanings in the code from these terms as commonly used in the modern
world. Teachers includes masters in a master-apprentice relationship, the in-
structors in the bush school, ritual instructors, and even minstrels, who in
Armenia are the voice of morality. In some cases, as among the Kurds of
Iran, only a small number of adolescent boys are in school; in other cases, as
among Turkish villagers, boys attend a mosque school for a few hours in the
week. The variety of mearungs of these codings makes them unusable for
drawing comparisons with modern schooling.
Even though few or the societies in the sample have schools as we know
them for adolescents, there are data from which inferences can be made
about the effects of schooling. In most of the societies, adults of the same sex
are the principal companions of adolescents (in 66 percent of 161 cases for
boys and in 84 percent of 160 cases for girls). Peers are the principal compan-
ions in most of the remaining cases. This latter group of societies most
closely resembles those in which adolescents are in the classroom. The ado-
lescents are with other adolescents more waking hours of the day than they
are in one-to-one or small-group relations with adults, a they would be in a
master-apprentice relationship or a bush-school setting. Table 9.11 shows
the significant associations for boys. When women are not the principal
companions of girls, only one variable, sexual permissiveness, is significantly
associated at the .05 level. Girls away from adult female control have greater
sexual freedom (cf. Table 7 .6).
Adolescence in such societies is more sharply set apart from both child-
hood and adulthood, as these young people are not so tightly integrated into
the family as are the persons of other ages, nor are they integrated into the
community, as are adults. A considerable amount of contact with the peer
group is self-evident. Opportunity for productive property is a result of the
economic activities of these societies, many of them pastoral ones in which
adolescent boys are beginning to assemble their own herds. Sexual freedom
for boys and permissiveness for girls relate to the generally lower level of
control by adults over adolescents' activities. The lower valuation of boys in
this set of societies may result from the tension between the desire of adults
to control adolescent boys and their inability to do so, along with a general
distrust of what boys are up to away from adult supervision.
These findings suggest that a society increases its difficulties with ado-
lescents by putting them in the classroom. The common complaint among
modernizing societies that young people are not as they used to be is very
likely more than just a nostalgic longing. The transformation of the adoles-
cent social setting from one of apprenticeship to a parent or other adult to
one composed primarily of peers has marked effects on how adolescents be-
have. These changes are not always perceived by adults as salutary.
Table 9.11 Where Men Are Not the Principal Companions of Boys
Variable N r pa
Differentiation from childhood 154 .19 .020

Differentiation from adulthood 151 .19 .020
Amount of contact with peer group 120 .22 .018
Opportunity for productive property 89 .23 .028
Sexual freedom 137 .22 .009
Lower valuation of adolescents 104 . I9 .048
aCalculated by the Mantel-Haenszel test and the cross-tabulation program.

180 ADOLESCENCE
Adult Perceptions of Adolescents
Adolescents are perceived by adults in various ways-sometimes favor-

ably, sometimes less so, often ambivalently. From the information the cod-
ers were able to find, virtually all societies in the sample have friendly
perceptions of adolescents. Yet, we know from some of the more recent stud-
ies of the self or of cultural perceptions of gender and age categories that
alongside these positive attitudes may go less favorable ones. The Hopi
mother, for example, finds her adolescent daughter's resistance as tiresome
as the daughter finds her mother's intensified discipline oppressive. As we
have seen in Chapter 4, this undercurrent of tension casts a shadow on the
mother-daughter relationship during this period; later, both agree that the
discipline was necessary and smile about the daughter's protests. Ambiva-
lence may extend toward actions that are deplored; the Gros Ventre boys will
be scolded for their meat raids while the daring ones are admired for the skill
that they will later transfer to raiding enemies for horses (see Chapter 7).
Kirkpatrick (1987) depicted the ambivalence felt toward adolescents,
particularly boys, in the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia. The following
sketch is drawn from his account. It refers to the mi.d-1970s, but probably
similar patterns were present in the precoionial period.
After leaving school at 14, girls become absorbed into the domestic econ-
omy, working alongside their mothers on tasks they have already
learned. Boys may also work alongside the adult men of their house-
holds, but they do so less diligently, since adults are likely to claim credit
for any work done for the household and give little reward to adolescent
helpers. Instead, boys may be spending their time away from home in
such productive activities as fishing, horticultural or agricultural paid
work, or other kinds of wage labor. In order to be perceived as success-
ful workers, therefore, they may have to leave home and join the com-
pany of other adolescent boys, where they are out of parental
supervision and seen as being up to no good. The term taure'are'a, de-
fined by Kirkpatrick as "errant youth," describes the behavior believed
to characterize adolescents, particularly boys. It includes laziness, sexual
license, irresponsibility, self-absorption, and devotion to pleasure. At
the same time, boys represent their communities in intervalley sports and
dance competitions, where their beauty and grace and physical prowess
are much admired.
Modern parents are often dismayed at the change that comes over their
children at adolescence, and it is not uncommon for them to reevaluate their
attitude toward their children as a result. "I still love him, but I don't like
him'' is the guilty admission of many parents in response to unexpected rude-
ness or thoughtlessness. Adolescents often believe that they are not perceived
in a friendly fashion, whether or not this is true: in a small sample of German
Table 9.12 Continuity in Cultural Attitudes toward Childhood and

Adolescence
Boys Girls
Na r p't> r Pb
Permissiveness 122 .32 < .001 .34 <.001

Affection 83 .24 .028 .33 .003
Evaluation 109 .14 .38 < .001
aOnly societies with scores for bo1h exes arc included for each mea ure.
bCalculated by the Mantel-Haens2.el test and the cross-tabulation program.
adolescent responses collected by the first author in 1989, in formants main-

tained that they were often viewed negatively by adults. This is in a country
where children and adolescents are valued, as indicated by general accep-
tance in public places and by the resources allocated by the state to meet their
maintenance, intellectual, and recreational needs.
There is little evidence in this sample for a sharp contrast between atti-
tudes toward children and attitudes toward adolescents. Table 9. I 2 shows
that permissiveness and affection toward children carry over toward adoles-
cents of both sexes. Evaluation, whether high or low, is continuous from
childhood to adolescence for girls but not for boys. Whether the lack of con-
tinuity for boys is due to a drop in evaluation at adolescence or a rise, or
both, is not clear. As in earlier measures of continuity reported in this chap-
ter, contact with parents and contact with age-mates, there is greater disjunc-
ture between childhood and adolescence for boys than for girls.
When the perception of adolescents by adults is less than favorable, ad-
olescents have to cope with that burden while at the same time preparing to
enter the adult society that stigmatizes them. How they cope and how they
make the transition from disapproved adolescent to disapproving adult are
questions for further psychological and cultural examination. Is the failure
to make a successful transition to adulthood more widespread in disapprov-
ing cultures than in those in which adolescents are regarded more favorably?
Is disapproval, or strong ambivalence, more likely to be found when adoles-
cents, particularly boys, are more segregated from adults in schools or work
groups of peers? These questions concern not only the quality of life of ado-
lescents but also the chances they have to move into successful adulthood.
10
Gender Differences:
Final and Proximate Causes
THE discussion in Chapter 2 and the ethogram that illustrates it (Fig 2.1)
present what we believe to be the fundamental difference between girls and
boys in adolescence and a contributing factor to the other differences we
have identified. Across the societies in the sample, girls have more contact
and greater intimacy with mothers than boys do with parents of either sex.
Brought along with their mothers into the company of women, girls partici-
pate in multigenerational groups. Boys, even when they work alongside their
fathers, have less contact and intimacy with them and other men than do girls
with women. Leisure hours-and sometimes working hours as well-are
spent in the company of age-mates.
This sex difference cuts across a wide range of societies. As it occurs in
sexually egalitarian as well as male-dominant societies and among informally
organized foragers as well as in traditional states, it is unlikely to be strictly
"cultural," that is, a pattern that each culture or each cultural tradition in-
vents for itself or borrows from its neighbors. We suggest that the difference
is a feature of our species and predict that analyses of adolescence in modern
industrial societies would find a like pattern, in spite of massive changes such
as coeducation and the increasing similarity in the socialization of girls and
boys.
To explain this sex difference, we offered a final cause argument. We
proposed that the practice of drawing girls into the company of women and
directing boys toward peers until they are accepted by adult men is a variant
method of achieving sexual separation, found in other species as well, that
functions to prevent close inbreeding. Every species has its own evolutionary
history, and each has evolved to minimize inbreeding in its own way. The
evolution of human social behavior is a topic much debated at present, and
we do not intend to enter the fray. However, we do point out that what is
accomplished in other primates by leaving the troop at puberty, or sequester-
182
Gender Differences: Final and Proximate Causes 183
ing females in harems by unrelated males, or expelling both young males and
young females from the territory of the parental couple, is accomplished in
Homo sapiens by psychological inhibitions to close mating and the cultural
reinforcement of the incest taboo. In addition, after puberty there is some
measure of sexual separation, so that girls are somewhat withdrawn from
male kin and the attention of boys is displaced outside the home. These tend-
encies toward sexual separation do not arise de novo at adolescence but al-
ready appear in childhood, as even quite young children have been shown
generally to prefer the company of children of their own sex, even when there
are no barriers to mixed-sex play (Whiting and Edwards 1988).
Similarities and Dissimilarities Between the Sexes
There are more commonalities in the behavior and treatment of girls

and boys than there are distinctions. On most measures in this study, the
contrast within any particular society is not very great. When self-reliance is
inculcated for boys, so it is for girls; when one sex is denied sexual freedom,
the other is also; treatment of boys and girls is likely to be similarly harsh or
gentle. We find no evidence that socialization differences are so great as to
produce, for example, aggressive boys and passive girls (or vice versa).
Having said that, we can examine further those areas in which there are
gender differences. Here we build on the findings presented in earlier chap-
ters. While we link gender differences to the fundamental contrast between
girls and boys in their relation to adults versus peers, we do not propose that
this difference in allocation of time and intensity of relationship is the only
contributing factor. However, we hope to demonstrate that it should not be
overlooked in any comparisons between the sexes.
We should note that the amount of information available on the two
sexes is different, in part because there are more male than female ethnogra-
phers and men have more opportunities to observe boys or take more notice
of them. It is also probably the case that boys' activities appear more exotic
to Western observers than girls': girls seemingly do much the same things in
many places, whereas what boys do in one society may be very different from
what they do in another. This seems to be a real difference rather than an
effect of observer bias; for even with adequate information, the variation
across cultures is greater for boys than it is for girls. If cross-cultural under-
standing is based on closer affinities and shared experiences, such under-
standing may be easier for women than for men to achieve.
Adolescent girls and boys differ in the degree of continuity and change
from childhood in the nature of their social settings. Childhood is character-
ized by hierarchy in day-to-day activities, the child subordinate to the adults
of the family. Children make very few decisions that will affect their lives in
significant ways. Adults, unless they are slaves and thereby classed as social
184 ADOLESCENCE
minors, do make important decisions about their lives, no matter how much
they may have to defer to senior men or women of the kin group or commu-
nity. Within their own gender and social rank or class, adult life is character-
ized by relative equality.
Adolescents are midway between the hierarchy of childhood and the rel-
ative equality of adulthood. The sexes experience this transitional period in
different ways, however. Through their relations with their mothers and
other adult women, girls continue within the hierarchy of childhood more
than do boys. 1 Even when a puberty ceremony at or around menarche marks
the girl's new adolescent status, the social setting of her daily life differs little
from that of earlier years. In fact, in those cases in which her freedom is more
restricted and she cannot roam about with age-mates as she could as a youn-
ger child, her setting becomes even more hierarchical. The greater involve-
ment of boys in the peer group provides more of a disjuncture from
childhood, as the equality of peer group relations prepares them for the egal-
itarian interactions of adult male life.
As a result, we propose, girls in our sample ease into adolescence more
gently than do boys. The separation from the family and particularly from
her mother is less for the girl than for her brother. Contrary to those who
believe that the close identification with the mother makes the girl's assertion
of autonomy more of a struggle than the boy's, we believe that this identifi-
cation in fact makes autonomy less of a critical issue and a struggle unneces-
sary. One can become one's own person gradually.
Girls are placed in a hierarchical setting more often than are boys, and
the setting itself is also somewhat different for the two sexes. Boys, too, are
in a subordinate position vis-a-vis adults, particularly men, and therefore in
a hierarchical setting in many of their daily activities. However, the hierarchy
of girls and women is ameliorated by the greater involvement they have with
one another and, as a result, the greater ease that adolescent girls feel with
adult women than boys feel with adult men. Girls are accepted by women
much more than boys are by men.
We do not intend to exaggerate the extent of involvement of boys in
their peer groups, even as we draw a contrast between the sexes. As boys
grow into later childhood and adolescence, they often spend time with their
fathers and other related men on the men's work that supports the family.
Thus, it is common for boys to work alongside their fathers as girls work
alongside their mothers, and in this matter there is similarity between the
sexes. However, the boy does not usually accompany his father to events un-
related to the household, as the girl accompanies her mother. When he does,
or when he interacts with men outside the home, the boy and his age-mates
are likely to be relegated to the periphery of the men's group, both literally,
in that they are placed behind or at the edge of the men's cluster or on the
other side of the room, and metaphorically, as they are rarely asked for their
opinion nor would they be so bold as to offer it.
Boys are more likely to find their voice in the peer group. These groups
become not only the setting within which age-related concerns and interests
are expressed, as they are for girls, but also structures that compensate boys
for the diminished attachment to the home and the refusal of men to absorb
them into their activities.
The peer group is different in character from the family. While the fam-
ily is hierarchical, the peer group is egalitarian. It is not usual for even the
hierarchy of a society divided by rank or class to be reflected in peer group
hierarchy. A young prince, by nature of his exalted social status, would be
the arbiter of the boys' social circle at court, and Fijian boys of high rank are
the leaders of the peer groups to which they belong as long as they have the
other qualifications (see Chapter 5), but such ascribed hierarchies tend to be
uncommon. (Out of 29 societies with information on boys, only seven have
ascribed leadership.) The positions of recognized leaders are more usually
achieved on merit than ascribed by class or rank.
A consequence of the boy's attachment to the peer group is that he is
committed to two structures of quite different character. At the same time
that he is asserting himself in the peer group, learning to compete and to
compromise, he remains subordinate within the family. It is reasonable to
suppose that the boy is tempted to carry over into the family the new skills
that he is perfecting in the peer group and to resent the imposition of disci-
pline associated with a childhood that he is leaving behind. The conflict be-
tween assertion and compliance is greater for the boy than for the girl, and it
can lead to strained family relations and to social awkwardness.
The greater disengagement of boys than girls from the family usually
results in boys taking a greater part than girls in community activities. Boys,
not girls, are sometimes the enforcers of community norms on adults (see
Chapter 5). There may be some exceptions; in some European peasant vil-
lages, girls and boys seem to take equal parts in the production of certain
village festivities. It may also be the case in modern states that girls are more
engaged than boys in community projects sponsored by churches and chari-
ties.
The fact that boys are involved in peer groups more than girls·gives boys
some advantages at the same time that it may make adolescence a more dif-
ficult time. As we have already indicated, the boys' peer group prepares its
members for the more egalitarian relations of adult community life, in which
competition over resources and status must coexist with cooperation to
achieve goals perceived as beneficial to all. For boys, but not for girls, high
competitiveness and high cooperativeness occur within the same setting, and
boys are socialized by the peer group both to compete and to cooperate.
Boys' peer groups are more often task- or goal-oriented than are girls',
whether the goal be to arrange an event or to organize a competitive game
(Schlegel and Barry 1989). Girls are more likely to engage in noncompetitive
activities that are not goal-oriented, such as conversation or cooperative
186 ADOLESCENCE
play. There is a good deal of talk lately about putting girls into team sports
to teach them goal-oriented skills. For many girls, as for many boys, compet-
itive athletics hold little interest. Sports are only one way of training for the
cooperative-competitive skills that facilitate successful political behavior.
These skills can just as readily be learned in other kinds of goal-oriented peer
group activities.
The greater expectation of assertion and training for it that boys experi-
ence means that the control of impulses is generally less reinforced for boys
than it is for girls, among whom the weight of socialization is toward compli-
ance. This is seen in the large gender difference in antisocial behavior, as
apparent in this sample as in industrial nations. The aggressiveness of boys
within their peer groups can lead to violence, fighting with other boys or
using violent means to assert their masculinity. When boys feel the need to
prove themselves to each other, fighting or stealing is often the result in tribes
as well as in modern states.
This study suggests that girls' peer groups may reinforce rather than
challenge social norms. Girls who have more contact with other girls are less
likely to be deviant than are women (see Table 8.8). High levels of peer con-
tact are correlated with high aggressiveness for boys, but not for girls (see
Table 9.5). Girls in nuclear families are more likely to be aggressive than girls
in stem or extended families (see Table 9.5), a finding that we have interpre-
ted as due both to the girl's more strained relations with her mother and to a
decrease in intimate contact with other girls and women in the home.
While girls certainly compete with one another for the most desirable
boyfriend or future spouse and for status (popularity) within the group, this
competitiveness does not appear to lead to antisocial behavior, as it does for
boys. Girls' misbehavior is most often what is known in legal terminology as
status offenses, that is, acts that are not delinquent when committed by
adults, such as sexual misbehavior and running away. Boys also commit
these offenses, but in addition they commit the more serious delinquent acts,
both in our sample and in modern society (cf. Miller 1979). Both sexual ac-
tivity (in societies in which it is not permitted to adolescents) and voluntarily
leaving the home are adult privileges. Girls who claim them are to some de-
gree asserting their maturity. From this sample, the evidence of girls fighting
or stealing is very sparse, and the proportion that does in modern nations is
small compared to boys. Fighting or stealing may be replicating the antiso-
cial behavior of the women whom they imitate, for deviant children are often
the product of deviant adults.
One reason for greater compliance, we believe, is that girls, having close
relations with women, are more accepting of adult norms; in other words,
adolescent girls are more socially mature than adolescent boys. Another rea-
son may be a greater tolerance for boys' deviance; because boys are some-
what disengaged from the family, they may have greater freedom to break
rules in ways that do not affect the family. We believe, however, that the
Gender Differences: Final and Proximate Causes 18 7
compliance of girls is largely the result of their wish to keep their mothers'
love and approval. It seems to reflect an unspoken contract between mothers
and daughters that good behavior is the payment for close contact and inti-
macy.
The Origin of Gender Differences in Adolescence
The differences we have found in adolescence have their roots in child-

hood. Many studies of younger children have shown that girls are more likely
to form attachments to older girls and women to get what they want, whereas
boys tend to rely more on aggression and strength for access to resources.
Boys seek out the company of age-mates more than do girls. Additional dif-
ferences, found in both human and primate juveniles, are that young females
are more sociable and nurturant, whereas young males are more active, ex-
ploratory, and interested in objects, that is, in nonsocial stimulation (Hall
1985).
The search for origins leads us to ask what determines these gender dif-
ferences early in life. Are there precursors in infancy that are later elabo-
rated? The literature on infant attachment to the mother does not indicate
much difference between boys and girls. In their investigation of attachment
behavior through the responses of infants to unfamiliar situations, Ains-
worth et al. (1978:81) found no significant sex difference in the behaviors of
babies and toddlers. It appears, thus, that the sex difference in individuation
between child and mother is a silent process, working itself out in ways that
are not readily observable and measurable in the interaction between mother
and very young child. Because the mental products-the dreams, fantasies,
perceptions-of the infant cannot be recorded and analyzed, when or how or
by what steps this process occurs is unknown. Inferred rather than observed,
the process is reconstructed from the fantasy material of older children and
adults.
The individuation process is underway by the second year of life. Chil-
dren are weaned by mothers, generally between two and three (Barry and
Paxson 1980). Well before this, babies and toddlers are frequently turned
over to older children to be cared for while the mother gets on with her tasks
(Weisner and Gallimore 1977). These behaviors are observable and measur-
able. It is not clear whether treatment differs according to the sex of the
child. There is no evidence we know of to suggest that weaning practices are
different for boys and girls or that one sex is left with child-minders more
than the other. All the cross-cultural data on infancy and early childhood
suggest that, at least until weaning, treatment of girls and boys is very sim-
ilar; if any sex difference can be detected, it is in such things as whether a tiny
bow and arrow or a doll are tied to the cradleboard or some very minor dis-
tinction in clothing. However, the available published data reflect only gross
188 ADOLESCENCE
measures and do not allow for fine-grained analyses of infant socialization.

