ABSTRACT
This is the second of two chapters on marriage, with a focus on the patterns resulting from intermarrying clans. The chapter begins by discussing the distinctions between genealogical and classificatory cross-cousins, and between unilateral and bilateral cross-cousin marriage, arguing that perhaps too much has been made of the significance of the distinctions in the earlier alliance theory literature, when compared with actual practice. Empirically, the chapter organizes data from the Nuaulu corpus covering the period 1970 to 2015, indicating a strong tendency towards endogamous marriage within the three ‘ritual’ settlements of Niamonae, Rouhua and Bunara, and showing ways in which demographic fitness constrains and facilitates clan alliance, and the patterns of connectedness between clans which result. Given the initial model of bilaterality, special attention is given to cases of direct exchange of siblings through marriage. The chapter concludes by observing that the system in which Nuaulu operate as agents who both alter and reproduce it, is an ever-changing mixture of established alliances with different clans, preferences and demographic factors, a package of contradictory ties from which people must select depending on situational priorities. While these tend to favour a more bilateral pattern on balance, encouraged in part by the symmetrical dynamic that regulates ritual life, the system is always moving towards – ‘becoming’ -without ever achieving the model implicated.
