ABSTRACT
In order for people to reproduce their families, the families must be useful to them by providing a way of organizing the activities they need to carry out in the cultural community to which they belong. This chapter discusses the way in which the content of family-based activities can influence family organization, and explores how one can sort out this influence from that of historical contingency or cultural tradition. The activities people ordinarily perform as a family will influence people's "family strategy": the way in which people who hold power in a certain family system attempt to regulate family membership in order to bring about the most advantageous possible performance of the activities at hand. In rank societies, there also seems to be a tendency toward the greater restriction of sexuality, if not premaritally, then at least extramaritally, because the consequences of an improper pregnancy are much greater in a system based primarily on kinship organization.
