Some endogamous societies are divided into different exogamous groups (such as clans or lineages): Men form alliances through the exchange of women, and the social organization regulates these alliances through marriage rules. In many societies marriage links not just nuclear families but larger social formations as well. If a man's labor is more highly valued, the bride's family may offer goods (dowry) to the husband or his family. If a woman's labor is highly valued, a man may be required to offer valuable goods (bride-price) or his own labor (bride-service) to his wife's family. Marriage therefore often has occasioned other economic exchanges. In most societies men and women have been valued for their different roles in the household economy. Such functions are served even by the more common type of marriage, the union of one or more men with one or more women. These examples highlight the functions of marriage to reproduce both a domestic division of labor and social relationships between different groups. Among the Dahomey of West Africa, one woman could marry another the first woman would be the legal “father” of the children (by other men) of the second. For example, Nayar women of India would ritually marry men of a superior caste, have numerous lovers, and bear legitimate children. Historically marriage was typically heterosexual and entailed exclusive rights and duties of sexual performance, but there are instructive exceptions. These rules may be prescriptive or, as in the case of the incest taboo, proscriptive they generally apply to kinship groups such as clan or lineage residential groups and social groups such as the ethnic group, caste, or class. In all societies the choice of partners is generally guided by rules of exogamy (the obligation to marry outside a group) some societies also have rules of endogamy (the obligation to marry within a group). Marriage, socially sanctioned union that reproduces the family.
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