Laz - Kinship, Marriage, and Family

Living outside of both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the Laz have eluded the detailed anthropological investigations characteristic of Russian scholarship and have not yet been systematically studied in the West. Generally speaking, until recent times the Laz shared the customs associated with the other Georgian peoples. An elaborate kinship system linked the various clans of the population together, the customs of blood brotherhood and milk brotherhood were common, blood feuds were endemic, and, even under Islam, monogamous marriage was the rule, with the husband retaining the right to kill both an adulterous wife and her lover. Girls were raised to become wives and mothers, and usually moved into their husband's village if not directly into his parents' home.