288 pages, 6 x 9
5 tables, 7 charts, map, notes, references, index
Hardcover
Release Date:15 May 2002
ISBN:9780813024561
Cultures of Multiple Fathers
The Theory and Practice of Partible Paternity in Lowland South America
Edited by Stephen Beckerman and Paul Valentine
University Press of Florida
.
The study goes well beyond presenting the fact of belief in partible paternity, placing it in an extensive matrix of kinship, marriage, and associated features of social life. Each author discusses a particular society's beliefs about such related issues as conception and fetal development, domestic group composition and kin terminology, determining which males supply and distribute fish and game to the group, and the fate of children whose fathers die or depart.
Stephen Beckerman is associate professor of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University.
Paul Valentine is senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of East London, U.K.