Marriage Matsigenka Style

Rosengren critiques Lévi-Strauss’s (1969) formalized analytical models by targeting the way his structural model of reciprocal exchange does not correspond to Matsigenka palpable reality. Rosengren calls for scholars to move on from Lévi-Strauss’s grand design and describe “people as intentional subjects situated in the everyday world of their own experience.” He concludes that Matsigenka rules are less a normative system that governs people’s behavior and more a discursive convention. For instance, people who are mutually attracted define each other as cross-cousins. Sometimes Matsigenka marry their cross-cousins, but that is more a consequence of them coming into contact with one another more frequently, than obedience to the rule that the Matsigenka marry their cross-cousins. The implication of his work is that the cross-cousin exchange rules may be shorthand for approximating the unintentional patterns that arise from strategies informed by residence preferences.