Marriage strategies as strategies of social reproduction

Marriage strategies as strategies of social reproduction

Pierre Bourdieu

summary

the strategies tend to ensure the reproduction of their lineage and their right to the means of reproduction appear with marked statistical regularity. But one must be very careful not to see this regularity as the result of obedience to fixed rules.(p.117)

in reality, the generating and unifying principle of practice is constituted by the whole system of predisposition inculcated by the material circumstance of life and by family upbringing. That is, by habitus. This system is the end product of structures which practice tend to reproduce them, either by consciously reinventing or by subconsciously imitating already proven strategies as the accepted, most respectable. Those strategies that have always governed such practices finally come to be seen as inherent in the nature of things.(p.118) only habitus, a system of scheme structuring every decision without ever becoming completely and systematically explicit, can furnish the basis for the casuistic thinking required to safeguard the essential at all times, even if it should become necessary to violate the “norms”, which, to be sure, exist only in the legalistic thinking of the ethnologists anyway. (p.119)

there are very string reason for postulating that marriage was not based on obedience to any ideal rule but came about as the end result of a strategy, which, availing itself to strongly interiorized principles of a particular tradition, was able to reproduce in a manner more subconscious than conscious any one of the typical solution explicitly contained in that tradition. It could even manipulate the relationships objectively present in the genealogical tree in such a way justify such kinship relation and alliance as were necessary to safeguard and augment the interest of the lineage, in other words, its material or symbolical capital. (p.120)

“poor relatives” are also poor on relatives, it is because, here as elsewhere, wealth attracts wealth. After all, the awareness of cousinship and the desire to maintain it are a function of the material or symbolic advantage to be obtained from “cousining”. (p.121)

given the fact that marriage strategies were always designed to bring about “good marriage” rather than just a marriage, that is, to maximize the advantages or to minimize the economic and symbolic cost of the marriage as a transaction of a very special kind, these strategies were in every case governed by the value of the material and symbolic patrimony was transmitted. (p.122) there definitely was a cleavage between the mass of the peasantry and an “aristocracy” distinguished not only by its material capital but also by its symbolic capital, which was measured by the value of its entire kin on both sides of the lineage and over several generation. This cleavage made certain marriages, considered to be misalliance, impossible under the law.(p.123)

but the margin of acceptable disparity was rather narrow, and beyond a certain threshold, economic differences effectively ruled out an alliance. In short, difference in wealth tended to determine the cutoff point within the field of possible, that is, legitimate, marriage partners that was assigned to each individual by virtue of his or her family's position in the hierarchy of status group. (p.124)

in short, as soon as we postulate the basic equation that the land belongs to the eldest son and that the eldest son belongs to the land, in other words, that the land inherit its heir, we have establish a structure that generate such practices as conform to the basic imperative of the group. The fact that there were occasional failures in this concerted effort at indoctrination and cultural reproduction shows that the system never function in a mechanical fashion and that it was not always free of contradictions between dispositions and structures, in which case the contradiction might be experienced as a conflict between sentiment and duty. Nor was it always free of subterfuges intended to satisfy individual wishes within the limit of what was socially acceptable.(p.129)

this, incidentally—contrary to the anthropological view that every marriage is an autonomous unit—means that every marriage transaction can only be understood as one element in a series of material and symbolic exchanges, since the economic and symbolic capital a family is able to commit to the marriage of one of its children is largely determined by the position this particular exchange occupies in the entire matrimonial history of the family.(p.136)

the earliest learning experience of children, reinforced as they were by all of their social experience, tended to model their scheme of perception and appreciation, in a word, their taste, which, since they played as large a role in their selection of a sexual partner as in other ares, led them to avord improper alliances.(p.140)

these strategies are the product of habitus, meaning the practical mastery of a small number of implicit principles that have spawned an infinite number of practices and follow their own pattern, although they are not based on obedience to any formal rules. Hence, since these patterns emerge “spontaneously”, it is unnecessary to make them explicit or to invoke or impose any rules. Habitus is thus the product of the very structures it tends to reproduce. (p.141)

point:
against legalism: the regularity on statistic does not mean rule following.
Marriage strategies is not dominated by economy alone, but after some limit economy issue ride off other possibility.
Strategies are product of habitus, which habitus is the product of the very structure it tend to reproduce.
There exist counterexample, because these structure do not work mechanically.

馬克思、涂爾幹、韋伯之宗教概念比較

馬克思

作為一個無神論者，馬克思在宗教上的看法部份認同費爾巴哈，他們兩個的起手式都和「異化」有關。費爾巴哈認為，宗教是人創造出來的Fiction，在人創造出所有人完美性質的集合體，也就是神之後，這個被創造出來的神概念反而和人的本質斷裂，更反過來壓制人，讓人相信每個個人只能被神操弄而完全無法對自己的生命有所掌控。在這點上，馬克思同意費爾巴哈的觀點，但是馬克思認為費爾巴哈只消除了一個層面上的「異化」，這個「異化」是更根本惡的反映，因此，如果更根本的惡沒有改變，則消除對神的崇拜是無效的。

