JOKING RELATIONSHIP
The reverse of the avoidance relationship is an extreme degree of familiarity expressed through joking relationships. Such joking may amount to an exchange of abuse and banter, obscene and vulgar references to sex, damage to each other’s property, ridicule and so on. Joking relationships may be indicative of equality and mutual reciprocity. They may also be indicative of a potentially sexual relationship. A joking relationship with one’s maternal uncle’s wife may indicate the practice of inheriting all the property of one’s maternal uncle, including his wife. It may indicate a joking relationship with the maternal uncle, expressed through sexual intimacy with his wife. Such usages have been reported from the matrilineal Hopi and Trobriand Islanders.
Among many primitive folks like Oraon and the Baiga, a joking relationship has been found to prevail between grandparents and grandchildren. S.C. Roy has reported an instance of a grandfather marrying his granddaughter among the Oraon. Verrier Elwin has reported a similar instance from the Baiga where a grandson married his grandmother. Radcliffe Brown regards the joking relationship as having a symbolic meaning that joking relations may be a kind of friendliness expressed by a show of hostility. Chapple and Coon regard this usage as a way to stimulate a higher interaction rate between various people, which may not be possible to do otherwise.
Thus, a joking relationship may not be essentially reciprocal and so it can be used as a mechanism of social control.
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