This study discusses childcare done by children. While no empirical hypotheses are tested, the authors identify some potential sociocultural and developmental correlates of childcare by children and provide relevant descriptive statistics. Possible correlates include mother-child relationships, conceptions and emergence of childhood stages, organization of play groups, development of social responsibility, sex differences, personality development, cognitive style and cognitive development, motivation and learning.

This book chapter examines relationships between the child-training behavior of mothers and the responsibilities of both mothers and others. Child-training behavior is also examined in relation to single and multiple family dwellings.

This article builds upon gender inequality theory to examine childhood gender inequality in preindustrial societies. Multivariate and cluster analysis are used.

This study investigates theories of male initiation ceremonies. The author examines a hypothesis related to child-rearing variables (sleeping arrangements and post-partum taboo) and rejects it based on empirical analysis. An alternative hypothesis related to male solidarity is offered.

This study investigates the conceptual frameworks involved in infanticide. Authors first examine data on infanticide and birth ceremonies, particularly the timing of these events and the infant and adult involved in each. Authors also examine reasons for performing infanticide, including illegitimacy, unwanted children, and excess children, finding them similar to reasons for performing abortion. Population control and implications for children's and women's status are also discussed.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on polygyny pertaining to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

This article reviews theories of marital power and tests for a relationship between wives’ contribution to subsistence and their conjugal power in patriarchal cultures. Results indicate a positive association. The role of cultural complexity is also considered; its relationship with wives’ power is negative and linear while its relationship with wives’ contribution to subsistence is negative and non-linear.

This article explores the hypothesis that certain initiation and child-rearing patterns are integrated by virtue of the fact that the child rearing creates a specific kind of problem personality that the initiation counteracts. Early indulgence followed by compliance child training is explored in the Hopi culture, and similar patterns are examined in a sample of societies.

This article tests a broad hypothesis that marital structure is associated with economic type. Results indicate that where women's potential contribution to subsistence is high (as in gathering and agricultural societies), women's contribution is positively associated with polygyny. By contrast, in fishing, hunting, and herding societies, female contribution to subsistence is generally minimal and has a negative association with polygyny.

This article investigates factors influencing the division of labor by gender, including occupation specialization, the type of material labor involves, the presence of the plow, nomadism, and the advantage that a product may yield to either sex. Hypotheses are widely supported.