ABSTRACT
In order to understand the !Kung system of marriage it is necessary to be clear what they mean by the term marriage. The term "divorce" is used to describe the ending of a marriage other than through death, in order to distinguish the end of a marriage from temporary visits of spouses to other places. The prohibited spouses are identified on two criteria: consanguinity, and the name taboo. Usual model of a "marriage market" is predicated on the idea that there is a minority of the adult population who are unmarried and searching for a spouse. The chapter examines the evidence from the contemporary !Kung on the differences in age of spouses. It is interesting to see levirate remarriage occur in a society in which it has no effect on the concentration of property. There have been two processes of consequence for the !Kung marriage system :possibility of marriage for !Kung women to Bantu men and possibility of employment of !Kung men in wage work.