For both sexes, the mother pushes the child into independence as she teaches
it skills and responds less to its demands as it gets older. (Mother surrogates,
such as nannies, do the same.)
These cross-cultural observations receive support from studies on
infant-mother interaction conducted in industrial nations, reviewed in
Maccoby and Jacklin (1974). Most of the findings, particularly for such mea-
surable features of early child socialization as smiling at, holding, and touch-
ing, reveal either no sex difference or inconsistent differences among the
studies. There are suggestions, however, that differences do exist. In four of
the studies cited that relied on interviews with older children about how
much affection they have received from their parents, girls reported more.
Maccoby and Jacklin (1974:313) stated:
Since observational studies of parent behavior when the children are
younger do not usually report differential parental warmth to children of
the two sexes, the differences reported by the children themselves may ei-
ther reflect selective perceptions on the children's part or indicate that
differentiation in parental warmth to the two sexes does develop but only
some time after the children reach school age.
To these alternatives we can add a third, that there is a tone to the interaction
that cannot be measured by techniques currently used but is perceived by the
infant, the content of the interaction conveying more maternal attachment
to the girl than to the boy. Observations of behavior may leave much unde-
tected: in their studies of very young children, Jacklin and Maccoby (1978)
found that these children gravitated to same-sex companions significantly
more than expected by chance even when the observers could not tell the sex
of the children by dress, behavior, or any other visual clues. Subtle differ-
ences in the treatment of girls and boys may be equally inaccessible to ob-
servers.
In spite of the lack of clear confirmation from observational studies, the
possibility is still open that the mother pulls away from the infant son to a
greater degree than from the daughter. Putting it another way, the boy is
extruded more than the girl. We do not use the term reject because this im-
plies coldness and insensitivity to the child, whereas some degree of extrusion
is both necessary and desirable for normal social development (cf. Cohen
1964). In our view, the extrusion process that begins in infancy with the
mother separating herself from her infant is of greater magnitude for boys
than for girls.
Several possible theoretical explanations of the development of gender
differences have been advanced. One emphasizes sex-role socialization (dis-
cussed in Draper 1985): children are held to learn their gender from those
around them, that is, gender is primarily influenced by the environment in
which the child is placed. Another, developed by Draper (1985), is "prepared

learning": girls and boys are prepared from birth to learn differently, even if
they are placed within the same environment. Draper related this prepared-
ness to the different reproductive strategies of the sexes across many species,
in that greater risk taking and keener interest in competitive and dominance
activities by males are related to competition for females, while the more
nurturant and affiliative behaviors of females are related to the need for fe-
males to keep their offspring alive if they are going to be reproductively suc-
cessful. This explanation holds that gender differences are initiated by the
child itself.
Another explanation that puts the burden of gender differentiation
upon the child is the widely accepted psychoanalytic view that the child dis-
tances itself from the mother, there being a marked difference between the
sexes in this process. At the earliest stage of life, the child identifies with the
mother and is unable to differentiate itself from the mother. As it matures,
the child perceives itself as different. The significance for gender difference
is that the girl continues to identify with the mother more than the boy does,
for she perceives herself to be female like her mother whereas the boy per-
ceives himself to be other. The boy, therefore, must switch his gender identi-
fication to his father and other males. This view has been cogently
summarized and related to ethnographic data by Gregor (1985).
Bischof (1975b), speaking as both an ethologist and a psychologist, also
treated the individuation process as initiated by the child. He sees the proxi-
mal cause of individuation in the surfeit response of the child to overly famil-
iar stimuli. Bischof considered the final cause for this behavior to be the
prevention of incest. (This explanation, however, does not account for a sex
difference in disengagement.)
As one cannot get into the mind of an infant, one cannot test whether
the early identification with the mother includes gender identification or
whether gender identity arises after the individuation process is well enough
under way that the child's perception is not confused. We question the psy-
choanalytic assumption of early female gender identity for both sexes, with a
necessary switch for boys. We put considerable weight on the idea that the
environment, in the form of the mother, initiates both the individuation and
the gender differentiation processes. We propose that it is the mother who
perceives gender similarity with her daughter and dissimilarity with her son
and therefore behaves differently toward children of different sexes, distanc-
ing boys more than girls. This does not mean that mothers are necessarily less
warm or loving toward sons or that they respond less rapidly to the cries or
actions of boys; in fact, any particular mother may show greater affection to
sons than to daughters, especially in patrilocal families in which a woman's
son is her guarantee of a secure position in the family when she is old. The
differences we refer to can be subtle and very small, slight differences, per-
190 ADOLESCENCE
haps, in length of gazing at the child, in quantity of talk to the child, or of

vocal tone, which are very difficult to measure, particularly in a laboratory
setting.
The result of such early maternal treatment would be to bind the daugh-
ter closer, to reward her for affiliative behavior and for compliance. The
son, pushed more into the world of objects and depending more on his own
resources for gratification, would develop a greater interest in exploration
and in the manipulation of objects. Object manipulation, in fact, might be a
compensatory form of gratification. He would learn fewer of the social skills
at an early age and would be less mature than girls of his age in gaining com-
pliance of others; he would be more likely to hit, grab, or whine-the behav-
ior of infants-in exerting social dominance than would the girl, who has
already learned to persuade and to negotiate. While the girl remains attached
to her mother and the females with whom the mother interacts as she gets
older, the boy would be drawn more into interaction with peers, as compen-
sation for the diminished attachment to the mother. Although these early
behaviors are modified as children mature, they would establish modes of
response that can be carried into later life, particularly when these are rein-
forced by conditions that promote more compliance and affiliation for fe-
males and more aggression and competitiveness for males. We propose then,
that very early socialization establishes patterns that are reinforced in child-
hood and adolescence.
This position is similar to that of Chodorow (1978), who attributed gen-
der differences and their replication, generation after generation, to the fact
that it is women who mother. She stated: "Because of their mothering by
women, girls come to experience themselves as less separate than boys, as
having more permeable ego boundaries. Girls come to define themselves
more in relation to others" (Chodorow 1978:93). After reviewing the clinical
and interview evidence, she concluded (Chodorow 1978:109):
Because they are the same gender as their daughters and have been girls,
mothers of daughters tend not to experience these infant daughters as
separate from them in the same way as do mothers of infant sons. In
both cases, a mother is likely to experience a sense of oneness and conti-
nuity with her infant. However, this sense is stronger, and lasts longer,
vis-a-vis daughters. 2
An important feature of Chodorow's analysis is that she emphasized
the interactive nature of socialization for gender identity and behavior. Un-
like many psychologists who put the burden of individuation upon the in-
fant, she asserted that the emotional breaking away of the child is due to
push from the mother as well as pull by the child itself.
The interpretations just discussed are not necessarily mutually exclu-
sive, nor do they exclude the possibility of gender differences in behavior
based on neurological or hormonal variance between the sexes, which is par-
ticularly compatible with Draper's concept of prepared learning. There is im-

pressive evidence for biological differences in the sexes that go beyond the
primary and secondary sex characteristics. Considerable research has been
done on the sex-specific hormones and their effects on the central nervous
systems of male and female fetuses. While human infants have not been ex-
perimentally reared in isolation from others from whom sex role learning
could take place, higher primates have, and they exhibit sex-typed behavior.
These observations support a conclusion that some differences between the
sexes have a biological base on which social learning elaborates.
A biological base does not exclude the role of culture or setting in amel-
iorating these differences. In small foraging bands such as the !Kung of the
Kalahari Desert (Draper and Cashdan 1988) or the Eskimo (Richard Con-
don, personal communication) there are rarely enough children around at
any one time to permit sex-specific or age-specific play or peer groups to
form. Children and young adolescents of both sexes tend to play together,
although girls marry shortly after puberty and the older boys are often away
practicing their hunting. In these cases, gender differences, at least in child-
hood, may be less than they are in societies whose population size allows for
sex- and age-specific peer groups that reinforce socialization for sex roles and
instill marked contrasts in behavior.
In a species such as our own, in which individuals reflect on and deliber-
ately modify their own activities and those of others, the determination of
any pervasive human difference such as gender is unlikely to have a simple or
single cause. It is certainly unwarranted to take a strong stand for either sex-
role learning or prepared learning to the exclusion of the other position,
when there is supportive evidence for both. As Daly and Wilson (1978:251)
rightly stated: "Thinking in terms of nature versus nurture is nowhere more
mischievous than in the study of sex differences.,, Some of the determinants
will be unique to our species, while others may be shared with other primates.
Although monkeys and apes are not humans with fur, there are primate
behavioral analogs that can be used, with caution, in developing or support-
ing hypotheses about our species. One such behavior relevant to infant extru-
sion is the reported observation that rhesus monkey mothers embrace and
clasp female infants more than males and show less threat and rejecting be-
havior to females than to males (Mitchell and Brandt 1970, cited in Maccoby
and Jacklin 1974). Research on other species indicates that this sex difference
in infant socialization is widespread among troop dwelling primates:
Simonds ( 1977) cited studies that show similar patterns among bonnet ma-
caques, savannah baboons, hamadryas baboons, and langurs. Among the
bonnet macaques, female infants are groomed and handled more gently than
males. It may be that by this means the mother binds the female to herself
and her fem ale assembly.
One observable difference among primate infants is that males more
than females leave the assembly to play with other infants, and their play is
192 ADOLESCENCE
rougher. The male infant savannah baboon is ejected from the female assem-
bly by females (excluding his mother) before he is weaned, whereas female
infants remain with the assembly and do not spend the long hours in play
that their brothers do. Even though female hamadryas baboons spend their
juvenile and adult lives in "harems" with a single male consort instead of in
female assemblies, as infants they also leave the mother less often between
nursings and groomings than do males. (The "harem" itself constitutes a
kind of small female assembly.) Langur female infants remain close to their
mothers and other females, whereas male infants begin to seek out contacts
with adult males by approaching them. Simonds (1977: 170) summed up the
evidence by stating that "a mother monkey reacts differently to her male and
female offspring, with the result that the male is forced to become indepen-
dent earlier than the female and to associate with his peer play group.' ' 3
We would not expect any difference in treatment between the infant girl
and boy to be as marked as between the female and male infant primate,
because the human infant is being socialized for life in a mixed-sex family
whereas the (troop-dwelling) primate infant is preparing to attach itself ei-
ther to female assemblies or to male cohorts. Nevertheless, the primate data
suggest a similar but much more subtle pattern in human mother-child inter-
action.
We come to the conclusion that the final cause of sexual separation in
human society is to aid in the prevention of close inbreeding. Final causes are
realized through proximal causes. The proximal cause we have identified is
the greater extrusion by the mother of the boy than of the girl in the normal
socialization process. This does not preclude other possible proximal causes,
such as a greater propensity for boys, as a result of prenatal hormonal ef-
fects, to pull away from the mother, to explore their environment and ma-
nipulate objects, and to form attachments to age-mates rather than to older
individuals. In other words, there is no conflict between sex-role learning, in
the form of the mother establishing gender difference through her differen-
tial treatment of the sexes, and prepared learning, through biological differ-
ences already present at birth.
Given close female attachments, it is easy to see why mothers should
incorporate their daughters into their circles, making the mixed-age associa-
tions of women and girls analogous to the primate "female assembly." But
why do fathers and other men exclude adolescent boys from their ''male co-
horts"?
There are several possible answers. One is that men and boys have fewer
interests in common than women and girls, as boys have little to offer adult
men outside the home, whereas girls do domestic tasks with their mothers.
This answer is not entirely satisfactory, for it presupposes a domestic domain
of women and a public domain of men. Such a division does not appear in
many places. In the more complex societies, boys may indeed be unprepared
to interact freely with men, as they lack the skills or other criteria of adult-
hood, such as control over property, to be accepted. But in even the simplest
societies, boys take a back seat to socially recognized adults even though they
may differ very little in skills or technical knowledge.
Another possible answer is that men fear the sexual competition of ado-
lescent boys and seek to exclude and dominate them. This argument is im-
plied in some of the psychoanalytic literature that views circumcision
(actually quite limited in worldwide distribution) as a modification of castra-
tion and evidence for hostility displaced into ritual. For most societies in this
sample, though, there is a rather high degree of trust and affection between
father and son, indicating that any fear or hostility is so suppressed or dis-
placed as not to prevent friendly relations. Fathers in most cases appear to
see sons as extensions of themselves and not as competitors; they promote
their interests rather than impede them.
We relate the exclusion of boys by men to modes of interaction estab-
lished in childhood. Boys who are extruded, as we have offered, seek social
gratification in age-mates, thus establishing age-segregated associations as
more of a pattern for males than for females. This pattern can emerge at any
time in the life cycle when it is reinforced. In most cases, there is continual
reinforcement, the childhood play group developing into the adolescent peer
group, which in turn becomes the cohort of men and sometimes a further
cohort of aged men. Age-exclusivity is only relative: as discussed in Chapter
8, societies with little contact between boys and men are deviant, and this
type is likely to produce somewhat deviant boys. Nevertheless, it is the men
of the family who have close contact with boys in most places; and no matter
how frequent and close this contact may be, boys are not generally brought
into the extra-domestic activities of related or unrelated men.
Critical Issues in Gender Differences
In much of the psychological literature on gender difference there seems

to be an implicit assumption that feminine personality, lacking the indepen-
dence and autonomy of the masculine, or at least the masculine ideal, is dis-
advantaged. We are faced with a critical question: is female attachment
somewhat pathological?
A second issue that must have occurred to anyone reading this chapter is
the question of immutability of gender distinctions. How much of a differ-
ence can culture make?
Is Female Attachment Detrimental?

To ask whether female attachment is detrimental is to raise another
question: in what way is it detrimental? Do interconnection and emotional
dependence between mother and daughter prevent either woman from be-
194 ADOLESCENCE
coming her own, self-actualized, person? Does such connectedness lead to

mutual dependence such that neither woman is free to make her own deci-
sions or that both suffer from some kind of blurred identity?
A physical separation between mother and daughter may or may not
occur at the time of the daughter's marriage. When the husband joins the
wife's household, the separation of mother and daughter does not occur.
When the couple sets up its own residence, it is often in the same community
as the girl's family, or alternates between the communities of each spouse. (A
matrifocal tendency is also quite common for the rural proletariat and for
working-class urban peoples in industrial nations, as many sociological stud-
ies of the modern family have demonstrated.) In these cases, the closeness of
the young woman and her mother continues throughout the mother's life,
although the interests of mother and daughter diverge somewhat. Some bal-
ance between dependence and independence of the women is achieved. Com-
monly, the younger woman relies heavily on her mother for help and advice
when her children are young, the balance tipping as the mother ages and the
daughter assumes a more parental role of care and responsibility for her
mother.
The separation between mother and daughter is more sharp and severe
when the girl leaves her childhood home at marriage to enter the household
of the husband and his family. Frequently, the households are some distance
apart. It is well recognized that the young woman misses her mother and
female kin deeply, and provisions are usually made for her to make visits
home at various times. These visits generally become less frequent as the wife
gets older and grows more into her marriage and her husband's and
children's household.
Even when the married daughter remains in her mother's household,
there seems to be no problem over separate identities. The first author has
been struck by the extremely strong attachments between mother and daugh-
ter and sisters among the formerly matrilocal Hopi. The women of the fam-
ily used to stay together throughout their adult lives. Even today, they form
intimate and supportive clusters, in contact with one another one or more
times a day. (The adolescent protest of the Hopi girl described for earlier
times in Chapters 4 and 9 was not a fight for autonomy but a response to
increased discipline and the pressure to find a husband. Once she was mar-
ried, and particularly after she had given birth, the young Hopi woman re-
sumed her close and affectionate relation to her mother, and the women
coordinated their activities and consulted one another on important mat-
ters.) Although it would be unrealistic to suppose that disagreements do not
arise or that there are never personality incompatibilities, every ethnogra-
pher who has spent time with the Hopi has remarked on the closeness of
fem ale kin. The antagonisms expressed in myths and ritual are not between
women but occur within the central cross-sex dyads of the social structure,
the brother-sister pair of the matrilineal clan and the husband-wife pair of
the household (Schlegel 1979).
Ethnographers who work in societies in which the lifelong attachments
between women are extremely close have no difficulty in finding strong-
minded and assertive women, realistically aware of opportunities and con-
straints and ready to act in the best interests of themselves and their families.
The bonds between Hopi female kin, just discussed, do not appear to create
an adult female personality that is dependent or infantile; the same observers
who remark on close female cooperation also comment on the air of self-
confidence and authority that Hopi women give off and on their readiness to
take charge and to assert their wishes and opinions. Such personalities are
also to be found among women secluded in harems in male-dominated soci-
eties like those of some parts of the Middle East. From the evidence of their
own eyes, ethnographers would hesitate to speak of blurred identities or con-
stricting dependence as a general problem when mothers and daughters have
close ties.
Some psychologists are questioning the assumption that a strong attach-
ment between mother and adult daughter is a sign of emotional immaturity.
Gilligan (1982) delineated the moral outcome of female connectedness as a
morality of caring and responsibility. Cobler and Grunebaum (1981 :334-
335) illustrated this shift away from the earlier view in their conclusions
drawn from a study of Italian-American women and their mothers:
As this book shows, many adult women may not have become fully dif-
ferentiated or psychologically separate from their own mothers. This
statement sounds at first pejorative-a most unfortunate conclusion for
two men to make-particularly since we have tried to avoid making any
judgment regarding the significance for adjustment of this flexible differ-
entiation that characterizes the mode of relationship between women
and their relatives. Clearly, it is time to re-examine traditional views of
the supposed ideal mode of adult interpersonal relationships and to rec-
ognize the degree of interdependence that is far more characteristic of
adult relationships than the ''autonomy'' described by theorists such as
Goldfarb.
They noted that women learn to be responsive to the needs of others and
suggested that a cognitive style that is responsive to context be relabelled
from "field-dependence" to "environmentally sensitive." With this we con-
cur.
An acceptance of close female attachment as normal and conducive to
emotional health does not mean that it is necessarily free of problems. With
both the greater attachment of the girl and woman and the lesser attachment
of the boy and man, some balance must be struck. For either sex, attachment
can become an emotional choke-hold on the fulfillment of the individual's
196 ADOLESCENCE
ability to make his or her decisions. On the other hand, a too early or too
great push into independence can leave the individual, of either sex, with a
hunger for unfulfilled closeness or the fear that this human need is unfulfill-
able, and thus it is safer to avoid intimacy.
The findings from this study lead to the conclusion that the affiliative
needs of girls can be satisfactorily met through close attachments to mothers
and other women, while the affiliative needs of boys more than girls can be
satisfied through peer group relations. Many girls in modern societies may
suffer from the lack of close ties to women, particularly if the relationship
with the mother is disturbed. This may account for the observation of Offer
and Sabshin (1984:97) that ''it has been our finding that adolescent girls find
the high school years more taxing psychologically. Hence they have more
signs and symptoms, have more problems with their affect than boys, and do
not cope as well with life." In the unusually highly peer-oriented settings of
contemporary adolescence, girls would seem to be more vulnerable to the
frustration of affiliative needs than boys and, accordingly, to show more
signs of emotional distress.
Disturbances in the mother-daughter relationship may be more com-
mon in modern societies, in which both ideology and the looser ties within
the kinship network, as compared to traditional societies, promote greater
independence. (We earlier proffered thoughts about the mother-daugher re-
lationship in the nuclear family, which is the characteristic family form in
industrial societies.) Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, who see dis-
turbed patients, may wrongly assume from that evidence that difficulties are
inherent in the relationship. One does not wish to romanticize the little com-
munity, and there is plenty of evidence for disturbed families in all kinds of
societies; nevertheless, close ties among female kin appear, in this sample
and in many ethnographic reports, to be a source of strength and comfort for
women and a secure base from which they can move into the world, rather
than a source of inhibition and infantile dependency.
Are Gender Differences Immutable!