馬克思所謂被宗教反映出的更根本惡，基本上和其理論整體所要論述的對象完全相同，就是資本主義下的社會關係。馬克思認為，當人類開始專業分工，以貨幣交易，並且勞工所得為「薪資」時，奠基於交換價值上的社會關係就開始讓人誤以為如此的社會關係是正當且必然如此。而這種社會關係就是剝削與被剝削的關係。以上的講法，就已經讓此等社會關係看起來和費爾巴哈所論述的宗教有一定程度上的相似性：「被人創造出來，反過來和人的本質斷裂，並且讓人以為那種超出個人的力量主宰自己，而自己無法掌握自己的生命。」就如同這種被人創造出來的社會關係，和個人斷裂，並且讓人以為我們必然受其主宰。

宗教，對馬克思而言只是反映出此等社會關係，並且更進一步將這種社會關係包裝起來，使人滿足於現狀下的剝削關係而不會感到不正當。對馬克思而言，宗教是包裝並且反映出社會關係的媒介，只要當資本主義被激進的無產階級革命推翻後，進入社會主義之時就不再需要宗教這種媒介來聯繫人與超越人的關係（或精神）。

但我並不清楚馬克思把宗教說成這樣是只有在資本主義裡面這樣，古早社會宗教不知道是如何？如果這樣說來，「宗教」抽象來說到底是什麼？反映社會關係，作為人和所有超越人的關係或精神的中介？

Reference: N. Lobkowicz, Karl Marx's Attitude toward Religion, The Review of Politics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Jul., 1964), pp. 319-352, Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405231


涂爾幹

對涂爾幹來說，討論宗教的最根本目的是回答「社會秩序如何可能」的問題。而宗教，對涂爾幹來說，就是使社會秩序可能的根源。涂爾幹將宗教定義為：「他是一個與神聖事物相關之信仰與儀式的聚合體，這些信仰與儀式將所有奉行的人，融聚在一個被稱為教會的道德社群中。（p.185）」但更重要的是：「宗教信仰所具有的特殊性格是他們預設了一個劃分體系，將人們所知道的所有事物，無論是現實的還是理想的，區分為兩類，兩個相當不同的種類。宗教思想的特質就是，如果你不用這種二分法的概念，就無法掌握他。二分法的概念本身即：這是戒備劃分為兩種完全不同的事物與象徵—神聖的與凡俗的。（p.184）」

也就是說，對涂爾幹來說，信仰、儀式、超自然的概念…等等，都不是定義宗教的重點，而對於所有事物的聖俗二分才是宗教之所以存在且重要的概念。一個宗教所提供的聖俗排序決定這個道德共同體對世界的認知，與價值判斷，有了價值判斷因此才可能擁有社會秩序、也才可能使社會秩序擁有外在性與強制性。而信仰和儀式，都只是宗教為了再生產而出現的東西，尤其是儀式，有些藉由儀式所讓參與者體驗到超越日常生活的共同經驗讓神聖的象徵物（集體象徵）確立自己的神聖性，而有些儀式是透過禁忌等等來將聖俗之間的界線更清楚的畫出來。因此，涂爾幹「宗教」的概念重點在於其聖俗二分下所產生的認知範疇。


韋伯

相對於馬克思和涂爾幹，韋伯的「宗教」概念最為具體，認定也最狹窄。韋伯所討論的宗教都有明顯的教義、崇拜對象、內部戒律、神職人員，而這個組織在概念上都可以和世俗分離。（雖然韋伯討論中國的時候，認為天子就是世俗與宗教的結合，但在概念上仍然可以區分。）

韋伯所感興趣的問題，有點像是確立了涂爾幹的思想：『「宗教」（仍然為韋伯式有教義、神職人員的宗教概念）所為宗教內部一種倫理、道德的形成』之後，開始對現世世界中特定宗教之內部倫理關係做觀察，並以此來詮釋現象。韋伯的宗教概念有一個很好辨認的概念：在韋伯定義下的宗教，這些人都是有自我意識這是一個宗教，並且在服從戒律時也同時自我意識其為宗教目的。韋伯的研究方式較像歷史現象、事件的研究方式，先確立事實/現象，而宗教其中的倫理就是來詮釋此事實或現象的要素。

結論
馬克思的宗教，是社會關係的反映，在資本主義社會下就反映、包裝剝削的社會關係；涂爾幹的宗教是認知範疇的基礎，因此更是社會秩序的基礎。這兩個宗教概念同樣都比較抽象，因為在這些定義下的宗教範圍很廣，尤其在涂爾幹的概念裡，只要形成聖俗二分、有一定的「儀式」與「信仰」（這兩個都是很模糊且範圍很廣的概念），就能被定義為宗教。而他們兩人的研究差異在於，馬克思並沒有討論社會秩序或社會關係的存有論基礎，而直接在這兩者存在的假定上討論社會關係是如何變遷，且其內容為何。而涂爾幹所討論的就是社會秩序的存有論基礎。

不同於馬克思與涂爾幹認為宗教是反映或象徵社會，韋伯意義下的宗教和社會有一定程度的分離，並且用宗教所產生的倫理（這種倫理的概念感覺比社會關係更具體，是相對有意識的互動模式）來詮釋現象。