ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with domain of relationship - that which is 'in the manner of the land' and manifest in relations across households and in the space of the village itself. Ideally the houses of a given clan should be grouped together and members should co-operate with one another and give their help unstintingly on the occasion of some group effort. The opposition between hierarchy, equality that emerges when one compares the behaviour prescribed for ranked kin relations with that for cross-cousins is also played out in relations between the chiefs and the people. Sahlins has proposed a 'logical model of second cross-cousin marriage' which involves an oscillation between a four-part and a three-part marriage system: the quaternary component being given by the rule of second cross-cousin marriage, the ternary component by the fact that this rule prevents the duplication of alliances in successive generations, thus means that any given family stands as wife-takers to one set of in-laws, wife-givers.