The strong version of the sex-role learning position holds that identical
socialization would erase gender differences, while the strong version of the
prepared learning position has it that culture can somewhat modify but not
alter biological givens. A less strong version of the latter recognizes that hu-
mans, like other living beings, are evolving and that, as conditions change, so
will the genetically determined attributes that permit successful adaptation.
Furthermore, it has not been determined what those biological givens of sex
difference actually are. Even the most fervent holder of the prepared learn-
ing position must grant that the intelligence to perceive and rationally to ad-
dress needs and conditions, and the flexibility to adapt behavior in
accordance with these, are species characteristics of Homo sapiens.
From the way we have phrased the issue, it should be apparent that we
are friendly to the weaker version of the prepared learning position. The ev-
idence suggests that there are more than trivial sex differences at birth and
that differences are also established in the early treatment of the infant.
These lead on to gender differences in young children.
At this point, the progression becomes murkier. Studies from life-
course sociology and life-span psychology have cast doubt upon the belief
that childhood irrevocably determines the course of adult personality and
behavior. As Cohler and Boxer (1984: 147) stated:
Over the past twenty years, as results from pioneering longitudinal stud-
ies have been reported in the literature, earlier assumptions of develop-
ment across the life course as necessarily linear and continuous have had
to be qualified. Particularly in the area of personality development, it
has become clear that earlier experiences are not necessarily related to
later outcomes .... While earlier longitudinal research had focused pri-
marily upon childhood as the central determinant of adult actions and in-
tents, findings from longitudinal studies have suggested that no one
phase of the life cycle may be identified as "primary" for later out-
comes ....
We infer that early sex differences, while real, can be significantly mod-
ified. On this point, Ember's (1973) research is highly relevant. Ember
worked in a village in Kenya, where she studied the effect of feminine tasks
performed by boys on modifying typically masculine behavior, as defined by
the community. She found that those boys who performed the typically fem-
inine tasks behaved in more feminine ways than did boys who performed
masculine tasks. Her explanation was that feminine tasks in this community
kept girls, or boys who did them, near the home in close contact with the
mother, and they frequently involved child care. As a result, boys became
more compliant and nurturant. The setting as much as earlier experience was
a factor in influencing the behavior of children.
It is our view that the differences between boys and girls established in
infancy and early childhood can be strengthened if they are reinforced by
settings in later life that impose feminine compliance and nurturance and
masculine competitiveness, emotional distance, and egocentric achievement.
They will be counteracted in settings that encourage young women to partic-
ipate in task-oriented groups and young men to put less emphasis on power
and more on building alliances through helping and caring. Gender differ-
ences are unlikely to disappear, but they need not disadvantage one sex or the
other. There does not seem to be any sex difference in the capacity to learn.
II
Review and Prospect
WE have taken a universalistic rather than a relativistic approach to ado-

lescence. We see adolescence as a social stage in all human societies, interven-
ing between nonreproductive childhood and reproductive adulthood. Our
purpose has been to uncover the commonalities of this stage and to account
for the variations.
The adolescents in most of the societies in our study are quite young, as
marriage often takes place earlier in tribal groups than in the modern indus-
trial nations. We identified a further stage when marriage and full adulthood
are delayed, a youth stage, although we did not investigate it in detail. When
such a stage exists, it is distinguished from adolescence by greater responsi-
bility and freedom (although not necessarily sexual freedom for young
women) and more serious attention to work and marital prospects (unless
youths are young married people who will move into adulthood at some later
point).
We are working within the tradition of life-course and life-span re-
search. The concept of life as periodized into named or unnamed stages is
found in many cultures. That it is a cultural product does not mean that it is
arbitrary, however; for even though a human life is continuous, its develop-
mental peaks have profound cultural consequences.
The most significant of these peaks in early life is the acquisition of lan-
guage, a feature unique to our species. Although language is not essential for
social interaction-the communication of information, intentions, and dis-
positions-as indicated by the many animal species whose lives are lived in
social groups, it is essential for the invention of and reflection upon culture.
The culturally constructed person does not exist apart from language.
Puberty, the change to a biologically reproductive being, is another such
dramatic transition. Although the precise timing of the beginning of adoles-
cence as a social stage varies, it is everywhere associated with pubertal events
such as menstruation, the appearance of secondary sexual features like the
198
Review and Prospect 199
girl's breasts or the boy's facial hair, or general changes in body conforma-
tion.
We have drawn from research in child development, ethology, and pri-
matology to explain some of the universal, generic features of adolescence,
in particular the gender differences. We have proposed a human ethogram,
or model of social organization by sex and age, that locates adolescent peer
groups among the other significant types of social groups, the single-sex
adult groups and the group within which biological and social reproduction
take place-specifically the family but in many societies including the kin
group. Adolescents, unlike children, are capable of reproducing but, unlike
adults, are not yet incorporated into reproductive relationships. This model,
we maintain, is universal for boys but not necessarily so for girls, who may
lack a social adolescence or have only a very short one, depending on the
speed with which girls are moved into marriage or motherhood. The key
points that the model illustrates are (1) the imposed or self-segregation of the
sexes that commonly occurs in preindustrial societies by adolescence if not
before and (2) the greater extrusion of boys than girls from close relations
with same-sex adults and, consequently, the greater salience of peer groups
for boys than for girls.
The final cause for this social arrangement, we maintain, is the avoid-
ance of close inbreeding. In this, our species behaves like most other animals
and has evolved social mechanisms to guard against incest. A complicating
factor in human social organization is the continuity over time of the mixed-
sex family, which provides abundant opportunity for incest. By some degree
of separation of the sexes and by drawing the attention of the adolescent
away from the family toward peers, the likelihood of incest is reduced. Psy-
chological inhibitions and the incest taboo also aid in inhibiting incest. Al-
though these factors do not prevent incest altogether, parent-child and
sibling matings in adolescence are infrequent and do not endanger the viabil-
ity of the species.
The final cause argument does not, however, tell us how these social
arrangements actually come into being generation after generation. For
proximal causes, we have looked to adult social roles and to child socializa-
tion. Adolescents, particularly boys, are excluded from adult activities and
thus encouraged to associate with peers. In complex societies, adolescence
may be a time when the more elaborated roles of adult life are learned in
ways not possible for the immature child. But even in the simplest societies,
boys take a back seat to socially recognized men even though they have
learned adult skills.
We have discussed early child socialization as a major factor in the de-
velopment of gender difference. We propose that mothers treat boys and
girls differently, extruding boys more than girls. The result is that boys seek
out age mates for social affiliation more than do girls. This difference in ex-
200 ADOLESCENCE
trusion establishes a pattern whereby throughout childhood and into adoles-

cence, boys are involved more with peers and less with the mother than are
girls. Boys are likely to be more involved with their fathers than are girls, but
the total involvement with the parent of the same sex is less for boys. In other
words, there seems to be greater extrusion both from the family and from
same-sex adult company for boys and consequently greater reliance on peers.
At the same time that we have attempted to establish universal or ge-
neric patterns of adolescence, we have also looked at differences among cul-
tures and the factors that explain them. We have seen that the behavior and
treatment of adolescents varies according to subsistence needs and con-
straints, property ownership or its absence, the structure of the family and
the community, and anticipations of adult life.
In looking for explanations, we have considered both antecedent and
situational factors, particularly in our discussions of disposition toward an-
tisocial behavior (Chapter 8) and of character traits (Chapter 9), in which we
identify several features of infancy and early childhood associated with later
outcomes in adolescence. The debate between antecedent and situational
factors as causes is a lively one and cannot be settled by simply looking at
correlations.
The strong version of the "antecedent" position is that character is
formed when the child is very young and can be modified only slightly. As we
discussed in Chapter 10, in which we considered the modification of sex-
typed behavior established early in life, this position has been called into
question by the results of longitudinal studies of personality. The strong ver-
sion of the "situational" position says that the same cultures that produce
adolescent personality and behavior through the settings in which they place
adolescents also produce the treatment of children, so that even statistically
significant associations between variables of childhood and adolescence are
coincidental rather than causally related.
A weaker version of the "situational" position is that early socialization
results in proclivities that can be reinforced or counteracted later in life. This
version seems the best fit with the data, which indicate situational features
consonant with antecedent ones.
The cases in this sample represent a world that has vanished. However,
researchers are beginning to undertake studies of adolescence in modernizing
societies, formerly traditional peoples who are undergoing a transition to in-
dustrial production and experiencing massive social changes that this brings
in its wake. The most extensive project in anthropology has been the Har-
vard Adolescence Project of the early 1980s, under the direction of Beatrice
B. and John W. M. Whiting, in which ethnographic studies were conducted
in seven field sites. Four of the resulting ethnographies have appeared (Bur-
bank 1988; Condon 1987; Davis and Davis 1989; Hollos and Leis 1989). In
addition to the results of the project, a number of reports on other societies
have also appeared or are in progress. It is to such studies that we can turn to
learn what becomes of adolescents who reach this transitional stage in life in
a context of rapid cultural change.
Adolescence in Modernizing Societies
For the last few centuries, the center of economic and technological in-
novations and the accompanying social transformations has been the nations
of Europe and European settlers, lumped together as "Western" society and
culture. There is a tendency to think in terms of polarities, of "Western" as
opposed to "other." This is dangerous. We cannot ignore the immense vari-
ety of non-Western societies, from the descendants of ancient civilizations of
Asia and the Middle East to the remnant groups of foragers that until re-
cently lived in pockets or on the fringes of more complex societies. The ef-
fects of modernization, of transformations to industrial states or of
accommodations to them, vary along with the nature of the transforming
society. The process of transformation varies also according to the nature of
the first contact: precolonial trading partnerships, colonial rule, or the sud-
den absorption of tribes into present-day states. It is extremely difficult, if
not impossible, to generalize about adolescence in modernizing societies.
The experience of adolescents in a formerly foraging-band society now lo-
cated as a special-status group within a modern nation, like the Inuit of Can-
ada (Condon 1987), is very different from that of adolescents in Morocco
(Davis and Davis 1989), heirs of an old civilization that was in the recent past
a colony of France.
A common feature of adolescence in all modernizing societies, however,
is an educational system grounded in the humanistic and scientific traditions
of the West. For better or for worse, within the last century Western culture
has become a global culture, more so than any competing set of knowledge
and values. Almost everywhere, adolescents are learning the scientific view
of the world, often as they learn to read a European language. Some benefit
by broadening their horizons to include two cultural traditions, the ablest
attaining a kind of cross-cultural sophistication that few Westerners do. For
others, the end result is confusion and loss: having inadequately learned their
own culture, they fail to become adept in the one they encounter in school.
Western culture affects more than the educational system. Whether di-
rectly in the form of music, films, videotapes, television, and imported or
translated literature or indirectly through local copies of these media, young
people are learning new ways of thinking and behaving. The Indonesian
magazine Topchords, which features guitar chords and lyrics of Indonesian
and Western popular music and information about musicians and clothing
(Siegel 1986), is communicating to its teenage readers the same message for
success (of the popular musicians it writes about) that one finds in the Amer-
ican popular press: talent, some work, and a good deal of luck. (A strong
202 ADOLESCENCE
weight on luck is, of course, not foreign to Indonesian tradition, in which

gambling is a popular form of recreation.) Rock musicians, film stars, and
sports heroes are the idols of adolescents worldwide, personifying adolescent
fantasies of wealth and freedom.
Many elements around which adolescent recreation revolves in the West
and increasingly in other parts of the world-music, videos, video games,
sports facilities-are not the product of adolescent imagination or organiza-
tion but are rather commodities produced by adults for the teenage market.
If there is an adolescent "culture," it is largely one manipulated by adults
who provide what they believe adolescents will buy. One rarely hears of Eu-
ropean or American teenagers composing their own songs or organizing vil-
lage festivities, like some of the adolescents we met i:11 Chapter 5. Given little
responsibility to society and little authority over certain, albeit small, do-
mains of social life, modern adolescents seldom act as autonomous groups in
constructive, socially meaningful ways. If young people are successful dur-
ing their adolescent years, it is as talented individuals or in activities orga-
nized by adults for adolescents like school sports, not through peer groups
who plan their own actions and are rewarded by appreciative adults. Oppor-
tunities for adolescents are constrained and their scope of activities deter-
mined by adults in all societies, but in many parts of the world, peer groups
seemed to play larger social roles before their transitions to modern and
modernizing societies than they do today.
Ironically, adolescents are losing incentives to plan and act at the same
time that they are becoming increasingly emancipated from the control of
parents and other adult authorities. Over and over, the decline in adult au-
thority over adolescents is reported as a cause of grave concern and distress.
Of the many contributing factors, it would not be fair to blame only the
winds of cultural change blowing from the West.
One factor is education, valued by modernizing countries and needed by
them to raise productivity. It removes adolescent children from home and
kin and places them in peer settings for much of the day. When family and
school cooperate and reinforce one another, as in present-day China where
children are scolded and shamed at home if their schoolwork is deficient, the
school setting does not diminish parental authority. If there is a discordance
of values, parental values do not necessarily triumph. Adolescents who do
remain true to the values of their elders can fail to learn the skills and atti-
tudes that lead to effective participation in modern life. Ausubel (1965) be-
lieved that this accounts for some of the difficulties faced by Maori youth of
New Zealand, contrasting them with Polynesian counterparts in Western
Samoa, Cook Islands, and Fiji. When parents insist that children assume the
same level of household responsibility that earlier generations did, the ado-
lescent may be caught between the demands of household tasks and the de-
mands of schoolwork. This happens to Ijo girls of Nigeria (Hollos and Leis
1989), leading to conflict with the mother.
Another factor in the decline of parental authority is the delay in mar-
riage, caused by increasing opportunities for both sexes to pursue education
and by expanding employment of young women. The older a person gets, the
Jess amenable he or she is to parental dictates. Nevertheless, girls and their
parents resist early marriage when girls can get jobs, as both the daughter
and her family benefit from the wages she brings in.
Opportunities for wage labor remove control over the individual's
economic future from the hands of the adults, primarily kin, who con-
trolled it in most societies in times past. (An important exception is the
foraging groups where, in the absence of property, young people created
their own opportunities and, as we have seen, were not so obedient as ad-
olescents in property-owning societies.) Employment not only delays
marriage for girls; it also increases the independence of adolescents and
youths of both sexes. As the factory replaced the field as the dominant
locus of production in Europe, adolescents and youths were able to find
better jobs and free themselves from parental control. Emancipation is
possible when there is a shortage of labor and young people can choose
among alternatives. However, when jobs are scarce and one must use in-
fluence to get them, independence does not flourish. As Hollos and Leis
(1989:83-84) related for the ljo:
What is important now is that most of the youngsters want to continue
schooling and intend to secure good jobs and positions. For this they
need help, and for this help they are dependent on either their parents or
their parents' siblings .... Because usually there are far more children in
a family than potential sponsors, school-age children are often kept in
line by competition for the goodwill of kinsmen who are successful or in-
fluential men.
They gain this goodwill by being obedient and deferential. In such cases,
adults and adolescents develop a sort of patron-client relationship.
Delaying the marriage of girls in societies in which adolescents formerly
had sexual freedom can result in a high number of premarital pregnancies if
there is no concomitant change in sexual mores or practices. Pregnancy need
not raise barriers to the girl's successful completion of her education or pur-
suit of employment if there are adults willing to care for or adopt the child.
Adolescent pregnancy does not seem to have adverse effects for ljo girls
(Hollos and Leis 1989) or for the Inuit girls of Canada (Condon 1987). For
the Australian Aboriginal community studied by Burbank (1988), unmarried
pregnancy is a new phenomenon, as in former times girls were married be-
fore menarche. Burbank cited cases of girls using their pregnancies to push
through marriage to young men of their choice rather than to men preferred
by their parents, thus upsetting their parents' plans for social alliances. For
these contemporary Aborigines, absence of control over a daughter's sexual-
ity threatens loss of control over the marriage she will make.
The Moroccan girls studied by Davis and Davis (1989) have been put
into a dilemma by the increased freedom of movement and the opportunities
204 ADOLESCENCE
to meet boys in the classroom. The old prohibition of any intimation of sex-
uality on the part of girls is still intact, contradicting the messages of roman-
tic love that enter through films, television, and popular literature. Former
levels of propriety are difficult to maintain under modern conditions, and it
may even be that girls who are more daring are more likely to end up with a
husband. In a society in which control over female sexuality is an important
feature of male control over women, the possibility of a daughter or sister
becoming pregnant endangers men's self-esteem as well as their honor and
the reputation of their families. It is not easy for girls to balance the propri-
ety demanded by kin and community with the possibility that this propriety
will impede the highest goal to which most of them aspire, marriage to a
good husband.
Decline in adult authority over adolescents is usually framed in terms of
parental authority, but that is too narrow a view. Parents do not control ad-
olescents unaided by community norms and sanctions; boys in particular, as
we have seen, are likely to behave well when they are much in the presence of
men. These men do not necessarily have to be their fathers.
The greater freedom of young people causes distress to adults who feel
that they are losing authority within their households, but it can open new
possibilities to adolescents to seek happier lives. It is easy to forget that the
often well-regulated systems of other times and places contained individuals
with blighted hopes and frustrated expectations, not because of any deficien-
cies on their parts but because they were the pawns of family strategies that
overlooked their needs. The adolescent Hopi boy who obeyed his father's
request to return home to help with the farm when he wanted to pursue his
education still expressed his disappointment sixty years later as he sadly re-
called that time of his life to the first author.
Freedom to succeed also means freedom to fail. One effect of schooling
in modern and modernizing societies is to sort out those who are and are not
academically able. Every class-stratified society has its processes for recruit-
ing people into the different classes, and education has increasingly become
a major means for this recruitment throughout the world. It is not surprising
that fantasies of success, wealth, and fame should be so prominent in class-
stratified societies as an escape from the prospect of completing school-to
many adolescents, dreary or unattainable. These fantasies may change in
their cast of characters from earlier times, the movie queen becoming the
new Cinderella and the rock star or sports hero replacing the poor boy who
marries the princess (and the equivalents of Cinderella and the poor boy in
other mythologies), but the mechanism of success in these fantasies is the
same, good fortune. For most of today's adolescents, however, failure at
school can mean the loss of opportunity or even downward social mobility.
Studies of adolescence in the West often deal with self-perception and
the attitudes adolescents have toward their bodies. Adolescents all over the
world are conscious of their appearance: one notes with some amusement
reports of young people running off to the river to bathe and beautify them-
selves when their parents would rather have them home working in the gar-
dens, or the careful attention given to body painting and decoration before
some village festivity. It does seem, however, that Western adolescents, and
perhaps American adolescents in particular, are inordinately conscious of
their appearance and overwhelmingly dissatisfied with it. The Western, and
especially American, emphasis on youth and beauty has often been blamed,
and we do not deny the importance of this glorification of the superficial.
However, there is another factor. Adolescents not only compare their chang-
ing bodies with some impossible ideal, but they also compare them with the
bodies of their contemporaries. Those who mature too quickly may be em-
barrassed, while the late maturers may harbor doubts and fears about their
attainment of physical adulthood. Adolescents in societies in which children
are not grouped by chronological age but rather by observable level of phys-
ical maturity, as in most societies in our sample, do not suffer from invidious
comparisons of themselves with others, at least not when level of maturity is
being compared. As grouping by chronological age becomes more common
worldwide, we anticipate that anxieties over their bodies will spread among
adolescents.
Researchers have failed to find the Sturm und Drang that supposedly
characterizes adolescence in Western society, nor does it generally seem to
characterize adolescence in modernizing societies either. For all the uncer-
tainties about the future that adolescents in these societies feel and the dis-
crepancies in experience between themselves and their parents and
grandparents, ethnographic reports do not indicate general apathy, despair,
or serious rebellion. As Davis and Davis (1989: 182) found:
Erikson's account of an adolescent identity beleaguered by contradictory
role expectations sounds like it would work well in the rapidly changing
Moroccan setting, but in fact we have not seen much of the ''role confu-
sion" of which Erikson writes. Zawiya youth seem to us surprisingly
good at negotiating the twists and turns of daily life.
In communities that remain intact, adolescents are likely to find their own
way through the generation gap and into an adult society that will welcome
their new skills.
Some Implications for Modern Adolescence

Our exploration of gender differences has been of central importance to
our effort. A major finding, mentioned throughout this book and discussed
in some detail in Chapter 10, has been the different social settings of the
sexes: girls are involved more with same-sex adults, while boys are involved
more with peers. We have already explored some of the ramifications of this
206 ADOLESCENCE
behavior of adolescents. Here we would like to consider implications for un-

derstanding adolescence in Western society. Industrial Western communities
were not included in our sample, and therefore we are limited to presenting
hypotheses and suggestions for research.
We proposed in Chapter 10 that boys, more than girls, find social satis-
faction in relations with peers. In peer-oriented settings like the modern
school, girls may be vulnerable to loneliness and unhappiness if their attach-
ments to their mothers or other adult females are disturbed. They may be less
able than boys to substitute peer relations for family attachments.
In general, it appears that girls are more dependent than boys on rela-
tions with family members, while by adolescence boys enter the larger world
more through their peer groups. Thus, boys may respond more strongly to
breakdown of community organization while girls may be more sensitive to
disruption within the home. We propose that when the mother-daughter
bond or another attachment to an adult fem ale is strong, girls are protected
from adverse community influences in ways boys are not. On the other hand,
close peer ties and the feeling of belonging in the community help boys more
than girls to weather a troubled home.
These insights may help to explain why boys from "good homes" can
become delinquent. Our data show that, in general, antisocial behavior is
more common for boys than for girls. For the most part, the antisocial be-
havior committed by adolescents in the sample is more of a nuisance than
serious delinquency: their violence rarely kills or maims, and most theft
could be likened more to the petty shoplifting of Western children than to the
theft of a car or significant amounts of goods. The antisocial behavior found
in European and American communities, as well as in many cities of mod-
ernizing nations, can be of a different order. The adolescent crime of the
urban slums is the result, we believe, more of community than family break-
down. Boys' delinquency, acted out in groups more than as individuals, is
not necessarily a product of family failure. In such crime-ridden quarters as
East Los Angeles or its equivalent, the best home socialization is helpless in
the face of gangs of adolescents and youths unconstrained by community
sanctions. In these parts, if one does not join, one is an enemy. The commu-
nity structures that evolve to regulate behavior crumble in the face of massive
migrations into the cities; they cannot even develop when constant turnover
in the neighborhood population creates social anonymity. (For a similar pic-
ture of adolescence in the urban slums of 19th century America, see Kett
1977.)
To illustrate, the low rate of delinquency in American Chinese commu-
nities was often credited to the tight control of the Chinese family over its
members. Yet, as the ethnographic sketch in Chapter 5 reveals, boys and
youths were under the authority of men in Chinatowns, executing their
wishes and receiving rewards from them. These men controlled the resources
on which the boys depended for future success, and the boys were their social
apprentices. New opportunities and waves of (often illegal) immigration into
Chinatowns have shaken that hierarchy. We propose that the rise in male
delinquency in such communities is due to changes in the authority of the
male hierarchy more than to changes in the Chinese family.
The ways to help antisocial or troubled adolescents may differ accord-
ing to sex. For both sexes, friends and family are important for social sup-
port and the enjoyment of life. Girls might be helped more by programs
designed to strengthen the ties they have with mothers and individual
women, whereas boys might respond more to efforts involving groups of
boys and men, not necessarily their fathers (particularly when father-son re-
lations are distant or strained), engaged in goal-oriented activities. Our find-
ings on competitiveness and antisocial behavior, in Chapter 8, suggest that
these activities should not be competitive but rather cooperative in nature.
Building something together is more likely to lead to desired behavior than
are competitive games.
Another issue that is receiving a good deal of attention currently is teen-
age motherhood. As we have seen, child-bearing need not doom the young
mother to loss of schooling and good opportunities for employment. When
she turns over the infant to kin to rear, she has become a mother biologically
but not socially. In her eyes and the eyes of the community, she can remain
an adolescent, and her chances in life need not be affected by her biological
motherhood. This way of handling adolescent maternity has considerable
merit. The young adolescent mother is not a woman and should not be ex-
pected to take on a woman's responsibilities.
While this way of handling adolescent maternity appears to be satisfac-
tory in the cases discussed earlier in this chapter, communities in which
women are not employed outside the home, it is questionable whether it
works as well in industrialized economies. The mother of the adolescent, a
woman in her thirties or forties, is likely to be employed and unwilling to quit
her job in order to care for her daughter's child. Other female kin, like
grandmothers and aunts, are also employed, or they have moved into an-
other phase of their lives that does not accommodate the demands of infant
care. Although the family may pressure a grandmother, for example, to take
on her granddaughter's baby, she may well resent the imposition. The agents
of the state who deal with pregnant adolescent girls must realize that the care
of the future child is a family matter. For the girl who does not want an abor-
tion, her female kin, who may be left with the responsibility of caring for the
child, should be involved in any decisions concerning the infant.
We have proposed that social adolescence is a response to sexual devel-

opment in humans. Social recognition is given to the growth of reproductive
208 ADOLESCENCE
capacity as marking the end of childhood and the prelude to adult life. Sex-
ual separation, as one barrier to inbreeding, is initiated or intensified.
By focusing on reproduction, we place human society within the frame-
work devised by ethologists for the study of other species. We consider that
kinship and marriage, the system of human biological and social reproduc-
tion, carries as great a weight as the system of production, which for a long
time has held first place in many anthropological accounts as a determinant
of human social organization.
The societies in our sample are very different today from what they were
when the first ethnographic reports on them were made. Many important
aspects of life have changed, and the experience of adolescence has altered in
irrevocable ways. Are the patterns we have established for this preindustrial
sample characteristic only of the "other" and not the West and the industri-
alizing societies following its lead? We think not.
Notes
Chapter 1 I The Anthropological Study of Adolescence

