gift exchange

is not exclusively an exchange of goods and wealth, but courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance, women, children, dances, and feasts.

In theory such gifts are voluntary but in fact they are given and repaid under obligation. . .. Further, what they exchange is not exclusively goods and wealth, real and personal property, and things of economic value. They exchange rather courtesies, entertainments, ritual, military assistance, women, children, dances, and feasts; and fairs in which the market is but one element and the circulation of wealth but one part of a wide and enduring contact."

is used sometimes to cement peer relations, sometimes to produce differentiation of status.

What is most interesting, however, is that the exchanges in the same institution serve sometimes to cement peer relations and sometimes to produce differentiation of status, contradictory as these two consequences appear to be.

gift exchange, n.All

gift exchange