We say that marriage is customary in almost all societies, but there are some interesting exceptions. Two are the Na of China and, in the 19th century, the Nayar subcaste of India.
The Na of Yunnan in southwest China, with a population of about 40,000, have customarily not married or lived with their sexual partners. Rather, men and women lived their entire lives in residential groups made up of their respective maternal kin (grandmother, great-uncles, brothers, sisters, and their children). The maternal household cooperated economically and raised the children. The Na practice sese,the consensual sexual union of an unmarried couple.6 When a couple agrees to see each other, the man visits the woman discreetly in the evening and returns to his own residence the next morning. No other tie exists between the lovers, nor is there any expectation that the relationship be longstanding or monogamous. The offspring of such relationships normally take the woman’s family name and are raised by her family.
However, the Chinese government has tried off and on since 1959 to impose marriage among the Na and even to fine them for illegitimate births, but without much success. Traditionally, only a few women and men, usually of the aristocratic class, chose to live together. While the government has become more flexible about Na customs, some Na are now choosing to marry, especially when they work in the Chinese government or work away from their community. Young people’s attitudes are also changing, largely because of their education in Chinese schools, where they become self-conscious when asked their fathers’ names.7
In the nineteenth century, the Nayar, a subcaste in India, also lacked the custom of marriage.8 The Na and the Nayar may both have had frequently absent men. Nayar men hired themselves out to fight for princes in various parts of India. In the Na case, between the 1920s and the 1950s, the Na raised horses and mules for caravans they organized to transport merchandise throughout the western part of Yunnan. Of course, the relative absence of men cannot be the only reason for the absence of marriage in these groups; long-distance travel by men occurs in some other ethnic groups along with marriage.