Seminar by – Brishti Guha, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 20th April, 2017 (Thursday) at 3:00 PM

 Grandparents as Guards: Inheritance and Post Marital Residence in a World of Uncertain Paternity 

by

Brishti Guha
Jawaharlal Nehru University 

On

20th April, 2017 (Thursday) at 3:00 PM

Venue : Seminar Room (First Floor)
Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics

All are cordially invited

Abstract

I unify the following (1) men face paternity uncertainty while women do not face maternity uncertainty, (2) putative fathers and paternal kin care about true paternity, (3) paternity confidence is systematically lower in matrilocal cultures than in patrilocal ones, (4) inheritance tends to be patrilineal where paternity confidence is high and matrilineal where it is low, and (5) most societies with patrilineal inheritance were patrilocal while most societies with matrilineal inheritance were matrilocal. I explore the following related puzzles: (1) Why were patrilineal-patrilocal societies (PP) more sexually restrictive for women than matrilineal-matrilocal ones (MM)? (2) Why did the older generation in PP and MM societies play starkly different roles in sexual monitoring? (3) Why did most societies emerge as PP while a few became MM? (4) Can the correlation between inheritance and post-marital residence be explained without assuming the exogeneity of either? To answer these questions I look at the simultaneous determination of inheritance, residence, and levels of sexual monitoring/permissiveness.