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Chapter Two. The Social Structure and its Units |
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men of Great Ang class; marriage rules |
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The great Ang class consisted exclusively of those members of the ruling chief's lineage who were the issue of marriages between men of great Ang class and women from other villages of similar status. As marriage within the Ang lineage of the same village was inadmissible, all alliances in which both spouses were of great Ang rank had to be contracted with chiefly houses of other domains. Men of great Ang class could marry secondary wives of Wangpeng clans, and the issue from such chief-commoner unions constituted the Wangsa or small Ang class. Girls of great Ang class were never married to commoners of their own village. Ideally, they had to marry men of great Ang lineage of other villages, but if no husband of equal status could be found, they were given in marriage to men of small Ang lineages; these too had to be unrelated and, hence, of another village, for it seems that in the same locality two different lineages of great Ang class never coexisted. |
