Society and Culture Atlas

How People Live Together
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Kinship and Family Systems

Neolocal Residence

Postmarital Residence Patterns

Neolocal residence is the post-marital residence pattern in which a newly married couple establishes an independent household separate from both spouses' natal families, forming the residential core of a nuclear family rather than joining either side's existing household. It is the dominant pattern in modern Western nations and is becoming more common in other economically developed countries. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Descent RuleSourced to the subject's own account
A residence rule rather than a descent rule proper: no descent group is presumed to co-reside with the couple, since the new household stands apart from both natal families. The pattern presumes and reinforces a bilateral, weakly corporate kinship system rather than a strong unilineal one, the opposite structural logic from patrilocal or matrilocal residence. 1
Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own account
Some accounts have linked neolocal residence to industrialization, but evidence of neolocal residence in England predates industrialization, and the decline of dependency on agricultural subsistence is treated as another driver of the shift toward neolocal, nuclear households. 1
Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own account
The dominant post-marital residence pattern in modern Western nations, having originated in Northwestern Europe before spreading to British colonial settler societies in the Americas; increasingly common in other economically developed countries, including Japan. 1
Descent Rule
Descent Rule (category)Sourced to the subject's own account
Bilateral Descent 1
Descent Rule (category)Sourced to the subject's own account
Matrilocal Residence 1
Descent Rule (category)Sourced to the subject's own account
Patrilocal Residence 1
Connections

Associated With

Source Wikipedia: Neolocal Residence

In Rule Category

Entity-backed identity for the descent-rule category this kinship system already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a kinship-system entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.

Entity-backed identity for the descent-rule category this kinship system already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a kinship-system entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.

Entity-backed identity for the descent-rule category this kinship system already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a kinship-system entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.

Sources
1. Wikipedia: Neolocal Residence
Wikipedia
  • Lead section
    Neolocal residence is a type of post-marital residence in which a newly married couple resides separately from both the husband's natal household and the wife's natal household.
  • Body
    Currently, neolocal residence is more commonly found in the west, and is becoming more common in countries that have experienced economic development, like Japan.
  • Description section
    Although some believe neolocal residence came as a result of industrialization, there is evidence of neolocality in England from before industrialization.
View the Source
Atlas Relation Vocabulary
SocietyAtlas (internal)In Category: Kinship and Family Systems
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.