1. A useful summary of these differing approaches, in this case to the study of
games as an aspect of expressive culture, is provided by Avedon and Sutton-Smith
(1971), who cited primarily the works of psychologists and sociologists.
2. The usual way of phrasing this discrepancy is to talk about "real'' versus ''ideal''
culture. There is, however, a distinction between the concepts of real versus ideal cul-
ture and tradition versus cohort effect, for there can be a long-term "real" culture
that is nevertheless responsive to short-term variations (cohort effect) due to time-
specific conditions.
3. We have to remember that the societies in this study consist of face-to-face com-
munities. Even in large cities, for example, Rome (Romans) or Tenochtitlan (Aztecs),
people lived out their daily lives within wards that functioned as smaller communities,
where adolescent behavior was monitored by adults. The adolescents considered here
could not escape into anonymity.
4. Old age may vary from being a social stage marked by significant changes, as
among Japanese village elderly given license to behave foolishly, to being simply a
time in adulthood when physical capacities are diminished but roles, except for fe-
male reproductivity, are not altered in any socially significant way, as among the
Hopi.
5. In cases of marriage occurring before puberty, the wife usually does not have
sexual relations until menarche, at which time she is generally given adult status.
6. The coding manuals, codes, and tables of frequency distributions have been
compiled in HRAF Cross-Cultural Data Series, vol. 4, Adolescence, by Herbert
Barry III and Alice Schlegel (1990). This book is available from Human Relations
Area Files Press, Box 2054 Yale Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.
Chapter 2 I An Ethological Approach to Human Social Organization

1. This chapter grew out of a paper by the first author read at the Institute of Psy-
chology, University of Zurich, to a seminar conducted by Professor Dr. Norbert
Bischof.
2. The term ethog ram is an adaptation of biogram, used by Count (1958) to mean
209
210 Notes
an animal's anatomy and physiology, or its structure and processes, along with its
characteristic way of living. This configuration is a consequence of evolution. We use
ethogram similarly, to mean the evolved structure and behavior of a human set. The
set in this case is human beings restricted by two parameters, age and sex, and the
relations among age-sex classes.
Chapter 3 I Looking at Adolescent Socialization Across Cultures

1. As we could not find data on the age of puberty for boys in traditional societies
comparable to that available on menarche, we do not know whether the sex differ-
ence in age of reproductive capacity is constant (allowing for individual differences
within populations) or varies according to diet, environmental factors, or other
causes. If boys' puberty is less variable than girls', that is, if 13 to 15 is a fairly con-
stant age range for this event, then in some cases we have underestimated the length
of adolescence for boys.
2. We did not consider the highlands New Guinea populations in arriving at our
estimate, as they seem to represent a deviant cluster of societies.
Chapter 4 I Adolescents and Their Families

1. Parents includes stepparents, adoptive parents, and foster parents as well as nat-
ural parents. In societies with a high mortality rate for young and middle-aged adults,
there is no guarantee that the mother and father to whom the child was born will be
alive when it reaches adolescence. A relatively high rate of stepparenthood, increas-
ing with the increasing age of child, is indicated for a foraging society, the Aka Pyg-
mies of Africa, in Hewlett (1990).
Chapter 5 I Peer Groups and Community Participation

1. The view that females are innately less competitive than males received a blow in
the widely acclaimed research of Hrdy (1981) on female primates. She presents a con-
vincing argument for female competitiveness among related species. The goals and
form of competition among females, both human and other primate, may differ
from those of males, but activities to promote self-interest at the expense of others
occur within both sexes.
Chapter 6 I Mating, Marriage, and the Duration of Adolescence

1. We doubt that patrilineal descent per se is the determinant of paternity concern.
In Gaulin and Schlegel (1980), a number of societies rated as having low paternal
confidence are patrilineal. We consider it more likely that property considerations are
the determinant: when men invest heavily in the wife's children, they want to make
sure that these children are their own.
2. Bridewealth is the gift of goods, of either productive or symbolic value, given in
exchange for a bride to her kin. Token bridewealth refers to a small gift of this sort,
usually of symbolic value. Bride service is the groom's payment of labor instead of
goods for a wife to her family, lasting from a period of several months to several
years or even the lifetime of the wife's parents. Gift exchange refers to a more or less
equal exchange between kin of bride and groom. Women exchange occurs when the
marriage of a woman from one kin group entails the return of a bride to her kin
Notes 211
group. Dowry is the transfer of goods from the bride's kin to the bride and her new
household; it is not the mirror image of bridewealth, as the groom's kin do not receive
it. Indirect dowry takes two forms: either the groom's kin give goods to the bride's
kin, who in turn give all or a substantial part to the bride herself, or the groom's kin
give goods directly to the bride to take into her marriage. More information on these
types of marriage transactions and on their cultural concomitants can be found in
Schlegel and Eloul ( 1987, 1988).
3. Frayser (1985:350) found an association between the prospective bride's or
groom's consent to a marriage and the residence pattern. In societies with patrilocal
residence, both girls and boys are less likely to be consulted and to give consent to a
prospective marriage than in societies with other forms. Patrilocal societies have a
much higher proportion of property-giving transactions than societies with other
forms of residence, the latter more commonly giving bride service, exchanging
women, or having no transaction beyond the giving of small gifts (cf. Schlegel and
Eloul 1988, Table 6).
Chapter 7 I Adolescent Sexuality

1. We did not code for bestiality, but we assume that it is much less widespread than
the other forms and practiced, if at all, as a novelty or as a form of cruelty to animals
rather than as a regular manner of releasing sexual tension.
2. We found no association between accessibility of caretaker and sexual permis-
siveness in our sample, although our measure of permissiveness and restrictiveness is
associated with Broude and Greene's (1980) measure of attitudes toward premarital
sex for girls at a probability level of < .0001.
3. The following discussion relies heavily on a related study by Schlegel (1991),
using a different code for premarital sex norms, one that codes for ideology rather
than behavior.
4. There is a discrepancy in the findings on gift exchange between this study and a
related one (Schlegel 1991). The other study is concerned with the value placed on
virginity, while this one is concerned with behavior. Virginity may be valued and be
prescribed for elite adolescent girls whose marriages involve status negotiations and
are accompanied by an exchange of substantial amounts of goods, at the same time
that common people, who give and receive much less, are more relaxed regarding
their daughters' sexual activities. This argument is developed in Schlegel (1991). A
society may be coded as permissive for this book even though virginity is valued, if
the majority of adolescents are given sexual freedom. The code here differs somewhat
from that used in Schlegel (1991).
5. Socially condoned and medically safe abortions were, however, widely used in
southeast Asia. See the discussion in Schlegel ( 1991).
6. Cf. Fay et al. (1989) for data on male homosexuality in the United States.
Chapter 8 I Violating Cultural Norms

1. In addition to these areas, we have a fair amount of information on witchcraft.
As we stated in Chapter 3, adolescents do not stand out as a class of either practition-
ers or victims when compared to persons of other ages. Furthermore, while witchcraft
212 Notes
may be used malevolently against others and thereby represents a form of antisocial
behavior, it can equally well be used to protect oneself and one's property. As our
measures of witchcraft are not fine-grained enough to permit interpretation with con-
fidence, we will not consider that subject in the following analyses.
2. The testing of cross-cultural findings on intracultural samples has been called
subsystem validation by Roberts and Sutton-Smith (1962). The use of two or more
methods to study a problem is highly recommended.
3. Recently, a novel way of accounting for social deviance has been proposed by
Draper and Harpending (1988) and Rowe (in press). They distinguished between two
male reproductive strategies in animals: a paternal strategy, in which the male makes
a large investment in offspring and mates with few fem ales, and a mating strategy, in
which he makes a small investment but mates with many. In the latter case, the fe-
males rear the offspring alone or with help from others who are not their fathers.
These researchers identified mating strategy in humans as characterizing socio-
pathic men, who are criminal, mobile, and promiscuous, who lack long-term bonds,
and who produce illegitimate offspring and abandon them and their mothers. Rowe
believes that some or all of the personality features contributing to this syndrome are
genetic.
Although the evidence for the heritability of personality traits is becoming in-
creasingly strong, a genetic explanation of crime or adolescent delinquency would
have to account for the great variability across cultures. Although it is plausible that
genetic factors are components in the antisocial behavior of individuals, it seems to us
that they will be influential only in combination with socialization practices and social
settings that reinforce them. These vary intraculturally. We have shown that they
vary cross-culturally as well.
4. Although the rate of delinquency is greater for boys than for girls, delinquent
girls in modern societies may commit the same kinds of acts, such as fighting and
stealing, as delinquent boys, and fighting among young adolescent girls (up to about
age 14 or 15) is not uncommon (Hendy 1983). Although expected antisocial behavior
is very rare for girls in this sample, girls may also misbehave in ways similar to boys
when it is present.
5. Here Devore assumed that aggression is a consequence of frustration, as did
Bandura and Walters (1959). The evidence from this chapter cautions against apply-
ing theories of aggression directly to delinquent behavior, unless this is specifically
violent behavior. As we have seen, there is theft, of the same order as white-collar
crime, which is expressive of acquisitive rather than aggressive impulses and may be
instrumental rather than reactive.
Chapter 9 I The Adolescent Self

1. This finding does not imply the absence of any competition among the Hopi, for
men compete with one another in the public arena where they gain their status and
social recognition. However, little or no competition exists among brothers, and the
sister-sister relationship is one of the greatest warmth and confidence.
2. Barry and Schlegel (1984, 1986) reported further analyses of cultural correlates
with a measure of sexual freedom that includes the quantitative scale of sexual re-
straint.
Notes 213
3. Early rather than later childhood was used to insure that the childhood ratings
were not influenced by information on adolescence. Later childhood, defined as end-
ing around puberty, could overlap in some instances with social adolescence ~s we
defined it.
Chapter 10 I Gender Differences: Final and Proximate Causes

1. The distinction between equality and hierarchy in the experiences of boys and
girls has been influenced by the work of Gilligan and her associates (Gilligan et al.
1988).
2. Chodorow's position, and ours, raises an issue of paternal care: if fathers or
other males had total responsibility for infants as mothers or other women usually
do, would the consequences for girls and boys be reversed, that is, would boys be
drawn in and girls extruded? If adult women and men shared child-rearing equally,
would this lead to androgyny? Chodorow (1978) speculated that shared parental care
would minimize gender differences, but Rossi (1985) expressed doubt based on the
available evidence. The question is open.
3. Information about sex-linked treatment by fathers or other adult males of in-
fants in species other than our own is sparse and usually based on very small samples.
What little is currently available can be found scattered throughout Taub (1984). In a
study of stumptail macaques (Estrada 1984), female infants were subjected to more
aggressive acts from male juveniles and adults than were male infants (sample size is
seven infants). Among Japanese monkeys (Gouzoules 1984), males did not differen-
tiate between male and female one-year-old infants but gave two-year-old females
more carrying, grooming, and protection that the males. Chacma baboons (Busse
1984) equally carried female and male infants under one year. Lamb (1984), in his
review of human fathers, remarked on the paternal preference for male infants, but
to our knowledge no matrilineal or matrilocal societies, which often have a cultural
preference for daughters, have been studied by psychologists for this trait. Human
fathers respond more to sons, while mothers stimulate daughters more. Fathers in-
crease their attention to sons early in the second year. Without much more evidence
from primate species and from a variety of cultures, it would be difficult to generalize
from these data.
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Appendix
I
Societies in the Sample
The 186 societies of the standard sample are listed alphabetically by

name followed by serial number from 1 to 186. One or more alternative
names are given for some societies. Location of each society is specified by
the present-day country, or state for those in the United States. The geo-
graphical coordinates are followed by the focal date for each society and by
the historical context for some societies. A summary statement about the
type of culture classifies its fixity of settlement, political integration, and
subsistence economy. Affiliation with an international religion is also noted .
The information on some societies indicates that the local community is not
representative of the entire culture, such as a peasant village within a class-
stratified state.
Bibliographic references for these societies are included in articles re-
printed by Barry and Schlegel (1980a) and in an article by White (1989). Fix-
ity of settlement and political integration were coded by Murdock and
Provost. Subsistence economy was coded by Murdock and Morrow. These
articles are reprinted in Barry and Schlegel (1980a). Some of the information
on subsistence economy is from the Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock 1967).
The five categories of fixity of residence are nomadic, seminomadic,
semisedentary, sedentary but impermanent, and sedentary. Variations in po-
litical integration include independent groups, independent communities,
chiefdoms, kingdoms, small states, nations, and empires. Chiefdoms, small
states, and nations usually have respectively one, two, and three administra-
tive levels above the local community. A few large nations containing multi-
ple ethnic populations are designated as empires. The six categories of
subsistence economy are agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting of large an-
imals, fishing, gathering of edible flora or fauna, and intercommunity trad-
ing.
The categories of subsistence economy listed are those that contribute
more than lOOJo of the total food supply. When two or more categories are
listed, the adjective "primarily" precedes the first one if it contributes the
229
230 ADOLESCENCE
majority of all food. The information on agriculture usually specifies one of

