Suchergebnisse

Celibacy, Illegitimacy and Social Structure in a Portuguese Hamlet

This paper examines celibacy and illegitimacy in a hamlet in Trás-os-Montes, N.E. Portugal. Both phenomena pervade the social structure, and, along with concubinage and natolocal residence, beg a multifaceted analysis well beyond the reach of purely demographic or moralistic explanations. Drawing on Goody's models of Eurasian inheritance patterns and Bourdieu's concept of the "structural victim", we can elucidate an intimate link between such irregular kinship practices and the specific local form of delayed post-mortem transmission. By dissecting the community and showing precisely who the celibates and bastards are, we discover a dual system of marriage and sexuality composed of two parallel spheres inside and outside formal ecclesiastical matrimony. This duality is replicated within the elastic ambiguity of the local term zorro (unrecognised bastard), indicating the symbiosis of bitter social stigma with a generalised acceptance of illegitimacy among the lower social groups. Unrecognised and unlegitimated bastards - rather than celibates — are viewed as this society's structural victims. Situating the community within the overall ethnographic literature on the Mediterranean area remains an open and perplexing question.