GYPSY FAMILY GROUP Anthropological perspective

This text is aimed at kinship and marriage among the specifically defined Gypsy group. The subject matter is a genealogically defined group of people who live both in several Slovak Gypsy settlements and several Czech towns, and whose members share common values, norms and patterns of behaviour. The author discusses character of kin groups in her population sample and concludes that they are constituted on the basis of cognatic descent, with flexible and changing boundaries. Marriage patterns are marked by a strong tendency to endogamy and three types of marriages are most common there - 1. marriage between relatives, 2. So called marriage "pre ceranki" (which means "by exchange") and 3. The combination of the two former. Nevertheless, it is impossible to interpret these marriage patterns in terms of Levi-Strauss's alliance theory of kinship.