RESIDENCE

in anthropology, location chosen by a couple as their postnuptial domicile. In primitive societies, such residence choices frequently follow rules; and, in social systems of wide kinship ties, a new place of residence after marriage signifies the potential severance of old alignments and the establishment of new ones. Because rights, obligations, succession, and inheritance tend to follow the line of descent, and because the obligations to and of one's consanguineal kin (i.e., the kin of one's lineage or descent group) tend to predominate over the rights and duties between married persons, at least one member of the newly married pair will be separated from his or her more important kin of the family of orientation (i.e., the family with whom one is reared). If this move necessitates that the person live with affinal kin (relatives through marriage), the new residence may place him or her at least temporarily at an emotional disadvantage. If a new couple establishes a new home independent of the location of either set of parents, they are said to establish neolocal residence. If they live with or near the kin of the husband, they follow the rule of virilocal residence; if with or near the kin of the wife, the residence is said to be uxorilocal. When the couple alternates between the wife's group and the husband's group, their household arrangements are called bilocal residence. Some matrilineal peoples live in avunculocal residence. Under this system, boys leave their natal home during adolescence and join the household of one of their mother's brothers, whom the boy refers to as father. When he marries, his wife comes to live with him.