Cross-Cultural Correlates of the Ownership of Private Property

Note

The 87 social variables used in the present test were coded by Simmons and were found to be significantly and reliably correlated with Murdock's measures of similar variables (20 of Simmons' variables were not correlated with Murdock's). Of the 87 variables, 21 variables were significantly correlated in some way with the private ownership of property. The 17 significant positive predictors of private property are permanent residence, agriculture, the use of grain for food, having a constant food supply, domesticated animals, slavery, debt relations, trade, money, government by council, warfare, codified laws, the authority of judges, patrilocal residence, castes and classes, plutocracy, and ceremony and ritual. The four significant negative predictors of private property are communal food sharing, marriage by capture, exposure of the dying, and abandoning the house of the dead.