three types of cultivation: cereal grains, root crops, or tree crops. Cereal
grains include wheat, millet, rice, and corn. Root crops include yams, cas-
sava, and potatoes. Tree crops include plantains, coconuts, and bananas.
Additional information when applicable specifies that cultivation is on per-
manent fields, with irrigation, or with plow animals.
Abipon 183 or Mepene, the Chaco, northeastern Argentina, 27° to 29°S, 59° to
60°W, 1750, after having acquired horses introduced to South America by the
Spaniards. Raiders of Spanish settlements, nomadic, independent communities,
Christian influence, hunting, also gathering and cattle husbandry.
Abkhaz 55, Russian Caucasus, 42°50' to 43°25'N, 40° to 41 °35'E, 1880. A sedentary
chiefdom, some are Christians or Moslems, primarily cattle herding, secondarily
cultivating cereal grains.
Ahaggaren 41 or Tuareg, Algeria, 21 ° to 25°N, 4° to 9°E, 1900, prior to French oc-
cupation. A small state of nomadic bands, Moslems, herding sheep, goats, and
camels, also cultivating cereal grains and trading.
Ainu 118 or Saru Ainu, southeastern Hokkaido, Japan, 42°40' to 43°30'N, 142° to
144°E, 1880, prior to Japanese colonization. Dispersed, independent communities,
technologically primitive, fishing, also hunting and gathering.
Ajie 103, New Caledonia and Loyalty Islands, east of Australia, 21 °20'S, 165°40'E,
1845, prior to European influence. A small chiefdom of sedentary villages, culti-
vating root crops, also fishing and trading.
Aleut 123, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, 53° to 57°30'N, 158° to 170°W, 1778, prior to
pervasive Russian influence. Chiefdom, fishing.
Alorese 89 or Abui, island of Alor, Indonesia, between Java and New Guinea,
8°20'S, 124°40'E, 1938, under Dutch rule. A small chiefdom of sedentary small
communities in the mountains, cultivating cereal grains and root crops.
Amahuaca 170, eastern Peru, 10°30'S, 72° W, 1960, almost completely un-
acculturated. Independent groups in small sedentary but impermanent communi-
ties, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily hunting.
Amhara 37, central Ethiopia, 11 ° to 14°N, 36° to 38°45'E, 1953. A large nation of
sedentary villages, Coptic Christians, cultiving cereal grains with plow animals,
also milking cows and trading.
Andamanese 79, islands east of India, 11 °45' to 12°N, 93° to 95° lO'E, 1860, prior to
disruption by a penal colony established in 1858. Small nomadic independent com-
munities on the seacoast, technologically primitive, fishing, also gathering and
hunting.
Aranda 91 or Arunta, central Australia, 23°30' to 25°S, 132°30' to 134°20'E, 1896.
Small nomadic independent communities, technologically primitive, hunting, also
gathering.
Armenians 56, Russian Caucasus near Turkey, 40°10'N, 44°30'E, 1843, ruled by
Russia, prior to political disruption in the late nineteenth century. A numerous eth-
nic minority, Christians, primarily cultivating cereal grains with plow animals, sec-
ondarily milking cows. Focus is the city of Erivan and surrounding villages.
Societies in the Sample 231
Ashanti 19, Ghana, West Africa, 6° to 8°N, 0° to 3°W, 1895, prior to conquest by
the British. A large kingdom ruling several tribes, sedentary but impermanent set-
tlements, primarily cultivating root crops, secondarily hunting and husbandry of
sheep or goats.
Atayal 113, north central Taiwan (Formosa), 23°50' to 24°50'N, 120°20' to
l20°50'E, 1930, when aboriginal culture was relatively intact. A chiefdom of sed-
entary but impermanent settlements in mountainous terrain, primarily cultivating
cereal grains, secondarily hunting.
Aweikoma 180 or Caingang or Skokleng, southern Brazil, 28°S, 50°W, 1932, Indians
hunted by Brazilian and German settlers. Small nomadic independent groups in the
mountains, technologically primitive, primarily hunting, secondarily gathering.
Aymara 172, southern Peru, 16°S, 70°W, 1940, subjected to social disorganization
and acculturation, formerly a portion of the Inca state. Ethnic minority, a large
population of sedentary villages, Christians, cultivating root crops, also husbandry
of sheep or goats and fishing.
Azande 28, southern Sudan, 4°20' to 5°50'N, 27°40' to 28°50'E, 1905, after British
conquest broke up a large kingdom but prior to complete subjugation. A kingdom
with sedentary villages, cultivating cereal grains, also hunting and gathering.
Aztec 153 or Tenochca, Mexico City (Tenochtitlan), 19°N, 99°10'W, 1520, immedi-
ately preceding the Spanish conquest under Cortez. Urban capital of a technologi-
cally complex empire, cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, also hunting,
tending small animals, and trading.
Babylonians 45, Iraq, 32°35'N, 44°45'E, 1750 B.C. Capital of a technologically com-
plex empire, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily milking cows and fish-
ing.
Badjau 86 or Tawi-Tawi Badjau or Sea Gypsies, the Tawi-Tawi islands, east of Ma-
laysia, 5°N, 120°E, 1963. Small nomadic independent communities, technologi-
cally primitive, primarily fishing, secondarily trading.
Balinese 84, Bali island Indonesia, 8°30'S, 115°20'E, 1958. Sedentary villages, tech-
nologically complex, Hindus, cultivating cereal grains, also tending pigs and trad-
ing.
Bambara22, southern Mali, 12°30' to 13°N, 6° to 8°W, 1902, shortly after the begin-
ning of French rule. Large sedentary villages, primarily cultivating cereal grains
with plow animals, secondarily milking cows.
Banen 15, western Cameroon, 4°35' to 4°45'N, 10°35' to 11 °E, 1940, ruled by France
but only slightly acculturated. Sedentary, cultivating root crops.
Basques 50, the Pyrenees, northeastern Spain, 43 ° 18'N, 1° 40'W, 1940. Ethnic minor-
ity, large sedentary villages, technologically complex, Christians, primarily culti-
vating cereal grains with plow animals, secondarily milking cows.
Basseri 58, southwestern Iran, 27° to 31 °N, 53° to 54°E, 1958. Confederacy of small
nomadic groups, Moslems, primarily husbandry of sheep and goats, secondarily
cultivating cereal grains and trading.
Bellacoola 132, western British Columbia, Canada, 52°20'N, 126° to 127°W, 1880,
at an early stage of intensive acculturation. Small sedentary autonomous commu-
nity, primarily fishing, secondarily hunting and gathering.
232 ADOLESCENCE
Bemba 7, northern Zambia, 9° to 12°S, 29° to 32°E, 1897, prior to British occupa-
tion. A large chiefdom, cultivating cereal grains with plow animals, also hunting,
fishing, and gathering.
Bogo 38 or Belen, northern Ethiopia, 15°45'N, 38°45'E, 1855, at the time they were
being converted from Christianity to Islam. A small semisedentary tribe, primarily
herding cattle, secondarily cultivating cereal grains with plow animals.
Botocudo 178 or Aimore, eastern Brazil, 18° to 20°S, 41 °30' to 43°30'W, 1884, rela-
tively unacculturated. Small nomadic independent groups, technologically primi-
tive, primarily hunting, secondarily fishing.
Bribri 157 or Talamanca, southern Costa Rica, 9°N, 83° 15'W, 1917. Small sedentary
autonomous communities, cultivating cereal grains, also hunting.
Burmese 71, central Burma, 21 °58'N, 95°40'E, 1960. Peasant village in a technologi-
cally complex nation, Buddhists, cultivating cereal grains with irrigation and plow
animals, also fishing and trading.
Burusho 64, Hunza state, northern India, 36°20' to 36°30'N, 74°30' to 74°40'E,
1934. Ethnic minority in small sedentary communities, Moslems, primarily culti-
vating cereal grains with irrigation and plow animals, secondarily husbandry of
sheep and goats.
Callinago 161 or Island Carib, Dominica island, Windward Islands, 15°30'N,
61 °30'W, 1650, shortly after European occupation. Independent sedentary but im-
permanent communities, cultivating root crops on permanent fields, also fishing
and hunting.
Carib 164 or Barama River Carib, northwest Guyana and northeast Venezuela, 7 ° 10'
to 7°40'N, 59°20' to 60°20'W, 1932, when acculturation was slight. Small nomadic
autonomous communities, fishing, also cultivating root crops and hunting.
Cayapa 168, southwestern Colombia and northern Ecuador, 0°40' to 1° 15'N, 78°45'
to 79° 10'W, 1908, prior to acculturation. Independent sedentary communities, cul-
tivating tree crops, also fishing and hunting.
Cayua 181 or Caingua, southern Brazil and Paraguay, 23° to 24°S, 54° to 56°W,
1890, only slightly acculturated. Small independent nomadic groups, hunting, also
cultivating cereal grains and gathering.
Chinese 114 or Chekiang Chinese, northern Chekiang province, eastern China,
31 °N, 120°05'E, 1936, prior to Japanese invasion. Densely settled communities in
a technologically complex nation, primarily cultivating cereal grains with irriga-
tion, secondarily fishing and trading. Focus is a peasant village.
Chiricahua Apache 148, southeast Arizona, 32°N, 109°30'W, 1870, prior to being
placed on a reservation. Small nomadic bands, frequently engaged in raiding, tech-
nologically primitive, gathering, also hunting.
Chukchee 121 or Reindeer Chukchee, northeastern Russia, 63° to 70°N, 171°W to
171 °E, 1900, unacculturated. Small seminomadic independent groups, primarily
reindeer herding, secondarily hunting.
Comanche 147, Texas, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas, 30° to 38°N, 98° to 103°W,
1870, more than a hundred years after they acquired horses, shortly before settle-
ment in a reservation and disappearance of the buffalo herds. Independent no-
madic bands, frequently engaged in raiding, primarily equestrian hunting, second-
arily gathering.
Copper Eskimo 124, northern Northwest Territories, Canada, 66°40' to 69°20'N,
108° to 117°W, 1915, prior to first settlement of European descendents. Small
seminomadic independent groups, primarily fishing, secondarily hunting.
Creek 145 or upper Creek or Muskogee, eastern Alabama, 32°30' to 34°20'N, 85°30'
to 86°30'W, 1800, while a member of a confederacy of tribes independent of the
United States. Semisedentary villages, cultivating cereal grains, also hunting and
fishing.
Cubeo 167, eastern Colombia, 1° to 1° 50'N, 70° to 71 °W, 1939, when partially ac-
culturated. Small sedentary independent communities, cultivating root crops, also
fishing and hunting.
Cuna 158 or Tule, eastern Panama, 9° to 9°30'N, 78° to 79°W, 1927, shortly after
they massacred all resident Panamanians and declared political independence
under United States protection. Sedentary villages, Christians, primarily cultivat-
ing tree crops, secondarily fishing and hunting.
Egyptians 43, south central Egypt, 24°45'N, 33°E, 1950. Peasant village in a techno-
logically complex nation, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal grains with irriga-
tion and plow animals, secondarily trading.
Eyak 130, southern Alaska, 60° to 61 °N, 144° to 146°W, 1890, shortly before com-
plete acculturation and detribalization. Small semisedentary village, primarily fish-
ing, secondarily hunting.
Fijians 102, the island of Mbau, southwest of Samoa, 18°S, 178°35'E, 1840, 40 years
after the first European contact. Chiefdom of sedentary villages, primarily fishing,
secondarily cultivating root crops.
Fon 18 or Dahomeans, Dahomey, 7° 12'N, 1°56'E, 1890, before conquest by the
French. Focus is capital of an empire, large sedentary settlements, exporting slaves,
cultivating cereal grains with plow animals, also tending pigs, hunting, and trad-
ing.
Fulani 25 or Wodaabe Fulani, southern Niger, 13° to 17°N, 5° to 10°E, 1951, 48
years after arrival of the British. Chiefdom of Moslems, nomadic, primarily cattle
herding, secondarily cultivating cereal grains.
Fur 29 or For, western Sudan, 13°30'N, 25°30'E, 1880, prior to British conquest. A
large state of Moslems, with sedentary settlements, cultivating cereal grains, also
milking cows, fishing, and hunting.
Ganda 12 or Baganda, Uganda, 0°20'N, 32°32'E, 1875, prior to subjugation by the
British. Kingdom of sedentary large settlements, cultivating tree crops on perma-
nent fields, also hunting and fishing.
Garo 69, Assam, eastern India, 26°N, 91 °E, 1955. Group of sedentary villages, prac-
ticing shifting cultivating of cereal grains, also husbandry of sheep or goats and
trading.
Gheg Albanians 48, northwestern Albania, 41 °20' to 42°40'N, 19°30' to 20°30'E,
1910, while under Turkish rule. Semisendentary peasant communities in mountain-
234 ADOLESCENCE
ous terrain, Moslem majority, Christian minority, cultivating cereal grains on per-
manent fields, also milking cows.
Gilbertese 107 or Makin, northeast of Australia, 3°30'N, 172°20' 0 E, 1890, prior to
colonial administration by the English. Chiefdom of sedentary villages, primarily
cultivating tree crops, secondarily fishing.
Gilyak 119, Sakhalin island, eastern Siberia in Russia, 53°30' to 54°30'N, 141 °50' to
143° IO'E, 1890. Small seminomadic independent communities in an arctic environ-
ment, primarily fishing, secondarily hunting and gathering.
Goajiro 159, northern Colombia and Venezuela, 11 °30' to 12°20'N, 71 ° to 72°30'W,
1947, acculturation slight although cattle acquired from the Spaniards four centu-
ries earlier. Small nomadic groups, primarily cattle herding, also gathering.
Gond 60 or Hill Maria Gond, east central India, 19°15' to 20°N, 80°30' to 81 °20'E,
1930. Small sedentary but impermanent settlements, cultivating cereal grains, also
cattle husbandry and gathering.
Gros Ventre 140 or Atsina, northeastern Montana, 47° to 49°N, 106° to 110°W,
1880, shortly before missionary activity and disappearance of the buffalo. No-
madic tribe, much warfare with other Indian tribes and with whites, primarily
equestrian hunting, secondarily gathering.
Hadza 9 or Kindiga, northern Tanzania, 3°30' to 4° IO'S, 34°40' to 35°25'E, 1930,
related to the Bushmen-Hottentots of southern Africa. Small nomadic independent
groups, technologically primitive, primarily gathering, secondarily hunting.
Haida 131 or Masset Haida, northern Queen Charlotte Islands, western British Co-
lumbia, Canada, 54°N, 132°30'W, 1875, shortly prior to the first Christian mis-
sion. Small semisedentary independent communities, primarily fishing,
secondarily gathering.
Haitians 160, Haiti, 18°50'N, 72°10'W, 1940, descendants of slaves imported from
Africa in the seventeenth century. Sedentary peasant villages, Christians, primarily
cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily cattle husbandry.
Hausa 26 or Zazzagawa Hausa, northern Nigeria, 9°30' to 11 °30'N, 6° to 9°E, 1900,
just before rule by the Fulani was replaced by British occupation. Large population
in sedentary villages, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily
trading.
Havasupai 150, north central Arizona, 35°20' to 36°20'N, 111 °20' to 113°W, 1918,
while indigenous culture was practically intact. Seminomadic small independent
groups, primarily cultivati~g cereal grains, secondarily gathering and hunting.
Hebrews 44 or Judah, southern Israel, 30°30' to 31 °55'N, 34°20' to 35°30'E, 621
B.C., during a brief interval of political independence under King Josiah. A small
state with a capital city and sedentary, densely populated villages, technologically
complex, Judaic religion, cultivating cereal grains with plow animals, also hus-
bandry of sheep or goats.
Hidatsa 141 or Minitari, central North Dakota, 47°N, 101 °W, 1836, shortly before a
smallpox epidemic. Semisedentary small independent village, primarily cultivating
cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily hunting and gathering.
Huichol 152, western Mexico, 22°N, 105°W, 1890, after more than a century and a
half of acculturation. Sedentary independent communities, Christians, cultivating
cereal grains, also hunting and cattle husbandry.
Huron 144 or Wendot, central Ontario, Canada, 44° to 45°N, 78° to 80°W, 1634,
when the aboriginal culture was still largely undisturbed. Member of a confederacy
of tribes, semisedentary large villages, cultivating cereal grains, also fishing and
hunting.
Iban 85 or Sea Dayak, central Sarawak in Malaysia, 2°N, 112°30' to 113°30'E, 1950.
Most numerous ethnic group of Sarawak, small sedentary but impermanent inde-
pendent communities, cultivating cereal grains.
Ibo 17 or Igbo, southeastern Nigeria, 5°20' to 5°40'N, 7°10' to 7°30'E, 1935, shortly
after they were initially required to pay taxes to the British Protectorate. Sedentary
large villages, primarily cultivating root crops, secondarily trading.
Ifugao 112, the northern Philippines, 16°45; to 16°52' N, 121 °05' to 121 ° 12'E, 1910.
Independent groups in sedentary communities, cultivating root crops with irriga-
tion.
Inca 171, southern Peru, 13°30'S, 72°W, 1530, immediately prior to civil war and
Spanish conquest. Focus is Cuzco, capital city of the empire, primarily cultivating
cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily trading.
Ingalik 122 or Tinneh, southwestern Alaska, 62°30'N, 159°30'W, 1885, after a small-
pox epidemic and establishment of a trading post but prior to missionary influence.
Small seminomadic independent villages, primarily fishing, secondarily hunting.
Irish 51, County Clare, southwest Ireland, 52°40' to 53°10'N, 8°20' to 10°W, 1932.
A peasant community in a technologically complex nation, Christians, primarily
cultivating root crops on permanent fields, secondarily milking cows and trading.
Japanese 117, Okayama prefecture, southwestern Japan, 34°40'N, 133°48'E, 1950.
The small peasant village of Niiike, technologically complex, primarily cultivating
cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily trading.
Javanese 83, eastern Java, Indonesia, 7°43'$, 112° 13'E, 1955. Focus is peasant vil-
lages surrounding a town in a technologically complex nation, Moslems, primarily
cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily trading.
Jivaro 169 or Xibaro, southern Ecuador, 2° to 4°S, 77° to 79°W, 1920, only partially
acculturated while still fighting against European intruders. Small independent
groups in sedentary but impermanent settlements, cultivating root crops, also
hunting, fishing, and tending pigs.
Kafa 33 or Kaffa or Kafficho, southwestern Ethiopia, 6°50' to 7°45'N, 35°30' to
37°E, 1905, eight years after conquest by Ethiopia. Small villages, primarily culti-
vating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily cattle husbandry and gather-
ing.
Kapauku 94, western New Guinea, Indonesia, 3°25' to 4° IO'S, 135°25' to 137°E,
1955, prior to administrative control by the Dutch and while missionary penetra-
tion was minimal. Small sedentary villages, cultivating root crops, also tending pigs
and trading.
Kaska 129 or Eastern Nahani, northern British Columbia and eastern Yukon, Can-
236 ADOLESCENCE
ada, 60°N, 131 °W, 1900, prior to extensive missionary activity. Small semino-
madic independent communities, technologically primitive, fishing, also hunting.
Kazak 65 or Great Horde, southeastern Russia and western China, 37° to 48°N, 68°
to 81 °E, 1890. Seminomadic confederation of clans, Moslems, equestrian herders
of sheep, goats, some cattle.
Kenuzi Nubians 39, southern Egypt, 22° to 24°N, 32° to 33°E, 1900, immediately
prior to their displacement by the first Aswan Dam. Small sedentary independent
villages, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily
tending sheep or goats.
Khalkha Mongols 66, west central part of Outer Mongolia, 47° to 47°20'N, 95° 10' to
97°E, 1920, at the time of the Autonomous Northern Mongolia nation, prior to
becoming the Mongolian People's Republic of the Soviet Union. Small semino-
madic groups, Buddhists, primarily husbandry of sheep or goats, secondarily trad-
ing.
Khmer 75 or Cambodians, northwestern Cambodia, 13°30'N, 103°50'E, 1292, in the
golden age of the Khmer empire. Capital city of Angkor, technologically complex,
primarily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily fishing.
Kikuyu 11 or Akikuyu, south central Kenya, 0°40'S, 37° lO'E, 1920, at the end of
relative stability of the traditional system. Small sedentary independent villages,
primarily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily cattle hus-
bandry.
Kimam 93, southwestern New Guinea, Indonesia, 7°30'S, 138°30'E, 1960, shortly
before transfer from Dutch to Indonesian rule. Sedentary independent villages,
primarily cultivating root crops on permanent fields, secondarily gathering.
Klamath 138, southwestern Oregon, 42° to 43°15'N, 121°20' to 122°20'W, 1860, 35
years after first contact with whites, shortly prior to intense acculturation. Small
seminomadic independent communities, technologically primitive, primarily fish-
ing, secondarily gathering.
Konso 35, southwestern Ethiopia, 5°15'N, 37°30'E, 1935, 38 years after conquest by
the Ethiopian kingdom. Sedentary towns, primarily cultivating cereal grains on
permanent fields, secondarily milking cows.
Koreans 116, north central Korea, 37°37'N, 126°25'E, 1950, shortly after formation
of the independent country of North Korea. Focus is peasant villages in a techno-
logically complex nation, primarily cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, sec-
ondarily trading.
Kung Bushmen 2, northeastern South West Africa, 19°50'S, 20° to 21 °E, 1950, un-
acculturated, intermarrying bands. Small nomadic independent groups, technolog-
ically primitive, primarily gatherers, secondarily hunters.
Kurd 57, northeastern Iraq, 35°30'N, 44°30'E, 1950. Numerous ethnic minority,
Moslems, cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, also husbandry of sheep or goats
and trading. Focus is the town of Rowanduz.
Kutenai 139 or Lower Kutenai or Kootenay, northern Idaho and southern British
Columbia, Canada, 48°40' to 49° lO'N, 116°40'W, 1890, when still relatively au-
tonomous, prior to intensive acculturation. Small seminomadic independent com-
munities, fishing, also hunting and gathering.
Kwoma 95, northeastern New Guinea, 4° IO'S, 142°40'E, 1937, when relatively un-
acculturated and prior to missionary contact. Sedentary small independent vil-
lages, cultivating root crops, also gathering.
Lakher 70 or Mara, southern Assam state of India, western Burma, and eastern
Bangladesh, 22°20'N, 93°E, 1930, while under British rule. Ethnic minority in sed-
entary villages, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily cattle
husbandry.
Lamet 72, northwestern Laos, 20°N, 100°40'E, 1940. Small semisedentary indepen-
dent villages, cultivating cereal grains, also cattle husbandry and hunting.
Lapps 52 or Konkama Lapps, northern Sweden, 68°20' to 69°05'N, 20°05' to 23°E,
1950. Small nomadic independent bands, Christians, primarily reindeer herding,
secondarily fishing.
Lengua 182, central Paraguay, 23° to 24°S, 58° to 59°W, 1889, prior to the accultur-
ation that began with a Christian mission. Nomadic small independent communi-
ties, hunting, also fishing, gathering, and cultivating root crops.
Lepcha 68 or Rong, western Bhutan, in the state of Sikkim and Darjeeling district of
eastern India, 27° to 28°N, 89°E, 1937, while under British rule. Small sedentary
villages, Buddhists, cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, also cattle hus-
bandry and gathering.
Lesu 97, New Ireland, south of Hawaii, 2°30'S, 151°E, 1930, while an Australian
protectorate. Sedentary independent villages, cultivating root crops, also fishing
and gathering.
Lolo 67 or Nosu, Szechwan province, south central China, 26° to 29°N, 103° to
104 °E, 1910, ten years after onset of Chinese control and initial encounter with
Europeans. Ethnic minority of sedentary independent villages, highly stratified so-
ciety, owning horses, primarily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, sec-
ondarily husbandry of sheep or goats.
Lozi 4 or Barotse, southwestern Zambia, 14° to 18°20'S, 22° to 25°E, 1900, a com-
ponent of the Barotse nation during its maximum expansion. Semisedentary vil-
lages, cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, also tending cattle and fishing.
Luguru 10 or Waluguru, eastern Tanzania, 6°25' to 7°25'S, 37°20' to 38°E, 1925,
with the traditional political organization in spite of British and previously German
rule. Sedentary independent villages, cultivating cereal grains.
Manchu 115 or Aigun Manchu, northeastern Manchuria district of China, 50°N,
125°30'E, 1915. Small sedentary villages, in a technologically complex nation, pri-
marily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily tending pigs.
Manus 96, Admiralty Islands, southwest of Hawaii, 2° IO'S, 147° IO'E, 1929, gov-
erned by Australia. Sedentary independent villages, primarily trading, secondarily
fishing.
Mao 32 or Northern Mao, western Ethiopia, 9°5' to 9°35'N, 34°30' to 34°50'E, 1939.
Small, relatively independent and unacculturated tribe, in sedentary independent
villages, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily hunting and fishing.
Maori 104, northern New Zealand, 35°10' to 35°30'S, 174° to 174°20'E, 1800,
shortly after settlement by Europeans, prior to extensive acculturation. Small
238 ADOLESCENCE
chiefdom, frequent warfare with other Maori chiefdoms, sedentary villages., culti-
vating root crops, also fishing and hunting.
Mapuche 184 or Araucanians, south central Chile, 38°30'S, 72°35'W, 1950, follow-
ing extensive contact with whites and settlement in a reservation 64 years earlier.
Small sedentary villages, primarily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields,
secondarily husbandry of sheep or goats and fishing.
Marquesans 105, Nuku Hiva Island, southeast of Hawaii, 8°54' to 8°58'S, 140°08' to
140° 12'W, 1800. Small chiefdom of small sedentary villages, primarily cultivating
tree crops, secondarily fishing.
Marshallese 108 or Jaluit, south of Hawaii, 6°N, 165°30'E, 1900, during German
protectorate, after almost a century of contacts with Europeans. Sedentary villages
on small atolls, primarily fishing, secondarily cultivating tree crops.
Masai 34, northeastern Tanzania, 1°30' to 5°30'S, 35° to 37°30'E, 1900, eight years
after severe smallpox epidemic, at the onset of German and British colonial occu-
pation. Independent nomadic bands, primarily cattle herding, secondarily trading.
Massa 27 or Bana, southwestern Chad, 10° to 11 °N, 15° to 16°E, 1910, shortly after
German colonial occupation. Sedentary independent villages, cultivating cereal
grains, also fishing and milking cows.
Mbundu 5 or Ovimbundu, 12°15'S, 16°30'E, central Angola, 1890, prior to occupa-
tion by the Portuguese. Kingdom of small sedentary villages, primarily cultivating
cereal grains, secondarily cattle husbandry.
Mbuti 13 or Mbuti Pygmies or Bambuti, northeastern Zaire, 1°30' to 2°N, 28°15' to
28°25'E, 1950. Small nomadic independent bands in tropical forest, technologi-
cally primitive, gathering, also hunting.
Mende 20, Sierra Leone, 7°50'N, 12°W, 1945. Sedentary villages, primarily cultivat-
ing cereal grains, secondarily trading.
Micmac 126 or Souriquois, Maine and southeastern Canada,'43°30' to 50°N, 60° to
66°W, 1650, after 40-45 years of European settlement and missionary contact.
Small seminomadic independent communities, primarily hunting, secondarily fish-
ing.
Miskito 156 or Mosquito, eastern Honduras and northeastern Nicaragua, 15°N, 83°W,
1920. Racial and cultural mixture for the prior three centuries. Sedentary villages,
Christians, cultivating root crops, also hunting and fishing.
Montagnais 125, west central Quebec, Canada, 48° to 52°N, 73° to 75°W, 1910, fol-
lowing three centuries of acculturation. Small seminomadic independent commu-
nities, technologically primitive, primarily hunting, secondarily fishing and
trading.
Mundurucu 166, central Brazil, 6° to 7°S, 56° to 57°W, 1850, after substantial accul-
turation but prior to assimilation into Brazilian culture. Small sedentary indepen-
dent villages, cultivating root crops, also hunting and fishing.
Nama Hottentot 1 or Namaqua, central South West Africa, 23°30'S, l 7°E, 1860, the
last year when they collected tribute from other groups, prior to the devastating
German-Hottentot war. Nomadic bands, milking cows, hunting, and gathering.
Nambicuara 174, Southern Mato Grosso of west central Brazil, 12°30' to 13°30'S,
58°30' to 59°W, 1940, following long exposure to Europeans. Small seminomadic
independent communities, gathering, also hunting, fishing, and cultivating cereal
grains.
Natchez 146, south central Louisiana, 31 °30'N, 91 °25'W, 1718, when the first mis-
sionaries arrived. Chiefdom of sedentary villages, cultivating cereal grains, also
·hunting and fishing.
Negri Sembilan 82, central Malaysia, 2°35'N, 102° 15'E, 1958. Large sedentary vil-
lages in a technologically complex nation, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal
grains with irrigation, secondarily fishing.
Nicobarese 78, Nicobar islands, east of Sri Lanka, 8° 15' to 9° 15'N, 92°40' to 93°E,
1870, the year after British occupation. Sedentary independent villages, primarily
cultivating tree crops, secondarily fishing and tending pigs.
Nkundo Mongo 14, west central Zaire, 0°15' to l 0 15'S, 18°35' to 19°45'E, 1930, a
component of the Mongo nation. Small sedentary villages, cultivating root crops.
Nyakyusa 8, southwestern Tanzania, 9°20' to 9°35'S, 34° to 34°10'E, 1934. Small
chiefdoms of sedentary but impermanent villages, primarily cultivating cereal
grains on permanent fields, secondarily cattle husbandry.
Omaha 143, eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, 41°10' to 41°40'N, 96° to 97°W,
1854, immediately before they were granted a reservation. Semisedentary commu-
nity, equestrian hunting, also cultivating cereal grains and fishing.
Orokaiva 92, eastern New Guinea, 8°20' to 8°40'S, 147°50' to 148°10'E, 1925, while
relatively unacculturated although an Australian protectorate. Small sedentary in-
dependent villages, cultivating root crops.
Otoro 30 or Otoro Nuba, south central Sudan, 11 °20'N, 30°40'E, 1930, prior to ex-
tensive migration from the hills to the plains. Sedentary independent groups, pri-
marily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily husbandry of
sheep or goats.
Palauans 111, Palau islands, east of the Philippines, 7°2l'N, 134°3l'E, 1873, when
the Germans established the first trading station. Small sedentary villages, primar-
ily cultivating root crops, secondarily fishing.
Papago 151 or Tohono O'odham, southern Arizona, 32°N, 112°W, 1910, prior to
establishment of the reservation. Semisedentary independent communities, Chris-
tians, cultivating cereal grains, also gathering, cattle husbandry, and trading.
Pawnee 142 or Skidi Pawnee, north central Nebraska, 42°N, 100°W, 1867, when the
aboriginal population was intact although severely reduced by disease. Semiseden-
tary bands, cultivating cereal grains, also equestrian hunting.
Pentecost 101 or Bunlap, island west of Fiji, 16°S, 168°35'E, 1953, following heavy
depopulation. Small sedentary independent villages, primarily cultivating root
crops, secondarily gathering.
Pomo 135 or Eastern Pomo, north central California, 39°N, 123°W, 1850, prior to
influx of white settlers. Semisedentary independent communities, gathering, also
hunting and fishing.
Popoluca 154 or Sierra Popoluca, southeastern Mexico, l8°15'N, 94°50'W, 1940,
after extensive acculturation and assimilation into Mexican society. Sedentary vil-
lages, Christians, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily tending small an-
imals.
Punjabi 59 or West Punjabi, northeastern Pakistan, 32°30'N, 74°E, 1952, peasant
240 ADOLESCENCE
villages in a technologically complex nation, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal

