Which of the following marriage practices are preferred to ensure and protect family property and inheritance rights.
A. Levirate practice
B. Couvade practice
C. Fraternal Polygynandry
D. Sororal practice
E. Potlatch practice
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

Correct option is A

Introduction

The marriage practices preferred to ensure and protect family property and inheritance rights are:

• A. Levirate practice: The widow marries her deceased husband's brother.

• C. Fraternal Polygynandry: Multiple brothers share a single wife. (This is a specific, though rare, form of Fraternal Polyandry, where multiple brothers share one wife).

• D. Sororal practice: The widower marries his deceased wife's sister (Sororate).

These practices help prevent the dispersal of property outside the family or lineage group.

Additional Knowledge

• Levirate (A) and Sororate (D): These are forms of replacement marriages that function to maintain the alliance between two families (lineages).

  • Levirate keeps the deceased husband's property within his family and ensures the children remain heirs to that lineage.

  • Sororate ensures the continuation of the alliance, and if the first wife died childless, a sister can provide heirs, often without a new bride-price/dowry, thus protecting the assets.

• Fraternal Polyandry (C - Fraternal Polygynandry is likely a typo for Fraternal Polyandry): This is the most direct practice for protecting property. By having multiple brothers share one wife, the land or estate is kept undivided, as all children are considered the collective heirs of the entire group of brothers. It prevents the fragmentation of scarce resources (like land) over generations.

Information Booster

The other options are irrelevant to property protection:

• B. Couvade practice: A ritualistic practice where the father takes to bed and observes specific taboos during or after his wife gives birth, sometimes mimicking labor. It is a social ritual of paternity, not property control.

• E. Potlatch practice: A ceremonial distribution of property and gifts common among certain Indigenous groups of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Its purpose is to validate social status and demonstrate wealth, not to protect or ensure family inheritance rights in the same structural way as the others.