Marriage Domestic Unit Inheritance Socialization
Marriage in Korowai society is exogamous and polygynous. There is an institutional levirate, based on the completion of the bridal payment.
There is a preference for marrying the mother's mother's brother's daughter (MMBd), who is called grandmother (makh) in Korowai.
Because of the required bridal payment, Korowai males usually cannot marry their first spouse until about the age of twenty. Females are married in their early teens, or even younger.
A basic household consists of a man, his wife or wives, and his unmarried children. The household also may include his widowed mother and unmarried siblings and sister(s)' orphans.
A single household may reach a maximum of fifteen people.
The average contacted clan-territory with more than two tree houses, is populated by twenty to thirty persons. Families that have moved into a village tend to be smaller.
The ownership of a clan territory is tranferred to the male clan members. This is also the case with regard to personal properties belonging to the clan-members.
When a person dies, within the avuncular framework it is felt appropriate to share gifts with the deceased's mother's brothers, usually through the transfer of pigs.
Children (mbambam) are raised mostly by their mothers and other clan females, and grow up in the females' room. Boys move to the males' room in their early teens. Babies are always carried in net-bags (ainop) and receive breast feeding as often as they desire.
There is no formal education, and children learn how to behave in the practical daily life circumstances of the household. The females teach them how to avoid danger, and at home, inform them about rules and taboos. Story-telling, sharing the gossip, and teaching songs and sayings that contain practical wisdom, are elements of socialization.
A little girl (lal-mbam) is actively involved as soon as possible in all female duties. At the age of about ten she is married to a much older man, who expects her to be competent with respect to economy, social life, and sexuality. A young married girl has to learn how to adapt herself completely to her husband's caprices and desires, often by enduring corporal punishment.
When a boy (abül-mbam) reaches his teens (= becoming khofélmanop), adult males teach him to discharge a man's duties. Then the boy is informed step-by-step about intra-clan and inter-clan sensitivities and tensions. At the age of about fifteen he fully participates in hunting and warfare. In the same period a boy can be initiated in the ancestral wisdom about the origin and maintenance of the universe.
A Korowai youth is strongly discouraged in regard to asking questions, for he is expected to wait until older people provide the appropriate information. At an early age the Korowai make their children familiar with the allcomprehensive concept of manop (good) versus lembul (bad), which does contain a wide range of connotations with respect to ethics, social life, cosmic balance, health, sexuality, and traditional wisdom and knowledge, including dealing with the invisible spiritual world.