grains on permanent fields, secondarily milking cows.
Quiche 155, southern Guatemala, 15 °N, 91 °W, 1930, descendants of the Mayans,
heavily influenced by the Spanish. Sedentary villages, Christians, cultivating cereal
grains.
Rhade 74, south central Vietnam, 13°N, 108°E, 1962, ethnic minority in South Viet-
nam, shortly after French withdrawal. Sedentary but impermanent independent
villages, primarily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily tending pigs.
Riffians 42, northeastern Morocco, 34°20' to 35°30'N, 2°30' to 4°W, 1926. An eth-
nic minority, sedentary villages, Moslems, primarily cultivating cereal grains on
permanent fields, secondarily milking cows and gathering.
Romans 49, west central Italy, 41 °50'N, 12°30'E, A.O. 110, during the Early Empire,
a span of two centuries of internal peace. Capital of a technologically complex em-
pire, primarily trading, secondarily agriculture.
Russians 54, southeast of Moscow, 52°40'N, 41 °20'E, 1955, early in Khrushchev's
regime. Peasant village in a technologically complex nation, Christian rituals per-
sisting in spite of government disapproval, collectivized farming, primarily culti-
vating cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily milking cows.
Rwala Bedouin 46, Jordan, southern Syria, western Iraq, 31 ° to 35°30'N, 36° to
41 °E, 1913, under Turkish rule. Small groups of nomads, Moslems, primarily
camel herding, secondarily trading.
Samoans 106 or Western Samoans, Upolu Island, northeast of New Zealand, 13°48'
to 14°S, 171 °54' to 172°3'W, 1828, prior to the first missionary settlement and the
defeat of the chief of the focal group. Chiefdom of sedentary villages, primarily
cultivating root crops, secondarily fishing.
Santai 62, eastern India, 23° to 24°N, 86°50' to 87°30'E, 1940. A minority non-
Hindu ethnic group in sedentary villages, cultivating grain crops with irrigation.
Saramacca 165 or Bush Negroes, Surinam, 3° to 4°N, 55°30' to 56°W, 1928, descen-
dants of refugee slaves from Africa, relatively unacculturated. Sedentary villages,
cultivating root crops, also hunting and fishing.
Saulteaux 127 or Northern Saulteaux, an Ojibwa tribe in southeastern Manitoba,
Canada, 51 °30' to 52°30'N, 94° to 97°W, 1930, less acculturation than other
Ojibwa tribes. Small seminomadic independent bands, fishing, also hunting and
trading.
Semang 77 or Negritos, northern Malaysia, 4°30' to 5°30'N, 101 ° to 101 °30'E, 1925,
the original inhabitants. Small nomadic independent groups in the mountains,
technologically primitive, gathering, also hunting and trading.
Shavante 179, central Brazil, 13°30'S, 51°30'W, 1958, five years after beginning of
amicable relations with whites. Seminomadic independent communities, techno-
logically primitive, primarily gathering, secondarily hunting.
Shilluk 31, southeastern Sudan, 9° to 10°30'N, 31° to 32°E, 1910, while under
Anglo-Egyptian rule. Sedentary villages, primarily cultivating cereal grains, sec-
ondarily milking cows, hunting, and fishing.
Siamese 76 or Central Thai, southern Thailand, 14°N, 100°52'E, 1955. Peasant vii-
lage in the technologically complex kingdom of Thailand, large sedentary village,

Buddhists, primarily cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily fishing.
Siriono 173, northwestern Bolivia, 14° to 15°S, 63° to 64°W, 1942, at a time of very
slight acculturation. Small seminomadic independent bands, technologically prim-
itive, hunting, also gathering.
Siuai 99 or Motuna, Solomon islands, east of New Guinea, 7°S, 155°20'E, 1939, min-
imal acculturation until Australian administration beginning 20 years earlier.
Small sedentary independent villages, primarily cultivating root crops, secondarily
tending pigs, gathering, and trading.
Slave 128 or Etchareottine, southwestern Northwest Territories of Canada, 62°N,
122°W, 1940, prior to heavy acculturation. Small semisedentary independent com-
munities, nominally Christians, hunting, also fishing and trading.
Somali 36, northern Somalia, 7° to 11 °N, 45°30' to 49°E, 1900, while governed by
the English. Nomadic communities, Moslems, milking camels.
Songhai 24, central Mali, 16° to l7°15'N, 0°IO'E to 3°IO'W, 1940, under French
occupation. Ethnic minority in a country dominated by the Ahaggaren Tuareg,
sedentary villages, Moslems, cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, also
milking cows.
Suku 6 or Pindi, western Zaire, 6°S, l8°E, 1920, while autonomous, prior to colonial
Belgian administration. Chiefdom of small sedentary but impermanent communi-
ties, primarily cultivating root crops, also gathering.
Tallensi 23, northeastern Ghana, 10°30' to l0°45'N, 0°30' to 0°50'W, 1934, shortly
after English colonization, at a time of very little acculturation. Sedentary indepen-
dent villages, primarily cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily
trading.
Tanala 81 or Menabe Tanala, eastern Madagascar, 20°S, 48°E, 1925. Semisedentary
mountain villages, cultivating cereal grains and root crops.
Teda 40, northern Chad, 19° to 22°N, 16° to 19°E, 1950. Small nomadic indepen-
dent communities, Moslems, primarily camel herding, secondarily trading.
Tehuelche 185 or Patagon, southern Argentina, 40° to 50°S, 64° to 72°W, 1870,
prior to intense acculturation but after a severe smallpox epidemic. Horses had
been acquired from the Spanish. Small nomadic independent bands, equestrian
hunting.
Thonga 3 or Bathonga, northeastern South Africa, 25°50'S, 32°20'E, 1895, shortly
after Portuguese colonization, which terminated subjugation by the Zulus. Seden-
tary but impermanent small communities, cultivating cereal grains.
Tikopia 100, northwest of Fiji, 12°30'S, 168°30'E, 1930. Small chiefdom of seden-
tary villages, primarily cultivating root crops, secondarily fishing.
Timbira 176 or Ramcocamecra or Eastern Timbira, east central Brazil, 6° to 7°S, 45°
to 46°W, 1915 after severe disease and warfare with Brazilians. Sedentary but im-
permanent independent communities, cultivating root crops, also hunting.
Tiv 16 or Munshi, southern Nigeria, 6°30' to 8°N, 8° to l0°E, 1920, after British
colonization but prior to extensive changes. Sedentary villages, primarily cultivat-
ing root crops, secondarily trading.
Tiwi 90, Bathurst and Melville islands, northern Australia, 11 ° to 11 °45'S, 130° to
242 ADOLESCENCE
132°E, 1929, shortly after onset of frequent visits by Japanese pearl fishermen.
Small nomadic independent bands, technologically primitive, gathering, also hunt-
ing and fishing.
Tobelorese 88 or Tobelo, Halmahera island in the Molucca islands, northwest of New
Guinea, 2°N, 128°E, 1900, after the Dutch forced them to give up piracy but prior
to the missionary efforts of the principal ethnographer. Sedentary villages, primar-
ily cultivating cereal grains, secondarily fishing.
Toda 61, southern India, 11 ° to 12°N, 76° to 77°E, 1900, during British rule. Moun-
tainous non-Hindu tribe, small, semisedentary communities, primarily cattle herd-
ing, secondarily gathering and trading.
Toradja 87, Celebese, Indonesia, 2°S, 121 °E, 1910, during Dutch colonial occupa-
tion. Small sedentary villages in the mountains, primarily cultivating cereal grains,
secondarily hunting.
Trobrianders 98, west of Marquesas islands, 8°38'S, 151 °4'E, 1914, during adminis-
tration by Australia. Small sedentary villages, primarily cultivating root crops, sec-
ondarily fishing and trading.
Trukese 109, Romonum or Ulali Island, north of Trobriand islands, 7°24'N,
151 ° 40'E, 1947, shortly after transfer from Japanese rule to United States trustee-
ship. Small island in a complex atoll, sedentary villages, cultivating tree crops, also
fishing.
Trumai 175, French Guiana, 11 °50'S, 53°40'W, 1938, after exposure to only spo-
radic contacts with Europeans. A small sedentary independent village, cultivating
root crops, also fishing and gathering.
Tupinamba 177, eastern Brazil, near Rio de Janeiro, 22°33' to 23°S, 42° to 44°30'W,
1550, prior to missionary influence. A large population of warring subtribes, chief-
dom, sedentary but impermanent villages, cultivating root crops, also hunting and
fishing.
Turks 47, central Turkey, 38°40' to 40 N, 32°40' to 35°50'E, 1950. Component of a
technologically complex nation, peasant villages of orthodox Moslems, primarily
cultivating cereal grains on permanent fields, secondarily husbandry of sheep and
goats.
Twana 133, western Washington, west of Seattle, 47°20' to 47°30'N, 123° 10' to
123°20'W, 1860, subsequent to contacts with Europeans and smallpox epidemics,
prior to settlement on a reservation and influence of missionaries. Small semino-
madic independent communities, primarily fishing, secondarily hunting and gath-
ering.
Uttar Pradesh 63, north central India, 25°55'N, 83°E, 1945, during British rule. Sed-
entary, focus is a large peasant village in Uttar Pradesh state, culturally complex,
Hindus, primarily cultivating of cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily milking
cows.
Vedda 80 or Forest Vedda, Sri Lanka, 7°30' to 8°N, 81 ° to 81 °30'E, 1860, prior to
substantial intrusion. Small seminomadic independent groups, technologically
primitive, hunting, also gathering.
Vietnamese 73 or North Vietnamese, north central Vietnam, south of Hanoi, 20° to
21 °N, 105°30' to 107°E, 1930, while under French rule. A large, technologically
complex state, primarily cultivating cereal grains with irrigation, secondarily fish-
ing. Focus is the peasantry of the Red River delta.
Wadadika 137 or Paiute, Harney Valley band of Northern Paiute, eastern Oregon,
43° to 44°N, 118° to 120°W, 1870, one year after the first settlement by whites.
Small seminomadic independent communities, technologically primitive, gather-
ing, also hunting and fishing.
Warrau 162 or Guarauno, northeastern Venezuela, 8°30' to 9°50'N, 60°40' to
62°30'W, 1935, missionized but relatively unacculturated. Small seminomadic in-
dependent communities, Christians, fishing, also gathering and hunting.
Wolof 21 or Ouolof, central Gambia, 13°45'N, 15°20'W, 1950. An ethnic minority in
a recently independent country. Sedentary small villages, Moslems, cultivating ce-
real grains on permanent fields, also trading.
Yahgan 186 or Yamana, southern Argentina and southern Chile, 54°30' to 55°30'S,
67° to 70°W, 1865, missionized but prior to extensive acculturation and severe ep-
idemics. Small nomadic independent bands, technologically primitive, Christians,
fishing.
Yanomamo 163, southern Venezuela, 2° to 2°45'N, 64°30' to 65°30'W, 1965, when
only slightly acculturated. Sedentary but impermanent small independent villages,
primarily cultivating tree crops, secondarily gathering.
Yapese 110, Yap island, east of the Philippines, 9°30'N, 138° lO'E, 1910, while a Ger-
man colony, during progressive depopulation. Small sedentary villages, primarily
cultivating root crops, secondarily fishing.
Yokuts 136 or Lake Yokuts, southern California, west of Los Angeles, 35°10'N,
1l 9°20'W, 1850, prior to heavy influx of white settlers. Semisedentary independent
communities, fishing, also gathering and hunting.
Yukaghir 120, east central Siberia, 63°30' to 66°N, 150° to 157°E, 1850, while cul-
ture was still functioning, prior to marked decrease in population. Small nomadic
independent communities, fishing, also hunting.
Yurak Samoyed 53 or Nenets, of the Berents Sea, Russia, northeast of Leningrad,
65° to 71 °N, 41 ° to 62°E, 1894. Ethnic minority in the subarctic, small nomadic
independent communities, primarily reindeer herding, secondarily fishing.
Yurok 134, northwest California, 41 °30'N, 124°W, 1850, prior to the first influx of
white settlers. Small independent groups in sedentary villages, fishing, also gather-
ing and hunting.
Zuni 149, western New Mexico, 35° to 35°30'N, 108°30' to 109°W, 1880, after some
acculturation to the Spanish but while still economically self-sufficient. Sedentary,
densely populated independent village, primarily cultivating cereal grains, second-
arily husbandry of sheep or goats.
Appendix
II
Variables on Adolescence
A total of 341 variables were coded in the study of adolescence. Only a

minority of the 341 variables are reported in this book and thus included in
this Appendix. The name of each variable, in capital letters, is followed by its
serial numbers in parentheses. Information on a society is recorded by one of
the codes specified for the variable.
Some of the variables listed designate which of several choices is ranked
first. A single new variable thereby summarizes information from several
variables because each of the choices is a separate variable. For example, the
single new variable FARK summarizes the rank order for variables 9-14.
TERM (1). Is there a term for adolescence applied to all young people?
Two codes: No or Yes.
START (3). At what age does adolescence begin, as indicated by
changes in behavior and treatment? Five codes: No social adolescence recog-
nized; Before puberty; Puberty; Post puberty; No change.
TRANS (4). Is there a form of ritualized behavior signifying the transi-
tion from childhood to adolescence? Eight codes: None; Private; Cognitive
skills; Work; Military; Religious; Other; Adolescent initiation ceremony.
The last code was defined and coded by Barry and Schlegel, reprinted in
Barry and Schlegel (1980a).
END (5). At what age, in relation to biological adolescence, does social
adolescence end? Three codes: Early; Mid-adolescence; Later.
ADULT (8). Do people move out of adolescence into full adulthood?
Two codes: No or Yes. If coded No, there is an additional stage of youth.
FARK. This new variable summarizes variables 9-14, rank orders of six
family agents of socialization. The agent ranked first determines one of
seven codes for primary family agent: Mother; Father; Older males in house-
hold; Older females in household; Male kin outside household; Female kin
outside household; Two or more primary agents.
OFRK. This new variable summarizes variables 15-22, rank orders of
eight agents outside the family. The agent ranked first determines one of nine
244
Variables on Adolescence 245
codes for primary extrafamily agent of socialization: Male teachers; Female
teachers; Male religious leaders; Female religious leaders; Male community
leaders; Female community leaders; Older males; Older females; Two or
more primary agents.
SOCIA (27). Are adolescents significant socializers of younger chil-
dren? Two codes: No or Yes.
WHRK. This new variable summarizes variables 28-33, rank orders of
six allocations of waking hours. The allocation ranked first determines one
of seven codes for primary allocation of waking hours: Alone; Adults same
sex; Adults both sexes; Peers; Younger children; Not rankable; Two or more
primary allocations.
VMC (37). Are adolescents differentiated from children by visual mark-
ers, such as new dress or ornamentation? Two codes: No or Yes.
VMA (38). Are adolescents differentiated from adults by visual mark-
ers, such as difference in dress or ornamentation? Two codes: No or Yes.
WEA (40). Do adolescents differ significantly from adults in kind or
degree of work expected? Two codes: No or Yes.
LAA (42). Do adolescents differ significantly from adults in kind or de-
gree of leisure activities? Two codes: No or Yes.
PP (50). Do adolescents have productive property of their own to man-
age? Three codes: No; Yes, same as younger children; Yes, more than youn-
ger children.
SKRK. This new variable summarizes variables 51-55, rank orders of
five skill areas. The skill area ranked first determines one of six codes for
primary skill area: Productive activities; Cognitive skills; Physical skills; So-
cial skills; Sexual attractiveness or capacity; Two or more primary skill areas.
SEXHO (57). Homosexual activity. Four codes: Unrecognized; Prohib-
ited; Tolerated; Expected and accepted.
SEXHI (59). Full sexual intercourse. Four codes: Prohibited; Toler-
ated; Expected with limited number of partners; Expected with large number
of partners.
SEXHP (60). Who is the heterosexual partner likely to be? Five codes:
None; Another adolescent; Young adult; Older adult; Two or more types of
partner.
FSEP (61). Attachment to or separation from the natal household group.
Five codes: Adolescents spend most time in or near home (no or minimal sepa-
ration); Much time (more than three or four hours per day) is spent away from
home but adolescent eats and sleeps at home; Adolescent spends much time
away from home and sometimes sleeps or eats away from home; Adolescent
frequently eats and sleeps away from home; Absolute separation.
FNEW (64). Does the adolescent take on new family or household roles
involving decision-making or contributing to decision-making and in what
context? Four codes: No; Household management; Family religious respon-
sibilities; Representing the family to the community.
246 ADOLESCENCE
NEW A (66). If marriage choice is made during adolescence, at what age

