Oklahoma! and Exogamy

Now we have seen that the characters
have to pass trials of gender competence and innocence
on their way to adulthood,
especially by resisting regressive fears and desires,
and giving in to desires that will carry them forward
in their development.

Jud, (as we saw), fails because of his profoundly blameworthy desires
involving hate, jealousy, violence and power.
But he also fails another, less obvious, test
of guilt and innocence
by trying to violate a rule that governs marriage.

The rule, which is never explicitly stated in the movie,
makes it taboo to marry inside one's own group.
This idea is alluded to at the social
when the participants sing about
how farmers and ranchers should get along
and about how the males in each of these groups
court the daughters in the other group.
As the song says, "Territory folks should stick together.
Territory folks should all be pals.
Cowboys dance with the farmers' daughters;
farmers dance with the ranchers' gals."

That is why Curly and Will, who are both ranch hands,
link up with Laurey and Annie, who are both farmers.
The third marriage that takes place,
between the Peddler and Gertie, the extra female,
isn't a coming together of ranch and farm like the other two.
But it is still a linking of people from different groups
because the Peddler is an outsider who marries a local female.

The pairing that cannot take place
is the one Jud wants to engage in with Laurey,
which is forbidden because both live on a farm --
and on the same farm.

If we think of the farmers and ranchers as two tribes
with marriage rules governed by exogamy,
than Jud's crime is violating a taboo
against marrying inside the tribe.
Given the lyrics to that song, the creators of the story
apparently had just this idea in mind.

If we think of the farmers and ranchers as two extended families
(and Aunt Eller's farm as a family)
than Jud's crime is incest: by trying to marry another farmer
in the household where he lives,
he is trying to marry a blood relation.

If we think of the ranches -- with their wide open spaces,
male ranch hands and freewheeling ways --
as representing unattached males,
and we think of the idyllic farms, such as Aunt Eller's,
which seed the earth and grow corn, as representing homemaking females,
than both Jud and Laurey count as females,
since both live on the farm.
Jud's crime would then be female homosexuality:
trying to marry like to like.

Odd as these ideas may sound,
we will see later that Jud's primary crime
is indeed incestuous desire
although it is the desire of a son for his mother.
In fear of retaliation for this crime of phallic desire,
he turns himself into an imitation of a female.

At the end, Jud dies for his crime
and Curly, the member of the group of unattached males,
dies to his old life and crosses over to a new one.
After Laurey says she will marry him,
he says he will now leave ranching
and settle down on the farm
to help build the state of Oklahoma.

With the coming together of Curly and Laurey, rancher and farmer,
and later of Will and Annie,
and with Curly's determination to take up farming
to build a new society,
the two parts of society come together.
Curly is now being domesticated,
just as the land is being domesticated,
which gives the transition from ranching to farming
its most important meaning
as a move from bachelorhood to a settled home life.
Curly and society are both maturing
as Curly becomes part of the progress of generations
that will lead to the modern age.

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Curly, a rancher	ends up with Laurey, who is a farmer and thus a member of another group.	Jud, a farmer who loves Laurey, has to die because he wants to marry in his own group, which is a kind of incest.


Will, a rancher, ends up with	Annie, who is a farmer and thus a member of another group.


The Peddler, an outsider, ends up with	Gertie, who is a local female and thus a member of another group.