Social Organization and the Long House in Southeast Asia and Micronesia

In 1931 Malinowski wrote, “Although a great deal is known about the technology of house building and even about the structure of houses in various cultures and although a fair amount is also known about the constitution of the family, few accounts deal with the relation between the form of the dwelling and the form of domestic arrangements, on the one hand, and the constitution of the family, on the other, and yet such a relation does exist.” Malinowski then goes on to explain that the extended house is a function of the large, or extended family; while the club house, or men's house, is a function of age grouping, secret societies, or sexual abstinence or laxity.