Matrilocality

Matrilocality (also known as Uxorilocal marriage) is a term used in social anthropology. It describes a societal system in which the offspring of a mother remain living in the mother's house, thereby forming large "clan-families", typically consisting of three or four generations living under the same roof.

Frequently, visiting marriage is being practiced, meaning that husband and wife are living apart in their separate families, seeing each other in their spare time. The children of such marriages are raised by the mother's extended matrilineal clan. The father does not have a significant role in the upbringing of his own children; he does, however, in that of his sisters' children.

In direct consequence, property is inherited from generation to generation, and over all, remains largely undivided.

Examples of matrilocal societies include the Ancient Pueblo Peoples of Chaco Canyon, the Nair community in Kerala in South India, the Mosuo of Southwestern China, and the Minangkabau of Western Sumatra. In Native Amazonia, this residence pattern is often associated with the customary practice of brideservice, as seen among the Urarina of northeastern Peru. In contemporary China, uxorilocal marriage has been encouraged by the government. (Wolf, M. 1985 Revolution Postponed: Women in contemporary China : Stanford University Press 196-198) in an attempt to counter the problem of high sex ratios caused by female infanticide, sex-selective abortion and abandonment of infant girls. Because girls traditionally marry out in virilocal marriage they have been seen as 'mouths from another family' or as a waste of resources to raise. During the Song Dynasty in medieval China, matrilocal marriage became common for wealthy, non-aristocratic families.

In other regions of the world, such as Japan, during the Heian period, a marriage of this type was not a sign of high status, but rather an indication of the patriarchal authority of the woman's family, i.e. her father or grandfather, who was sufficiently powerful to demand it (Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History, by B. Ramusack & S. Sievers (Indiana University Press, 1999)).

The term matrilocality is also used in the same sense in sociobiology, to describe animal societies in which a pair bond is formed between animals born or hatched in different areas or different social groups, and the pair become resident in the female's home area or group.