The paper begins by establishing the conflicting themes of equality and hierarchy that characterizes Timling people's images of themselves. These themes are ratified in the meanings attached to exchange in village social life and are separately legitimated with reference to particular clan histories. They are tied to the categories of social difference and to the structure of production that organize life in Timling. Marriage represents a key institution for producing these relationships and the author concludes by demonstrating how the strategic manipulation of marriages within the context of history and structures of meaning serves to create and renew relations of quality and hierarchy within Timling's dual system of prestige. Elements of this system include the cultural models motivating behavior, historical relations between groups, axes of socially recognized difference and the concrete behaviors of marriage strategies themselves. This descriptive exploration of Timling marriages has several implications for our understanding of marriage behavior in societies organized by kinship. Most generally, the variations in marriage form found among the Ghale and Tamang indicate that a search for positive marriage "rules" by themselves will not illuminate the practice of marriage in village society. The flexibility and strategic behavior in Timling are clearly parts of the system of marriage and politics itself. Other arguments for marriage outcomes focus on economic advantage and this is found to be an important part of the process for Timling. Thus relative land holdings of families entering into relationships through marriage are related to the structure of relationships implied by marriage form. Where relative holdings are equal or where a husband's family has more land than a wife's marriages are more likely to ratify prior reciprocal relations. Where a wife's family holds more land, Timling men are more likely to accept the lower status of forming either an entirely new subordinate relation or continuing an already existing on in MBD marriage. The evidence of observed patterns suggests that they do so in hopes of acquiring usufruct over excess affinal land. In spite of the "officialializing" discourse in which both Ghale and Tamang argue for FZD and FZDD-MBD exchanges, there is something about membership in these two groups that has an impact on marriage outcomes and the political relations implied by them. These features of group membership are apart from economic differences, senior generation involvement in marital decisions, and political relations measured by the ability of affines to demand services. In light of Timling's history and the conflicting models of hierarchy and reciprocity that can be appealed to for validating behavior, there is some support here for the need to consider other avenues by which relations are unconsciously replicated in marriage. In any event, it is clear that the meaning of marriage strategies in Timling requires attention to the dual systems of prestige that turn on social difference in addition to other parts of the process. Finally, the processes by which statuses are created and renewed in Timling may apply more generally among Himalayan societies. We have seen for Timling that wives are required for men to begin to make status claims at any level. In fact, wives are required for any man to even begin recognized existence as the head of a domestic group. We have also seen that prestige claims and status exist on a continuum from minimal fulfillment of the requirements of sociality to more general levels of giving, but all phrased in terms of a central logic involving reciprocity. People in Timling have a choice about whether to pursue the forms of prestige that lead to political power in the village arena or to settle for the more domestic forms of power that come in various ways to every man. Each marriage constitutes a moment in the pursuit of whatever statuses are being claimed, either as a strategy in the renewal of prior claims or as a starting point for new ones.
Bibliography: June 1997 135-155 Ethnology
