uxorilocal
Meaning
Of or relating to a married couple who live with or near the wife's family or community.
Structure
Usage
The anthropologist noted that the society practiced an uxorilocal residence pattern, where husbands moved into their wives' villages.
Uxorilocal customs can influence property inheritance and lineage structures within a community.
Their marriage was uxorilocal, so they built their home on land belonging to her family.
Etymology
The term is a modern scholarly compound, constructed in the 20th century within the fields of anthropology and sociology. It combines the Latin root uxor- (wife), the source of the English word 'uxorious' meaning excessively fond of one's wife, with the common English adjective 'local', derived from Latin locus (place). The literal construction "wife-place" logically describes the post-marital residence pattern. This pattern is contrasted with its counterpart 'virilocal' (from Latin vir, man) and forms part of a specialized vocabulary used to categorize kinship and social organization cross-culturally.
Analysis
uxori: from Latin uxor (wife), functioning as a combining form meaning "of a wife" or "pertaining to a wife". local: from Latin localis (pertaining to a place), functioning as an adjective-forming suffix meaning "relating to a place".