Not an anthropologist - but instead of "How farming promotes inequality", I'd frame it as "How resource-producing capital promotes inequality". It could be livestock in a migratory herding society, or boats and nets when those were critical for fishing, or whatever.
> In contemporary Western societies, unigeniture is either considered wrong or is illegal; we no longer differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate offspring...
At best, those are common ideals in Western society. Try talking to an old attorney who does family law.
Also worth a mention - in primitive conditions, polygamy can speed the spread of highly beneficial genes through the society. The textbook case is immune system genes - historically, disease killed a lot of our ancestors.
> I'd frame it as "How resource-producing capital promotes inequality". It could be livestock in a migratory herding society, or boats and nets when those were critical for fishing, or whatever.
I agree, but nitpick: capital by definition can be put to use to produce or gather something. So resource-producing capital is redundant.
> Only virgins could take part in the final initiation ritual, which involved lying open-eyed beneath a waterfall to cleanse themselves of the pollution caused by having seen a woman’s genitals. Nearby, teasing girls would sing: ‘I urinated further up this creek. Where did you purify your eyes?’
Eden was probably just a metaphor for life before agriculture
Not an anthropologist - but instead of "How farming promotes inequality", I'd frame it as "How resource-producing capital promotes inequality". It could be livestock in a migratory herding society, or boats and nets when those were critical for fishing, or whatever.
> In contemporary Western societies, unigeniture is either considered wrong or is illegal; we no longer differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate offspring...
At best, those are common ideals in Western society. Try talking to an old attorney who does family law.
Also worth a mention - in primitive conditions, polygamy can speed the spread of highly beneficial genes through the society. The textbook case is immune system genes - historically, disease killed a lot of our ancestors.
> I'd frame it as "How resource-producing capital promotes inequality". It could be livestock in a migratory herding society, or boats and nets when those were critical for fishing, or whatever.
I agree, but nitpick: capital by definition can be put to use to produce or gather something. So resource-producing capital is redundant.
> Only virgins could take part in the final initiation ritual, which involved lying open-eyed beneath a waterfall to cleanse themselves of the pollution caused by having seen a woman’s genitals. Nearby, teasing girls would sing: ‘I urinated further up this creek. Where did you purify your eyes?’
So fucking hot.