Cross-Cultural Correlates of the Ownership of Private Property: Two Samples of Murdock's Data

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Of the 146 variables tested, 51 were found to be significantly correlated in some way with the private ownership of property. The 37 significant positive predictors are large domestic animals, husbandry, intensive cultivation, agriculture, bovine husbandry, plow cultivation, milking of livestock, cereal grain crops, bride-price, patrilocal marital residence, patrilineal kin groups and exogamy, descriptive cousin terminology, patrilineal sibs or clans, segmented communities, nonsororal polygyny with separate quarters, craft specialization, presence of clans, male dominance in house building, slavery, male dominance in pottery, class stratification by occupation, presence of castes, despised occupational groups, dual class stratification, permanent settlement. populous communities, wall of substantial materials, large population, higher jurisdictions, games of strategy, dense settlement, raised floors, male genital mutilations, judgemental high gods, headmen chosen by election, local jurisdiction, and angular ground plan. The 14 significant negative predictors are gathering, hunting, vegetable crops, equine husbandry, root crops, fishing, bilateral descent, uxorilocal marital residence, exogamous communities, ambilocal marital residence, bride-service, virilocal marital residence, headmen chosen by consensus, and rounded roofs.