Title not available in English

Abstract

The demographical minimum of a moiety system: a computer simulation. This paper presents the results of a hundred computer simulations of an exogamous moiety system. The simulations show that if the group behaves as a matrimonial isolate such a system cannot operate with less than 500 people distributed In a stable age and sex pyramid. The simulation procedure adopted here allows for “wrong” marriages (as they apear in the ethnographic data) in order to verify what population sue is needed to keep these "wrong” marriages under a certain level. The general hypothesis is that each kinship system needs a demographical minimum under which the number of "wrong" marriages is so large that the original system becomes hardly recognizable in the marriage choices.