This article investigates residence, descent rules, and family structure. Empirical analysis suggests that they are associated with settlement patterns, particularly economic and demographic variables.

This book is a comprehensive analysis of many aspects of social structure including family, clan, community, kinship terminology, social organization, regulation of sex, incest taboos, and sexual choice.

This paper examines the distribution and diffusion of the seven patterns of sibling classifaction given by the author. The author then studies the association between descent and sibling terminology.

This chapter investigates the various socioeconomic variables that are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal institutions. Several variables were found to correlate significantly with matrilineal and patrilineal institutions.

This paper "reduces Murdock's 210 categories to 30 variables, and intercorrelates and factor analyzes the variables for six world subdivisions as well as for the entire world." This article also discusses factor analysis as a method and examines the correlations more closely between the two regions that differed the most, North America and the Circum-Mediterranean.

This chapter considers several forms of wealth transmission at marriage. The relationships between descent rules and incidence of bridewealth, dowry, and gift exchange are examined and several patterns emerge from empirical analysis.

This chapter explores the relationship between cultural complexity and song. Several measures of cultural complexity are correlated with different aspects of singing. All hypotheses are supported.

This chapter explores and tests some propositions about matrilineal societies. Supplementary to that discussion, the author also explores the problems of method associated with the use of coded data on large samples of cultures.

Researchers examined kinships terminology systems for explanations regarding specifically observed typology of kin terms for cousins cross-culturally. They explore two theories, the first relating to population size via bottleneck evolution, and the second relating to social practices that shape kinship systems. Using the Ethnographic Atlas within D-PLACE, 936 societies with kinship system information were studied. The findings did not suggest a relationship between increased community size and a decrease in kinship complexity, however the research does suggest a relationship between practices of marriage and descent and kinship complexity.

In this article, the author argues that matrilocality is a form of social organization that is conducive to expansion in tribal societies with smaller populations. Because this organization increases internal solidarity and success in external warfare, the theory suggests that it is best suited for expansion on cultural frontiers by groups with small populations. The author supports this theory with empirical tests on 33 societies and case studies of Bantu and Austronesian expansion.