Power and Wealth are Cousins: Descent, Class and Marital Strategies among the Kel Ahaggar (Tuareg—Sahara)

Marital Strategies: The Manipulation of the RulesThe way in which the class structure is reproduced, and the implications and significance of these various rules for the two classes, can be seen in their marital strategies.Although the tawsatin (descent groups) of both classes exhibit a high rate of endogamy, there is no prescriptive rule of endogamy as such. The rules are defined in terms of incest categories, beyond which the pattern and effect of endogamy is merely the result of the various marital strategies adopted. This ‘incest’ category is very small: the only people a man is forbidden from marrying are his mother, his father's and mother's uterine sisters, and other classificatory mothers (which includes those kinswomen of ascending generations), his uterine sister, his daughter, the daughters of his uterine brothers and sisters, and his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and daughter-in-law. In other words, there is no prohibition on marriage with any type of cousin.