Ring Cohesion Theory in Marriage and Social Networks

Ring cohesion, as a theory relevant to social cohesion, offers itself in the analysis of matrimonial relinking as an outgrowth of a structural approach: "Structural studies are, in the social sciences, the indirect outcome ofmodern developments in mathematics which have given increasing importante to the qualitative point ofview in contradistinction to the quantitative point ofview of tradiciorujl mathematics. It has become possible, therefore, in fields such as mathematical logic, set theory, group theory, and topology, to develop a rigorous approach to problems which do not admit ofa metrical solution. The outstanding achievements in this connection-which offer themselves as springboards not yet utilized by social scientist-is to be found in J. von Neumann y O. Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour; N. Wiener, Cybernetics; and C. Shannon and W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication". [Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, 1963, Capitulo XV, Social Structure, seccion de "Structure and Measure", p. 283].