Joking Relationship

Kin-Based Joking Relationships

Ethnographers were first to describe joking relationships institutionalized in certain tribal societies on the basis of clan, descent, or marriage. Many such kin-based joking relationships have been identified in the tribal societies of Africa, Asia, North America, and Oceania. The partners in such relationships participate by custom in certain patterned types of joking, teasing, insult, and horseplay, perhaps along with other social obligations. The joking relationship may be reciprocal or nonreciprocal, with either or both partners responsible for the joking, but in either case it requires that the target of the joking not take offense. Joking relationships may hold between preferred marriage partners, serving to promote familiarity and sexual involvement, while the joking supports cultural norms and prevents disapproved sexual behavior. Conversely, avoidance relations may hold between persons of opposite sex for whom marital or sexual relations are forbidden. Both of these customs—viewed as points along a continuum of respectful behavior ranging from avoidance to license—act to stabilize relations that might be subject to conflict. For example, in many cultures a man must avoid his mother-in-law and joke with his sisters-in-law, while a woman must avoid her father-in-law and joke with her brothers-in-law. In general, kin-based joking relationships help maintain social order; release aggressions in public, acceptable ways; and foster solidarity.

Voluntary Joking Relationships

As anthropologists continued to study joking relationships, they began to find similar pairings between members of the same age group, in other villages, and in different occupational groups. Scholars also became more interested in non-kin joking relationships in industrial societies. These joking relationships are formed voluntarily by individuals in frequent contact, often within a work setting. In both traditional, kin-based societies and modern industrial societies, members form relationships built around certain types of humor, and their joking relationships help define acceptable modes of interaction for the participants that might include teasing, jocular insults, and practical jokes. Research stressed the role of non-kin joking relationships in controlling real aggression and stabilizing the group. [Page 419]It was observed that humor was routinely directed downward in the hierarchy and organized along the lines of gender and age, involving for instance banter and horseplay between older men and women but not between younger men and women. Joking relationships within professional and social groups demonstrate group identity and foster solidarity. For participants in a joking relationship, the sheer weight of their previous experience with each other makes it impossible for them to really take offense, quarrel, or make love. Their histories of joking have much relevance for any interactions of the people involved. It may be impossible for participants in a customary joking relationship to segue into serious interaction.

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