ABSTRACT
In Pisticci married status is equivalent to adult status. A man does not generally make contracts, rent land, take part in politics, initiate patron-client relationships until he is the head of a family. This usually means he must be married, though a few men are official heads of their families because their fathers have died. A man who is known as a sound family man is to some extent calculable: he will not take risks which, if they turned out badly, would damage himself and his family. Similarly, if a man’s proposals or behaviour are mystifying, the key to understanding is thought to be his self-interest rather than, say, his altruism. The incentive to marriage is thus not simply autonomy in domestic life. The married status establishes the right, for men, to full participation in political and economic life, and, for women, to play a full and independent part in the life of the neighbourhood.