does it occur? Three codes: Early (up to 2 years after puberty); Middle ado-
lescence (about 2 to 4 years after puberty); Later.
NEWD (67). If marriage choice is made during adolescence, who de-
cides on the marriage partner? Five codes: The individual alone; The individ-
ual with advice from kin; The individual with kin having veto power;
Primarily kin; Other.
PGRP (69). Degree of importance of adolescent peer groups to the ado-
lescents. Five codes: Nonexistent; Less important than other social groups;
Equal importance to other social groups; Of greater importance than other
social groups; Groups exist, but importance unspecified.
PSIZ (70). What is the most common size of the peer group? Three
codes: Small-about 3 to 6; Medium-about 6 to 14; Larger group.
PSTA (71). Is this a socially recognized group, i.e., an age set or group
with a name? Two codes: No or Yes.
PRAN (72). What is the age range of the peer group? Three codes:
Small-within three years; Medium-three to five years; Larger range.
PARK. This new variable summarizes variables 75-80, rank orders of
six peer group activities. The peer group activity ranked first determines one
of seven codes for primary peer group activity: Productive work; Leisure;
Ceremonial; Military; Community Service; Other; Two or more primary
peer group activities.
PSTR (82). Structure of the peer group. Three codes: Hierarchical-two
or more levels of leadership; Non-hierarchical but with a single recognized
leader; Fluid-no single recognized leader.
CRNEW (90). Do adolescents take on new community roles, and in
what contexts? Seven codes: No; Production for the community; Military;
Political; Community welfare; Religious; Other.
ASREG (93). Does any patterned, i.e., recognized and expected, form
of antisocial behavior occur among adolescents? Two codes: No or Yes.
ASYC (94). Is antisocial behavior believed to be more characteristic of
adolescents than younger children? Two codes: No or Yes.
ASAD (95). Is antisocial behavior believed to be more characteristic of
adolescents than adults? Two codes: No or Yes.
AFRK. This new variable summarizes variables 102-109, rank orders of
eight forms of antisocial activities. The form of antisocial activity ranked
first determines one of nine codes for primary form of antisocial activity:
Very little exists; Verbal; Violence; Theft; Sexual misbehavior; Destruction
of property; Drunkenness or other drugs; Other.
TRAS (110). How is misbehavior treated? Three codes: Ignored or
mildly admonished; Mildly punished, e.g., by tongue-lashing, restitution, or
light corporal punishment; Severely punished, e.g., by beating, religious
sanction, ostracism, or severe mocking.
CPAS (111). Corporal punishment. Two codes: No or Yes.
RUNAW (120). Are adolescents likely to run away? Two codes: No or
Yes.
OCCUP (127). Is the adolescent expected to choose between several
available occupational or community roles? Three codes: No; Yes, for some;
Yes, for most or all.
,SPOUS (128). Is the adolescent expected to take the initiative in finding
a spouse, whether or not the final decision is up to him or her? Two codes:
No or Yes.
BREAK (129). Is there a sharp break from childhood? For example, is
there a marked increase in the degree of responsibility undertaken by adoles-
cents over that expected of younger children? Three codes: No; Yes, some-
what; Yes, a great deal.
EST AB ( 130). Is adolescence a time during which the person establishes
an adult character of excellence in certain areas that will determine to a large
degree what occupational or social roles, or what possible spouses, will be
available to him or her? Two codes: No or Yes.
Quantitative relationships on a scale of 0-10 are rated for each of four
types of relationships with the adolescent: Contact, Intimacy, Subordina-
tion, and Conflict. They are rated on a scale of 0-10 for several categories of
person, a rating of Obeing lowest, 10 being highest.
The categories of person rated are Mother (variables 138-141), Father
(142-145), Older male sibling (146-149), Older female sibling (150-153),
Grandmother (154-157), and Grandfather (158-161).
Contact refers to proportion of waking time spent together during ado-
lescence.
Intimacy is defined as the degree of emotional affiliation between the
adolescent and the category of person specified, as evidenced by behavior
and expressions by the adolescent or by the other category of person or espe-
cially mutually by both. Evidence for sharing possessions, secrets, or other
special affiliation is important and is necessary for a high rating. The amount
of time voluntarily spent together is another indicator of degree of intimacy.
Subordination is defined as the degree to which the relationship involves
the behavior of obedience and the attitude of submission or deference by the
adolescent. Behavior of prompt, consistent obedience is adequate evidence,
but reports on attitudes of submission or deference constitute more direct
information on the variable to be measured.
Conflict is defined as the degree to which contradictory aims or expecta-
tions are expressed in the relationship between the adolescent and the speci-
fied other category of person. Reports of strife, punishments, or
disobedience provide good evidence for intense conflict, but competing pres-
sures, such as high ratings for both intimacy and subordination, provide in-
ferential information. Conflict may be rated above medium only if overt
strife, punishment, or disobedience is reported.
PCONT (207). The degree of contact with peers is rated on the same
248 ADOLESCENCE
scale (0-10) as for contact as a type of social relationship with mother and
other categories of persons. Peers are defined as other adolescents, usually in
a social group of companions, within several years in age and without for-
mally defined authority and submission roles.
PCOMP (208). Competition with peers is rated on the basis of the de-
gree to which status or leadership in the peer group is determined by the
strength, skill, or other personal qualities of the individuals. The degree to
which status or leadership is achieved rather than determined by family rank
or exact age is the most important criterion.
PCOOP (209). Cooperation with peers is based on the degree to which
the peer group is cohesive, with the members contributing to group activities
and goals rather than competing with each other or engaging in individual
activities, regardless of whether the group has formal structure or leadership.
RECYC (213). Degree to which younger children are included in the
adolescent's recreational activities. Five codes: Never; Occasionally; Often;
Usually; Always.
RECAD (214). Degree to which adults are included in the adolescent's
recreational activities. Same five codes as for younger children.
RARK. This new variable summarizes variables 227-231, rank orders of
five types of recreational activities. The type of recreational activity ranked
first determines one of five codes for primary type of recreational activity:
Competitive games; Model adult activities; Patterned behavior; Free play;
Nonphysical contact.
CUOR (241). Range of opportunity available for adolescents for cur-
rent work. This is rated on a scale of0-10. Work refers to all participation in
duties for the household or subsistence economy.
VOCH (246). Degree to which adolescents rather than other categories
of people make the choice among the opportunities available to the adoles-
cent for vocation. This is rated on a scale of 0- 10. Vocation refers to the
adult occupation that the adolescent may choose or may prepare for by any
method, including schooling, apprenticeship, and supervised or unsuper-
vised practice.
PROOR (253). Range of opportunity available for adolescents for pro-
ductive property. This is rated on a scale of 0-10. Property includes produc-
tive domestic animals, gardens, and other material possessions with
exchange value, such as pottery or beads.
DRUOR (262). Range of opportunity available for adolescents for
drugs. This is rated on a scale of 0-10. Drugs refer to all pharmacological
substances that are psychoactive (affecting mood and emotion). These in-
clude alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and other drugs available in the environ-
ment or by trade.
The following twelve traits inculcated in adolescence, rated on a scale
from O to 10, are arranged into six pairs of contrasting or even opposite
traits. This is done to indicate the existence of conflict by a high rating for
both members of a pair of contrasting traits. A high rating for one member
of the pair and a low rating for the other member indicates a consistent cul-
tural pressure in the specified direction. A low rating for both members of
the pair indicates that the designated area is unimportant in the training of
adolescents.
The inculcation of traits refers primarily to indoctrination by the soci-
ety, including categories of authority figures and teachers, with emphasis on
the most important authority figures, indicated by the codes for subordina-
tion. The adolescent's behavior is a secondary but important criterion and in
some cases is the principal evidence available.
FORTI (273). Fortitude measures suppressions of visible reactions to
pain, exertion, frightening situations, discomfort, e.g., the hardening of
boys who are forced to display their stoicism while being plunged into cold
water. A low rating indicates not only absence of painful procedures but also
efforts to protect the adolescent from pain and discomfort.
IMPUL (274). Impulsiveness is defined by encouragement of emotional
expressions, such as spontaneous crying or display of affection. It is the op-
posite of self-restraint and thus more generalized than fortitude.
AGGRE (275). Aggressiveness is defined as aggressive behavior toward
other society members, especially peers or animals, that may be implicitly
inculcated or condoned by adults, e.g., parental urging to stand up for one-
self or retaliate against aggression. Exhortations or frequent retelling of he-
roic myths may also instill aggressiveness; overt and covert inculcation are
both included. If aggressiveness is encouraged only toward alien societies or
other communities, however, the rating should be based on the same society
or community and the discrepancy noted separately.
OBEDI (276). Obedience is primarily a measure of the degree to which
adolescents are expected to obey specific requests by the parents or others in
authority. In addition to consistency of obeying, promptness of obeying
should be taken into account, e.g., unquestioning response to maternal
uncle's demand for assistance. Some degree of obedience is necessarily en-
couraged in all societies, so that a high score should be given only if there is
an unusual insistence on this trait.
SEXEX (277). Sexual Expression refers to encouragement of sexual be-
havior, taking into account the frequency, emotional intensity, importance,
and variety of this type of behavior in adolescence and the range of partners
permitted. Heterosexual intercourse is usually the principal criterion, but
other types of sexual behavior, such as heterosexual foreplay, masturbation,
homosexual acts, sexual jokes, and exposing the genitals, also should be
taken into account.
SEXRE (278). Sexual Restraint is a measure of taboo or restrictions in
adolescents on heterosexual intercourse and on other erotic behavior, includ-
ing heterosexual play, masturbation, and homosexual acts. A high degree of
modesty, such as the requirement to keep the genitals constantly covered in
250 ADOLESCENCE
public, indicates moderately high restraint. Incest taboos are taken into ac-
count, especially if highly emphasized or widely extended, but are compati-
ble with a fairly low rating.
SELFR (279). Self-Reliance or Initiative is based on encouragement of
adolescents to act without supervision, e.g., playing or performing tasks by
themselves. Extremely high ratings require a substantial amount of time
spent in solitude or only with younger children or infants. Companionship
with the peer group or with adults, in the absence of parents or other author-
ity figures, may be the basis for moderately high ratings.
CONFO (280). Conformity to group refers to encouragement for the
adolescent to share tasks, recreational activities, and opinions with a group
of companions, such as the family, neighborhood, or peer group. A high but
not extreme rating should be given if the adolescent conforms closely to a
group, such as a peer group, that is deviant from the adolescent's family or
other important group membership.
TRUST (281). Trust refers to confidence in social relationships, espe-
cially toward community members outside the family, e.g., adolescents are
welcome in any home in the village, possessions are left unguarded. Sorcery
and witchcraft generally indicate a low rating of trust. Where trust differs
widely between out-group, such as community, and in-group, such as nu-
clear or extended family, the rating should be based mainly on the out-
group.
COMPE (282). Competitiveness refers specifically to achievement of
superiority over other people, especially peers, through attaining superiority
in a craft or in school, in leadership, or in competitive games. The mere exis-
tence of competitive games denotes some competitiveness but not a high de-
gree unless there is a very strong value on winning the game.
RES PO (283). Responsibility mainly refers to regular performance of
duties or economic activities without continual supervision. If these are usu-
ally performed on command, they are examples of obedience. Typical exam-
ples of responsibility are older siblings' care of younger children,
schoolwork, or any other expected activity done independently (spontane-
ously). Other instances are observance of taboos or ritual performances, but
not etiquette or general defer~ntial behavior.
ACHIE (284). Achievement (individual skill) measures emphasis on ac-
quisition by adolescents of skills and proficient performance, including in-
formal training or formal education in school or by apprenticeship. A high
degree of this trait is generally indicated by proficient performance of adult
skills or general admiration of work well done or strong emphasis on teach-
ing of skills. Industry does not necessarily denote high achievement. The
quality rather than the amount of performance is the main criterion. Compe-
tition for superiority over other individuals in status or performance is not
included in this measure.
ANBEA (296). Proportion of adolescents compared with proportion of
adults of the same sex who show antisocial behavior. Three codes: Less in
adolescents, Same in adolescents, More in adolescents. Antisocial behavior
includes all types of violent or illegal behavior, such as crime, delinquency,
or cursing and also violations of taboos, such as food, drug use, sexual be-
havior, and incest.
SELIS (300). Proportion of adults of the same sex who show sexual li-
cense, rated on a scale of 0-10. Sexual license refers to any frequency or type
of sexual expression that exceeds the cultural ideal, even though the sexual
expression may be prevalent and unpunished.
FREQS (309). Ge.neral frequency of any type of antisocial activities by
adults of the same sex, rated on a scale of 0-10.
PERMI (334). Intensity of consistency of the attitude of permissiveness
toward adolescents, rated on a scale of 0-10. This refers primarily to absence
or mildness of punishment by relevant social agents, such as parents and
other authority figures.
AFFEC (335). Intensity or consistency of the attitude of affection to-
ward adolescents, rated on a scale of 0-10. This refers primarily to attention
and positive interest expressed by relevant social agents, such as parents and
other authority figures.
VALUE (336). Valuation, rated on a scale of 0-10. This refers to the
degree to which adolescents are desired and valued by the society as a whole,
including both emotional and economic criteria.
DIFCH (338). Differentiation of adolescents from childhood, rated on
a scale of 0-10. This refers to activities, status, and all other attributes of
behavior and self-concept in which the adolescent may be compared with the
child of the same sex.
DI FAD (339). Differentiation from adulthood, rated on a scale of 0-10.
This refers to the comparison with young but mature adults of the same sex.
If there is a postadolescent stage of youth without full adult status and activ-
ities, this stage of youth is ignored, thereby avoiding a spurious lowering of
the ratings.
Appendix
1ll I
1
Techniques for Analyzing

the Coded Information
Statistical tests were done with the widely used SPSSX statistical pack-
age (SPSS 1988). In tests of statistical significance, we reproduced the prob-
ability value rounded to three decimal places. We adhered to the
conventional criterion for statistical significance, p = .050 or less, but we
showed the p value if it was .099 or less. A dash was substituted for probabil-
ity values of .100 or higher.
We always used the two-tailed criterion, even when testing a hypothesis
of a single direction of relationship between two variables. This criterion
minimizes the occurrence of p values that are spuriously classified as statisti-
cally significant.
Cross-tabulation of the relationship between two variables, both di-
vided into two categories, was tested by the chi square method. We used the
correction for continuity, which increases the p level and thereby diminishes
the probability of reporting a spurious statistically significant relationship
between the two variables.
In addition to the chi square estimate, the SPSSX prints the p value cal-
culated by Fisher's Exact Test when there are fewer than 20 cases in a rela-
tionship between two variables, both divided into two categories. We always
used this Exact Test when it was available instead of the chi square estimate.
Many of the variables are quantitative scores ranging from 0 to 10. In
some statistical tests we divided this quantitative scale into two categories,
above and below the median. Societies in the same category thereby have the
same code. This loss of quantitative information was accepted in order to
obtain the advantage of the simpler and clearer report of the number of soci-
eties in the two categories when showing in tables the association of this vari-
able with another variable.
The division of societies into two categories was done separately for
boys and girls on each variable, thus sometimes resulting in different <livid-
252
Techniques for Analyzing the Coded Information 253
ing points for the two sexes. When two different dividing points equally ap-
proached an exactly equal number of cases in the two categories, we selected
the one closer to the median score of 5 in the scale of 0-10 or the one that
included a more nearly equal number of categories containing one or more
societies below and above the dividing point. The same dividing point be-
tween the two categories was used in all tests with the same variable.
When one or both of the variables in a cross-tabulation were divided
into three or more categories, the categories usually formed an ordinal se-
quence, such as low, medium, and high size of peer group or quantitative
scores ranging from 0 tolO for inculcation of obedience. The statistical sig-
nificance test in these cases was the Mantel-Haenszel chi square (Mantel
1963). This chi square test is applicable to an ordinal sequence of categories.
It corresponds to the product-moment correlation between the quantitative
scale values of the scores represented by the categories. It is a two-tailed test
because it does not predict whether the categories that represent progres-
sively increasing magnitudes of one variable are associated with progres-
sively increasing or decreasing magnitudes of the other variable.
When reporting a descriptive measure of the magnitude of association
between two variables, we used the product-moment correlation coefficient
(r). When both variables are divided into two categories, this measure is the
same as the phi coefficient. The determinations of statistical significance are
based on the chi square test or on Fisher's Exact Test.
In a few cases, a variable was divided into three or more categories that
were not specified as an ordinal sequence. An example is several types of
customs for property exchange in marriage. Statistical significance of the re-
lationship with another variable was tested by Pearson chi square rather than
by the Mantel-Haenszel chi square. These cases are identified by stating the
number of degrees of freedom for the Pearson chi square value.
In many of the cross-tabulations, one of the variables was a score on a
quantitative scale of 0-10. The statistical significance of these associations
was usually tested by the Mantel-Haenszel chi square. In a few cases, we re-
ported the mean of the quantitatively scaled variable for each category of the
other variable. The statistical significance test used in these cases was the
parametric analysis of variance, reporting the F ratio and its associated p
value. These are closely similar to the Mantel-Haenszel chi square and its p
value when the same quantitative scores are divided into a different category
for each score that contains one or more societies.
When the analysis of variance compares the means of two groups, this is
equivalent to the cross-tabulation of a quantitatively scaled variable with a
variable divided into two categories. In this case the F ratio is based on one
degree of freedom. The square root of Fis the t ratio for testing the statistical
significance of the difference between two means. The p value is the same
whether the measure is the F ratio or its square root, the t ratio.
When the analysis of variance compared the means of three or more
254 ADOLESCENCE
groups, which were arranged in an ordinal sequence, we tested statistical sig-

nificance of the ordinal trend, with one degree of freedom. This corresponds
to the Mantel-Haenszel chi square for the relationship between two vari-
ables, one of which has three or more categories in an ordinal sequence. If
the analysis of variance compared three or more means without specification
of an ordinal sequence, the report on the F value included the statement of
the number of degrees of freedom. This indicated that the test was based on
the difference among the three or more means without a test of the linear
trend.
Index
Aberle, David F., 10 Affection, continuity of, 181

Abipon society, 36, 150 Age effect, 7
Abipone, see Abipon society Aggressiveness
Abkhasians, see Abkhaz society antisocial behavior and, 143, 144,
Abkhaz society, 69, 135, 136, 138, 174- 154-155
175 inculcation of, 41, 159, 163-164,
Abuse, sexual, 129-130 166, 167, 169
Achievement, 41, 159, 161, 167, 169 sexual frustration and, 120
Adolescence Agricultural societies, 55-57, 76
anthropological approach to, 3-17 Ainsworth, Mary D. Salter, 187
beginning of, 4, 10, 34 Aiyappan, A., 20
definition of, 4, 8-11, 36 Aka society, 210
developmental psychology approach Almagor, U., 68
to, 3, 4, 6 Alorese society, 136, 140, 150
duration of, 42-43, 99-106 Ambilocal households, 100, 105
early theories of, 1-3 American society, 13, 28, 35, 39, 47-
end o~ 4, 10, 34, 35, 99-106, 112- 48, 71-72, 82, 85, 88, 131-134,
113, 117-118, 151 173, 202, 205
frequency distributions, 33-42
See also United States society
in modernizing societies, 201-205
Amhara society, 136, 142
necessity of, 10
Andamese society, 136
psychoanalytical approach to, 3, 4,
Anderson, Arthur J. 0., 138-139
31
sociological approach to, 3-4, 6 Animals, see Primates
in Western Society, implications for Antagonism, parent-adolescent, 61-65
understanding, 206-207 Anthropological study of adolescence,
Adolescent pathology, 12-13 3-17
Adulthood stage, 10, 11, 35 See also Adolescence
Adult life, preparation for, 13 Antisocial behavior, 39, 133-149, 152-
Adult perceptions of adolescents, 180- 156, 212
181 adolescent vs. adult, 148-149
Adult skills, training for, see Training antecedents of, 140-142
for adult skills defined, 134-135
255
256 Index
Antisocial behavior (cont.) Bella Coola society, 54

expected in adolescent boys by soci- Bemba society, 150
ety, 135, 136 Benedict, Ruth, 33
features of adolescence and, 139-140 Benet, Sula, 174-175
gender differences in, 148-149, 186- Bischof, Norbert, 21, 189
187 Blos, Peter, 31
peer group activities and, 80-81, 137, Body anxiety, 205
142-144, 149, 153 Boeotia, 100
sexual deviance, 145-148 Bolton, Charlene, 5
socialization and, 140-141, 143-144, Bontoc society, 30, 107-110
147-149, 153, 154 Boran society, 68
social setting and, 135, 137-139 Boxer, Andrew M., 197
varieties of, 142-145 Brandt, Vincent S. R., 26
in Western Society, 206-207 Bridewealth, 101, 104-105, 114, 115
Anxiety, 112, 205 Bronfenbrenner, Uri, 71-72, 85
Apache, see Chiricahua Apache soci- Broude, Gwen J., 111, 112, 127-128
ety, Mescalero Apache society Burmese society, 101,116,135,136,
Appearance, consciousness of, 204-205 150
Apprenticeship, 172
Aranda society, 11 Callinago society, 45, 136
Aries, Philippe, 2 Caro Baroja, Julio, 134
Arnhem Land, 129 Cecisbeism, 23
Ashanti society, 136, 150 Chance, Michael R. A., 22
Assertion, 167-169 Character traits, 41, 15 8-171
Attachment, female, 188, 193-196 Charivari, 87-88
Australian Aborigine society, 129, 203 Chatino Indian society, 37-39, 84, 98
Ausubel, David P., 202 Cheyenne society, 121-122
Authority, decline in, 202-204 Child, Irvin L., 158
Authority relationships, in peer groups, Child fosterage, 69
79 Childhood stage, 10, 141-149, 151,
Aweikoma society, 150 167-169, 212
Ayres, Barbara, 112 Chinese society, 101
Azande society, 126, 136, 150 Chinese-American society, 85, 88-89,
Aztec society, 47, 136, 138-139, 177- 206-207
178, 209 Chiricahua Apache society, 126, 128,
172
Bacon, Margaret K., 158 Chodorow, Nancy, 190
Balikci, Assen, 171 Chukchee society, 48, 150
Balinese society, 47, 136 Cohler, Bertram J., 195, 197
Barabara society, 136 Cohort effect, 7
Bandura, Albert, 154-155 Coleman, John C., 3, 71
Barnett, Homer C., 84 Collier, Jane F., 18
Barry, Herbert, III, 97, 112, 158, 209 Comanche society, 80, 136, 150
Barton, R. F., 109 Community relations, 12, 38-39, 43,
Basque society, 101, 134, 136 67, 77, 78, 81, 82, 84-85, 185
Basseri society, 136 Competitiveness, 13
Basso, Ellen, 37 among peers, 75-77, 80-83, 90-91,
Baxter, P. T. W., 68 142-143, 161 - 163
Index 257
antisocial behavior and, 137-138 Deviant behavior

inculcation of, 41, 159, 161-163, antisocial behavior, see Antisocial
166-169 behavior
sexual, 176 defined, 133
sexual permissiveness and, 120-121 running away, 39, 149-152
Compliance, 167-168 DeVore, Irven, 155-156
Condon, Richard, 191 Dibble, Charles E., 138-139
Conflict, 38, 45 Discontinuity, 33
defined, 48 Double standard, 110,121,131
with father, 46, 48-49, 50-52, 59, Dowry, 101-104, 113-116
62-63, 148, 149 Draper, Patricia, 189
with grandparents, 46 DuBois, Cora, 140
with mother, 46, 48-49, 63-64, 148, Duby, Georges, 61
149
with older siblings, 46, 51, 52
Eckhardt, Kenneth W., 112
Conflict-enculturation theory, 5
Economic dependence, 64
Conformity, 41, 143, 159
Egyptian society, 21, 136
Contact, 38, 45
Eisenstadt, S. N., 35
defined, 47
Elder, Glen H., Jr., 4
with father, 46, 47, 49-52, 55-58, 73,
Ellis, Havelock, 1IO
74, 147-148, 155, 164, 169, 170
Eloul, Rohn, 24
with grandparents, 46
Elwin, Verrier, 108-110
with mother, 46, 47, 49-52, 55, 73,
Ember, Carol R., 5, 95, 197
155, 169, 170
Ember, Melvin, 95
with older siblings, 46, 49, 51, 52
Erikson, Erik, 205
with peers, 163, 164, 169, 171
Eskimo society, 11, 27, 171-172, I 91
Continuity, from one stage to another,
See also Copper Eskimo society,
33, 167-171
Netsilik Eskimo society
Cooperation, 13, 82, 83, 90, 142-143
Ethnographies, 14-15
Copper Eskimo society, 11, 171
Ethogram, 21, 23-31, 209-210
Courtship, 42, 121-123
Ethological approach to social organi-
Creed, Gerald W., 126
zation, 18-31, 65-66
Creek society, 136
European society, 25-26, 28, 36, 39,
Cronin, Constance, 62
61, 64, 69, 85, 87-89, 94-95,
Cross-Cultural Cumulative Coding
102-103, 113, 116-117, 130-
Center, 16
134, 172-173, 176, 178, 185,
Cross-cultural method, 14-16
201-203
Cubeo society, 135, 136
See also Wes tern society
Cultural norms, violation of, see Devi-
Evaluation, continuity of, 181
ant behavior
Extended family, 161-163
Daly, Martin, 191 Family relations, 12, 44-66

Davis, Douglas A., 203-205 family continuity and, 44
Davis, Susan Shaefer, 203-205 features of, see Conflict; Contact;
Dennis, Wayne, 25 Intimacy; Subordination
Dependency of childhood, 8 frequency distributions, 38, 43
Developmental psychology, 3, 4, 6 grandparents, 38, 46, 49, 51
258 Index
Family relations (cont.) frequency distributions, see Fre-

model of social organization and, quency distributions
24-26, 65-66 in involvement of girls and boys with
parents, 45-51 adults of same sex, 26-31, 184
conflict and antagonism with ado- model of social organization and, 23
lescents, 61-65 origin of, 187-193
See also Conflict; Contact; Inti- peer group involvement and, 184-
macy; Subordination 186
siblings, 45, 46, 49, 51-53 in sexual deviance, 145-148
social organization and, 53-61 similarities and dissimilarities be-
Family separation, 69-74, 151, 184, 185 tween the sexes, 183-187
Fathers, 213 Gheg Albanian society, 11, 150
features of relations with, see Con- Gilligan, Carol, 195
flict; Contact; Intimacy; Subor- Gillis, John R., 87-88, 173
dination Goajiro society, 136
rank as socializing agent, 38, 45 Goethals,. George W., 111-112
Fecundity, 42 Goody, Jack, 20
Fellatio, 124, 125 Grandparents, relations with, 38, 46,
Female attachment, 193-196 49, 51
Ferretti, Jacopo, 176 Greek (ancient) society, 126
Fertility, 99, 106 Greenberg, Eva Zavaletta, 37
Festivities, organization of, 84 Greenberg, James, 98
Fijian society, 79, 136, 185, 202 Greene, Sarah J., 127-128
Fishing societies, 54 Gregersen, Edgar, 127
Foraging societies, 13, 18-20, 27, 54- Gregor, Thomas, 189
56, 76, 100-101, 165 Gros Ventre society, 24, 33-34, 136,
Fortitude, 41 138, 144, 153, 180
Frequency distributions, parameters of Grunebaum, Henry U., 195
adolescence, 33-44
Friedenberg, Edgar Z., 3-4 Hadza society, 55, 135, 150
Friedl, Ernestine, 100 Haida society, 54
Fulani society, 48 Haitian society, 101, 111, 116, 131
Fur society, 136, 150 Hall, G. S., 1
Hart, C. W. M., 27
Gallimore, Ronald, 53 Harvard Adolescence Project, 200
Garo society, 122-123, 150 Hausa society, 96, 136
Gaulin, Steven J., 93 Hawaiian society, 5, 21
Gender-balanced societies, 30 Henry, Jules, 129
Gender differences, 11, 18-20, 49-50, Herdt, Gilbert H., 124-126
182-197 Hidatsa society, 136
in adolescent transition, 30-31, 183- Hima society, 94
184 Hindustani society, 15
in antisocial behavior, 148-149, 156, Hoebel, E. Adamson, 121-122
186-187 Hollos, Marida, 110, 203
critical issues Hologeistic method, 14-15
female attachment, 193-196 Homosexual relations, 41, 124-129,
immutability of distinctions, 196- 132
197 Hopi society, 5, 16, 25, 28-30, 37-40,
Index 259
44, 58, 62-64, 70, 85, 88, 95, Jacklin, Carol N., 188
111, 122, 134, 151-152, 162, Japanese society, 101, 209
180, 194-195, 204, 209, 212 Javanese society, 47, 136
Horticultural societies, 42, 55-57, 76- Jolly, Clifford J., 222
77
Household activities, 12 Kaingang society, 129-130
Household structure, 94-96 Kalapalo society, 37
age of marriage and, 99-100, 105 Kalinga society, 109
character traits and, 161-164, 166 Kapauku society, 136, 150
family relations· and, 57-60 Kardiner, Abram, 157
sexual permissiveness and, 112 Kaska society, 136
Howard, Alan, 5 Kendis, Kaoru 0., 88-89
Huichol society, 136, 142, 150 Kendis, Randall J., 88-89
Human Relations Area Files Press, 209 Kenuzi society, 150
Kikuyu society, 111, 124, 132
Kimam society, 124-125, 130, 136, 150
Ibo society, 15 Kin control over marriage, 103-104
Ifugao society, 27, 29, 107-110, 136, Kinship, 92-93
150 Kirkpatrick, John, 180
ljo society, 110, 113, 202, 203 Klamath society, 150
Impulsiveness, 41 Kobben, Andre J. F., 15
Inbreeding avoidance, 20-25, 182-183, Korbin, Jill E., 130
192, 199 Korean society, 26, 101
Incest, see Inbreeding avoidance !Kung society, 27, 39, 99-101, 136,
Inculcation of traits, see Character 150, 191
traits Kurd society, 150
India, 102-103 Kyaka society, 61
Industrial society, 13-14, 25, 44, 64-65,
Labor, see Work
75, 96, 182, 188, 194, 196, 198,
Labor considerations, age of marriage
201, 206-207
and, 99-100
See also Modern society
Lakher society, 136
Infancy stage, 10, 140-143, 151
Lambert, William W., 158
Infants, socialization of, 187-192
Lamet society, 80, 136
Infidelity, 109-110 Language acquisition, 198
lngalik society, 136, 150 Lapp society, 136, 144
Initiation ceremonies, 35, 72, 128-129 Leis, Philip E., 110, 203
Interactionist approach, 4-5 Lengua society, 136
Intercourse, heterosexual, 40, 107-121 Life stages, 3, 33, 198
Intimacy, 38, 45-48 Linton, Ralph, 157
defined, 47 Llewelyn-Davies, Melissa, 174
with father, 46-51, 56, 57, 148, 149 Lovers, peer groups and, 123-124, 128
with grandparents, 46, 51 Luguru society, 150
with mother, 46-49, 58, 59
with older siblings, 46, 49 Maccoby, Eleanor E., 188
Inuit society, 201, 203 Maidenhood strategies, 98-99
Irish society, 62, 101 Mair, Lucy, 104
Italian-Americans, 195 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 146
260 Index
Manchu society, 150 Mothers

Manus society, 54 attachment to daughters, 193-196
Maori society, 80, 202 features of relations with, see Con-
Mapuche society, 150 flict; Contact; Intimacy; Subor-
Marquesan society, 180 dination
Marriage, 10, 11, 93-106 rank as socializing agent, 38, 45
adultery, 109-110 Mundurucu society, 45, 136, 150
age of, 18-19, 40, 98-106, 118, 131, Munroe, Robert L., 5
202-203 Munroe, Ruth H., 5
control over, 103-104, 119-120 Murdock, George P., 16, 17, 111-112
frequency distributions, 40, 42 Muria society, 69-71, 74, 85, 107-111,
importance in preindustrial society, 124
94-98
infidelity, 109-110 Nakane, Chie, 122-123
mating and, 93 Nambicuara society, 136
political and economic factors in, Navaho society, 37
42-43 Navajo, see Navaho society
polyandry, 23, 94-95 Nayar society, 45, 93, 95
sexual attractiveness and, 176 Negri Sembilan society, 48, 136
transactions, 60-61, 101-105, 112- Neolocal households, 100, 105
118, 131 , 210-211 Netsilik Eskimo society, 171-172
Marshallese society, 54 Nuclear family, 59, 64, 162-164
Masai society, 136, 138, 144, 173-174 Nyakyusa society, 24, 26, 69-70, 74,
Mating, 92-93 126-127, 131, 136, 146
Matrilocal households, 57-59, 100,
105, 160 Obedience, 41, 149, 159, 160, 167, 169,
Mbuti Pygmy society, 85-87, 150 202-204
Mead, Margaret, 1, 5, 14, 33 O'Connell, M. C., 79
Mehinaku society, 130 Offer, Daniel, 196
Meillassoux, Claude, 20, 97 Omaha society, 54, 117, 136
Mende society, 177 Opler, Morris E., 172, 177
Menstruation, onset of (menarche), 34,
99, 112 Paige, Karen Ericksen, 112
Mescalero Apache society, 172, 177 Paiute, see Wadadika society
Micmac society, 11 Palauan society, 84-85, 136
Military activities, 80-82, 172 Papago society, 29, 126
Minangkabau society, 45 Parenthood, 11
Modernizing societies, adolescence in, Parent-peer issue, 71-72
201-205 Parents, relations with, 45-51
Modern society, 9, 25, 35-36, 39, 42- See also Conflict; Contact; Intimacy;
44, 64, 66, 92, 106, 134, 152, Subordination
177-178, 182, 185-186, 198, Pastoral societies, 42, 55-57, 76-77
204-206 Pathology, see Antisocial behavior
See also Industrial society Patrilocal households, 57-59, 100, 105
Montagnais society, 55 Patterson, Gerald R., 141, 144-145
Moose society, 62-63, 66 Peer groups, 1, 9-10, 12, 25, 32, 39-40,
Moroccan society, 201, 203-205 67-91
Mossi, see Moose society activities of, 75-76, 80-81
Index 261
as agents of socialization, 67, 69, 74 Polygyny, 42

age range of, 78, 79 Polynesian society, 107, 128, 176, 180,
antisocial behavior and, 80-81, 137, 202
142-144, 149, 153 Pregnancy, 109, 112, 203, 207
authority relationships in, 79 Premarital sex, 40, 93, 107-121, 130-
bonding as consequence of initiation, 132, 155, 179
72 Primates, 21-23, 25-26, 31, 155-156,
character of, 75-77 191-192, 210
communal organization, 70-71 Productive activities
community participation by, 82, 84- exclusion of male adolescents from,
85 29-30
competitiveness within, 75-77, 80- frequency distributions, 41
83, 90-91, 142-143, 161-163 inclusion of female adolescents in, 30
contact with training in, 13, 171-173
aggressiveness and, 163, 164 Prostitution, 130
continuity in, 169, 171 Psychoanalysts, 3, 4, 31
female, 73, 76, 82-83, 89-91 Psychogenic factors, 32
frequency distributions, 39-40, 43 Psychogenic theory, 5
gender differences and, 184-186 Puberty, 34, 198-199, 210
importance of, 72-74, 76, 77, 83 Pueblo Indians, see Hopi, Zuni
lovers and, 123-124, 128 Punishment, 39, 141, 149, 155
in model of social organization, 24- Punjabi society, 101
25
male, 68-84, 86-89 Quiche society, 11, 136, 146, 150
nature of relations within, 80-83, 90-
91 Rape, 129-130
parent-peer issue, 71-72 Religious activities, 76, 81
sexual permissiveness and, 123-124 Reproduction, 21-31, 92-94
size of, 75, 77-79, 83, 160, 162 See also Marriage; Sexuality
social control and, 85-89 Responsibility, 41, 159, 166, 168, 169
structure of, 75, 78-80 Rhade society, 136
time spent with peers, 73 Rituals, participation in, 84
transitory nature of involvement Roberts, John M., 5
with, 68 Role confusion, 205
Peer pressure, 85 Roman (ancient) society, 17, 20, 101-
Pentecost society, 136 102, 116, 209
Permissiveness, 40, 93, 107-121, 130- Rosaldo, Michelle Z., 18
132, 155, 179, 181 Roubin, Lucienne, 84
Perrault, Charles, 176 Running away, 39, 149-152
Petersen, Anne C., 25, 152 Russian society, 101
Peterson, Frederick A., 177-178 Rwala Bedouin society, 24, 48, 136, 150
Phenomenological approach, 4-5
Physical skills, 173-175 Sabshin, Melvin, 196
Pilling, Arnold R., 27 Sahagun, Bernardino de, 138-139
Play groups, juvenile, 22-25 Sahlins, Marshall, 79
Political integration, peer groups and, Sambia society, 124-126
78 Samoan society, 1, 14, 33, 117, 131,
Polyandry, 23, 94-95 136, 176, 202
262 Index
Sanday, Peggy, 30 Siuai society, 136, 150

Santai society, 150 Slave society, 136
Schildkrout, Enid, 96 Smollar, Jacqueline, 47-49
Schlegel, Alice, 5-6, 16, 25, 27-30, 39, Social control, peer groups and, 85-89
62-64, 93, 97, 112-113, 116, Socialization, 8, 9
134, 151-152, 175, 181, 194, 209 antisocial behavior and, 140-141,
Schneider, David M., 92 143-144, 147-149, 153, 154
Schooling, 9, 13-14, 177-179 frequency distributions, see Fre-
Self, 157-181 quency distributions
adolescent perceptions of, 204-205 in infancy, 187-192
adult perceptions of adolescents, older siblings as agents of, 51, 53
180-181 parents as agents of, 38, 45
character traits, see Character traits peers as agents of, 67, 69, 74
frequency distributions, 41-42 psychogenic factors in, 32
training for adult skills, see Training running away and, 151
for adult skills Social maturity, disjuncture between
Self-reliance, 41, 159, 165, 167-169 sexual reproductivity and, 18-
Serpenti, L. M., 125, 130 19
Sex differences, see Gender differences Social organization
Sex-role socialization, 188-189 ethological approach to, see Etholog-
Sexual attractiveness, 175-176 ical approach to social organi-
Sexual capacity, 175 zation
Sexual expression, 41, 159 family relations and, 53-61
Sexual frustration, 120, 155 Social recognition of peer groups, 78,
Sexuality, 9, 13, 18-19 79
abuse of adolescents, 129-130 Social science, 3
adultery, 109-1 IO Social stages, 10
courtship, 121-123 Social stratification, 78, 81, 160-161,
deviance, 145-148 165
frequency distributions, 40-41 Sociogenic factors, 32
heterosexual intercourse, permissive- Sociogenic theory, 5
ness, 40, 93, 107-121, 130-132, Sociological approach, 3-4, 6
155, 179 Songhai society, 136, 177
homosexual relations, 41, 124-129, Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, 16,
132 34, 97, 159
inbreeding avoidance, 20-25, 182- Stem family, 59, 161-163
183, 192, 199 Stone, Lawrence, 120, 155
lovers and peers, 123-124 Stratification, see Social stratification
training in sexual attributes, 175-176 Subordination, 38, 45
Sexual restraint, 41, 159, 164-165, 167, defined, 48
169 to father, 46, 48-52, 56-61, 169, 170
Shakespeare, William, 3 to grandparents, 46
Sherif, Carolyn W., 68 to mother, 46, 48, 51-53, 57, 119
Sherif, Muzafer, 68 to older siblings, 46, 51-53
Siblings, relations with, 45, 46, 49, 51- Subsistence technology
53 age of marriage and, 100-101
Simonds, Paul E., 22, 192 classification of, 54-55
Situational approach, 4-6 family relations and, 55-57
Index 263
peer groups and, 75-77 Visual markers, 37-38

self-reliance and, 165
sexual permissiveness and, 112 Wadadika society, 136
Sutton-Smith, Brian, 5 Walters, Richard H., 154-155
Swazi society, 35 Ware, Helen, 96, 97
Warfare, 80-82, 172
Tahitian society, 128 Warrau society, 136
Tallensi society, 150, 177 Weiner, Annette B., 175-176
Tanala society, 136 Weisner, Thomas S., 53
Teda society, 136 Western society, 6, 10, 12, 31, 33, 42,
Theft, 142-145 51, 55, 59, 61-62, 64, 94, 152,
Tikopia society, 136, 150 201-202, 204-206, 208
Tiv society, 150 See also European society
Tiwi society, 27, 55, 93, 100, 135, 136, White, Douglas R., 16, 17
150 Whiting, Beatrice B., 5, 25, 53, 98-99,
Training for adult skills 157, 158, 200
physical skills, 173-175 Whiting, John W. M., 25, 53, 112, 124,
schooling, 177-179 157,158,200
sexual attributes, 175-176 Wilson, Margo, 191
work, 13, 171-173 Wilson, Monica, 69-70, 126-127
Traits, 41, 158-171 Witchcraft, 39, 211-212
Trengganu society, 28, 29 Wolof society, 177
Trobriand Islander society, 37, 47, 128, Work, 147, 171-173, 203
135, 136, 146, 175-176 W orthman, Carol M., 124
Trumbach, Randolph, 102
Trust, 41, 143, 159, 166 Xesibe society, 79
Tswana society, 35
Turkish society, 130, 136, 178 Yanomamo society, 11, 136
Turnbull, Colin, 86-87 Yapese society, 136, 150
Yoruba society, 29
United States society, 26, 43, 130, 134, Young, Frank W., 4
145, 211 Youniss, James, 47-49
See also American society Youth stage, 10, 35-36
Uttar Pradesh society, 101, 136, 150 Yukaghir society, 136
Vietnamese society, 136 Zingg, Robert Mowry, 142

Violence, 39, 142-145, 155 Zulu society, 35
Virginity, 116, 117, 165, 176, 211 Zuni society, 136, 150

Adolescence Anthropological Inquiry

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ADOLESCENCE

Collier Macmillan Canada

Maxwell Macmillan International

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

In spite of years of anthropological research on child socialization, adoles-

chologists in our development of hypotheses and our interpretations of the

TODA Y'S adolescent is easy to define as the teenager. The adolescent in

lescence is conceived as a distinct stage of life in societies so complicated and

sponses as determinants of behavior. The work of Roberts and his collabora-

The anthropological approach is distinctive in being holistic, placing its

An Anthropological Definition of Adolescence

An anthropological definition of adolescence, in common with psycho-

become in-laws or with whom there will be common interests in associations

Premises of the Study

changes and those involving unlearning and relearning, it seems to us im-

The Cross-Cultural Method

detailed information on intracultural variability. One form of such variabil-

The sample used is the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock and

O F the biological changes that adolescents undergo, the most critical to

vegetal food, it is the ability to contribute meat that determines whether a

tions to general incest prohibitions to mark unusual events or situations. Ex-

The Avoidance of Incest

Chapter 6 will focus on certain features of marriage and how these

by the hamadryas baboon, a male controls a "harem" of female mates, and

the lives of adolescents, even in modern 11:rban settings where a combination

Schlegel also visited Malaysia in 1983, when the second observation

sexually egalitarian societies as the Hopi (Schlegel 1977) or the Philippine

THE model developed in the preceding chapter describes the biologically

A Summary of the Frequency Distributions

such as the Abipone of South America (Dobrizhoffer 1822), nomads with no

Relations with the Family

Relations with the Community

time. For a small number of societies, there is information on the response of

Relations with Peers

Sexuality and Reproduction

Homosexual activity is also permitted in some societies, although these

The frequency distributions of the data strongly suggest that an adoles-

THE ethogram in Chapter 2 depicts our model of the social organization of

Boys' Mean Girls' Mean

daughter contact, although there is a trend (r = .18, p = .052, N = 119) in

Table 4.2 Relations with Father

Family Members Other Than Parents

Subordination to older brother

Conflict with older brother

Subordination to older brother

Family and Society

We looked at the co-occurrence of variables measuring family relations

Table 4.4 Subsistence System and Relations with Father

Table 4.5 Household Organization and Relations with Parents

Table 4.6 Direction of Marriage Exchange and Subordination to Father

Subordination to father: boys

Parent-Adolescent Conflict and Antagonism

Before leaving this discussion of the relations of adolescents with family

Anticipation of possible rebellion surely colored feelings of fathers and ado-

Open conflict between father and son in Moose society is prevented or

The appearance of menstruation marks the change from freedom to re-

In this case, mother-daughter conflict is not institutionalized, but quite

AooLESCENTS operate on the fringes of adult community life. Only oc-

It is not uncommon in many societies for adolescent boys to sleep away