Family and Marrige

FAMILY AND MARRIAGE ACROSS CULTURES
Family and Marriage

Across Cultures
Defining the Family
Family come in all shapes and sizes, and defining the term family is sometimes difficult. The word family is used to describe many relationships: parents and children, people related by blood, marriage, or adoption, a group of people living together in a single household, sharing living space and housekeeping. The family we are born into, or the family of birth, is called the family of orientation. It provides children with a name, an identity, and heritage. In other word, it gives the child an ascribed status in the community. The family of orientation orients (or directs) children to their neighborhood, community, and society and locates them in the world. The family of procreation is established upon marriage. Marriage is a legal union between a man and a woman based on mutual rights and obligations. The marriage ceremony signifies that it is legal (officially sanctioned) for a couple to have offspring and to give the children a family name. The family of procreation becomes the family of orientation for the children created from the marriage.
Two Basic Types of Families

There are two basic types of families. The nuclear family, the smallest group of individuals that can be called a family, is composed of a parent or parents and any children. The extended family consists of two or more adult generations of the same family whose members share economic resources and live in the same household. Extended families may also contain close relatives, such as grandparents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins. How did family structures develop? As discussed in chapter 5, the development of agriculture and industry shaped society. These developments also shaped family structure. In the earliest societies, hunting and gathering were primary family activities. Small bands of nuclear families followed herds of the animals and changing seasons, moving around constantly, never staying long in any one place. When human domesticated animals to help with tilling the soil and cultivating crop (about ten thousand years ago), they no longer needed to be mobile to maintain a food supply. Families began to farm, settle down, and establish roots. Large families were needed to plow and harvest. The growth of family farms encouraged the development of the extended family. Agriculture became the basis of the economy, and the extended family was essential for successful farming. As societies moved from agricultural economies to industrialized ones, the extended family was slowly replaced by the nuclear family. Large families were no longer needed work on the farm. Industrial and postindustrial economies favor the nuclear family that has fewer mouths to feed and that is easier to move (Goode, 1970, Nydeggar, 1985).
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FAMILY AND MARRIAGE ACROSS CULTURES
Patterns of Family Structure

Whether nuclear or extended, families behave in similar ways across cultures. These patterns of behavior relate to inheritance, authority, and place of residence. Who inherits? Determining who becomes head of the family- for purpose of decent- and who owns the family property for inheritance are extremely important to families. Three arrangements are used.
In a patrilineal arrangement, descent and in heritance are passed from the father to his male
descendants. The people of Iran and Iraq and the Tikopia in the western pacific live in patrilineal societies.
In a matrilineal arrangement, descent and inheritance are transmitted from the mother to her
female descendants. Some Native American tribes, such as the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest, are matrilineal.
In some societies, descent and inheritance are bilateral-they are passed equally through both
parents. Thus both the fathers and mothers relatives are accepted equally as part of the kinship structure, Most families in the United States today are bilateral. Who is in authority? Similar patterns govern authority in a family.
In a patriarchy, the oldest man living in the household has authority over the rest of the
family members. We see this in many countries around the world, such as Iraq and china. In its purest form, the father is the absolute ruler.
In a matriarchy, the oldest woman living in the household holds the authority. So rare is
matriarchal control the controversy exists over whether any society has ever had a genuinely matriarchal family structure.
With equalitarian control, authority is split evenly between husband and wife. Many families
in the Scandinavian countries and in the United States follow the equalitarian model. Where do couples live? Where newly married couples set up their households also varies from culture to culture.
The patrilocal pattern, such as in premodern China, calls for living with or near the
husbands parents.
Residing with or near the wifes parents is expected under a matrilocal pattern. The Nayar
caste of Kerala in southern India is an illustration of this type of arrangement.

In the necolocal patern(if finances allow) married couples establish residences of their own.
This is the Euro-American model. Extended families, of course, have different norms.
Marriage Arrangements
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FAMILY AND MARRIAGE ACROSS CULTURES Mention a wedding and Americans commonly think of a bride walking down the aisle in a long white gown. She and the groom make vows that involve some form of loving, honoring, and (until recently, in some cases) obeying. In other cultures, the wedding ceremony looks very different. Whatever form it takes, the marriage ceremony is an important ritual announcing that a man and woman have become husband and wife, that a new family has been formed, and that any children born to the couple can legitimately inherit the family name and property. What forms does marriage take? Monogamy- the marriage of one man to one woman- is the most widely practiced form of marriage in the world today. In fact, it is the only form of marriage that is legally acceptable in the United States and in most Western societies. Some often married people practice serial monogamy_ having several husbands and wives but being married to only one at a time. In contrast to monogamy, polygamy involves the marriage of a male or female to more than one person at a time. It takes two forms: polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny is the marriage of one man to two or more women at the same time. An obvious example of polygyny is found in the Old Testament. King Solomon is reported to have had even hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Although common in earlier society and still legal in India, parts of Africa, and much of the Middle East, polygyny is not practiced widely in any society today. However, in 1999 the Muslim Russian republic of Ingushetia legalized the practice of polygyny Polyandry the marriage of one woman to two or more men at the same time- is an even rarer form of marriage. It is known to have been common is only three society: Tibet, in parts of Polynesia, and among the Todas and other hill peoples of India (Queen eta al1985). Where polyandry has existed, it usually has consisted of several brothers sharing a wife.
Choosing a Mate
All cultures and societies, including the United States, have norms and laws about who may marry whom. Exogamy refers to mate-selection norms requiring individuals to marry someone outside their kind or group. (Exo is a prefix meaning outside.)The most important norms relating to exogamy are called incesttaboos, which forbid marriage between certain kinds of relatives. In the United States, you are not legally permitted to marry a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a mother or a father, a niece or nephew, or aunt and uncle. In twenty nine states, marriage to a first cousin is prohibited. Incest is almost universally prohibited, although exceptions were common among the royalty of ancient Europe, Hawaii, Egypt, and Peru. Even in these instances, most members of the royal families chose partners to whom they were not related by blood. Endogamy involves mate-selection norms that require individuals to marry within their own kind, (Endo is a prefix that mean inside.) In the United States, for example, norms have required that marriage partners be the same race. These norms are not as strong as they once were. Also class lines are crossed with greater frequency because more Americans of all social classes are attending college together. Finally, norm separating age groups have weakened.
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FAMILY AND MARRIAGE ACROSS CULTURES Norms encouraging (rather than requiring) marriage within a group usually exist. And people are most likely to know and prefer to marry others like themselves. For these reasons, people tend to marry those with social characteristics similar to their own. This tendency, the result of the rather free exercise of personal choice, is known as homogamy. For example, in spite of what fairy tales and movies often tell us, it is rare for the son or daughter of a multimillionaire to marry someone from a lower class. Although it is still the exception in the United States, heterogamy is rising. In heterogamous marriages, partners are dissimilar in some important characteristics. More American marriages, for instance, are crossing traditional barriers of age, race, social class, and ethnicity. This trend results from several factors. America has become more racially and ethnically integrated, so that people have an opportunity to mix more freely. In addition, class lines are crossed with greater frequency, and norms separating age groups have weakened.
Reference
Greene,S.(2003) Sociology and You
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FAMILY AND MARRIAGE ACROSS CULTURES

Family and Marriage

Two Basic Types of Families

FAMILY AND MARRIAGE ACROSS CULTURES

Patterns of Family Structure

caste of Kerala in southern India is an illustration of this type of arrangement.

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