ABSTRACT
EXPECTATIONS OF RECIPROCITY When Marcel Mauss framed his discussion of gift giving as a set of obligations to give, to receive, and to reciprocate, he was giving voice to a long tradition in European thought that identifies social solidarity and integration in terms of reciprocity. Given this emphasis on mutuality, it is somewhat surprising that Mauss does not mention the Stoic Seneca’s De Beneficiis, since Seneca’s philosophy of the gift has been so influential in European thought and shares much with Mauss on the social value of mutual exchange (see Goux 2002; Davis 2000:8). For Seneca, as with Mauss, the gift is to be given freely and yet it bears obligations for the recipient: “the giving of a benefit is a social act, it wins the goodwill of someone, it lays someone under obligation” (Basore 1958:321). These obligations work as social glue that binds human beings to one another.
