Até que a morte nos separe: um estudo sobre os rituais matrimoniais e funerários numa comunidade rural fluminense

Abstract

This dissertation is an analysis on the meaning of marriage and funerary rituals in the social organization of a small peasant community in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro State. Taking into account those rituals, we show up how death and union - as ways of social reproduction of life - even if being central issues in the everyday life of any community, are dealt with in peculiar ways, yet mobilizing cultural resources shared with other communities, assuming previous social and moral configurations and having as effect their reinterpretation and rearrangement. In order to accomplish this task we carried on ethnographies of marriage and funerals, interviews, and narratives besides following families daily lives before, during and after those events: what they think , how they act, what they speak about themselves and how they connect inside and outside of their social spaces.