TY - JOUR
AU - KETTERING, SHARON
AB - GIFT-GIVING AND PATRONAGE IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE SHARON KETTERING* A gift is something voluntarily transferred from one person to another without compensation. In his classic Essai sur le don, anthropologist Marcel Mauss noted that in some primitive societies contracts are fulfilled and exchanges of goods are made by gift-giving that appears at first to be voluntary, spontaneous and disinterested, but upon closer inspection proves to be obligatory and self-interested.1 Famous examples of ritualized or ceremonial gift-giving in primitive societies include the potlacb among Indians of the north-west Pacific coast, and the kula among the natives of eastern New Guinea and the Tobriand Islanders off the coast of New Guinea.2 The three conditions of ritualized gift-giving include rules regulating the exchange; reciprocity, an obligation to give and to receive; and the creation of a personal bond through reciprocal obligations 3 To refuse to give or receive a gift is to refuse a personal relationship, which may be interpreted as a hostile act. Gift-giving in addition brings social status and prestige. Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss notes that ritualized gift-giving has tended to disappear in modern Western societies, but some remaining examples include wedding and christening gifts, social invita- tions, and Christmas cards 
TI - GIFT-GIVING AND PATRONAGE IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE
JF - French History
DO - 10.1093/fh/2.2.131
DA - 1988-06-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/gift-giving-and-patronage-in-early-modern-france-pYOPKHyPoi
SP - 131
EP - 151
VL - 2
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -