An100 Chapter 5 Notes PDF

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Week 6 February10-14 Chapter 5: Kinship- Constructing Families and Social Relationships Family Relations in North American Popular Culture The author mentions that in 1973 documentary a looking at the life of the American family, it was much like every family entertaining because of the soap opera quality and different characters. Like a reality TV show. The members are both typical and compelling. Why is this of interest to anthropologists? The structural elements are common to every family while the details and the characters might be unique. Obama was motivated by his daughter’s acceptance of gay people and their families to see gay marriage as an okay thing. Popular culture gives us various kinds of portrayals of families, which one is the real American family? The study of kinship has a long tradition in anthropology as if we want to understand people then we need to understand family. The original idea was that it was that kinship is an organizing principle in smallscale societies when there were no other institutions or formal structures to organize people for labour etc. Family can stand in for many other social institutions in smallscale societies yet kinship remains vital and important in any society, even very complex ones. It’s about how we classify people we are related to and where we divide family from others as well as the nature, and quality of these relationships and it is also about the terminology used to classify people. It’s not just about biology that part is simple compared to the complex social variations of meaning that are applied to kinship and family. Kinship can determine what sort of rights people have in a family, who is in charge and who listens to whom. The chapter focuses on three societies the San of Namibia and Botswana, the Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific and a rural Chinese family in Taiwan. These represent different levels of social cultural and technological complexity from hunting and gathering through a horticultural society, and a large agricultural society. The family structure and rules vary significantly as do the kin classification systems used. These are well studied groups described in the ethnographic present or in other words, the classic form or how they existed in in the 1

past as if it is still the same way. Kinship changes over time along with other things so looking at the past gives us the baseline. All have these example cultures have experienced change since the time the original studies were done. What is the composition of the typical family group? The author first looks at a typical North American set of kinship facts, diagrammed in figure 5.1. Schneider points out that kinship is about principles of biogenetic relationships, biological facts of relatedness as well as notions of love and affection that characterize the relationships. Fictive kinship refers to the practice of applying kin terms to friends of family or even pets. We extend a sort of honorary kinship to non-kin that we love. Blood, love, and solidarity are strategically deployed to determine who is kin and who is not. The bilateral kinship system in North America places equal value on mother’s and father’s side but not all societies do this. Talk about nuclear family in North America and the patrilineal bias in terms of father’s side last naming conventions as well as women taking their husbands surname upon marriage. We make exceptions for this in case of a marriage breakdown where we have single mothers and fathers and of course more recent innovations like gay marriage and family need to also be accommodated. The nuclear family versus the extended family in Canada, can easily be seen between traditional farm families being large and in one fixed place while nuclear families tend to be smaller and mobile for employment. Matrilineal and patrilineal kinship systems that emphasize one side of your family are also very common around the world. The San of Botswana and Namibia: they live in small groups of less than fifty people associated with a waterhole in their desert -like environment. Kinship there starts with a brother and sister who claim ownership to a waterhole and then bring their spouses and children into the group who may bring members of their family as well. The conception ideology is that sexual intercourse does make babies but not the way we see it medically. They have a custom called bride service where a newly married man will work for the bride’s parents for a specific time so during that time they would take up matrilocal residency, living near the bride’s kin. 2

The Trobriand Islanders live in villages of up to 400 people that are surrounded by water holes fruit trees and gardens. Smaller units or hamlets in each village are matrilineages called dala which refers to a group of men related to each other through the female line along with their wives and unmarried children. Chiefs are the elders of the lineage, a man’s wife or children are not members of his dala. This kinship structure refers to mythology explaining that pairs of brothers and sisters emerge from the ground and found it. They minimize the role of men in conception but rather see males as providers of semen to nurture the growth of a baby. Intercourse opens the womb for the child to emerge. The matrilineal principle creates an extended family group that is more important than the nuclear family. The term brother and sister are extended to other kin that are not really siblings. Here I generally talk about terminology variations as is applied in other cultures, different kinship systems. Have a look at the chart 5.3 on page 135. The rural Chinese of Taiwan have a patrilineal extended family household of a married couple, their married sons and daughters in law , their grandchildren and unmarried daughters. The patrilineage exists in time and space. It works by descent from males so the living and the dead are both reckoned. Spirits of the dead depend on contributions from the living done literally and ritually. Male children are most preferred to maintain the patrilineal descent group and daughters are still useful because their male children will also belong to the patrilineage. Extended families require extended homes, family compounds. Have a look at the chart 5.4 on page 138 All societies have something that we would recognize as marriage, typically the union is seen as recognized and legitimate between a male and female generally seen as the ideal structure for procreation. In every society has something resembling romance and interest in potential partners that increases as people pass puberty and move toward adulthood. Incest taboos: this is something that exists everywhere, where do we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable sexual partners. Cousin marriage for example is legal yet not done much in Canada while close forms of family incest are illegal but still 3

shockingly common. The custom of marriage in North America traditionally was financed by the bride’s family and after a honeymoon couple would form an independent or neo-local residence. The arrival of any children makes a family part of the bigger chain of relationships and carries on into the future. The next few pages of the chapter provide ethnographic detail of the San, Trobriand Islanders and rural Chinese family cycle. Each culture has particular ideas about courtship and marriage and family that involves finding a partner that is acceptable or having that arranged by family, changes in household and residency where people choose to live after marriage, different ideas about the development of sexuality within the culture etc. Clans are unilineal descent groups that are like kinship groups based on fictitious ancestry. Exogamy is a rule that requires a person to marry outside of a particular social group and endogamy is a rule that requires that you must marry someone within a particular social group. Bridewealth is a transfer of cash, wealth or valuables from the groom’s family to the bride’s family. Similar to bride service the labour equivalent. Among the Trobriand Islanders there are elaborate rituals and transfers of wealth that take place within this matrilineal society where people draw descent from the women’s line. In the example of rural Chinese, the choice of partner may be influenced by a matchmaker to find a female for a son; this may also involve astrological considerations that a diviner will decide. The Chinese wedding is very formal, very expensive and paid for by the groom’s family. Women bring a dowry which is money or goods that are brought to the marriage by the female, anyone have a hope chest? In the past young Canadian women would be given a small trunk which they would collect items to go in there household after they marry. The term hope chest refers to the hope that they will someday marry and use all the stuff. Things like grandmothers China dishes, table cloths or other fancy domestic items. Women moving into the husband’s family are somewhat cut off from their own families and may have a very low status at first among their spouse’s family. While divorce is fairly common among the other two groups it’s very negative in rural Chinese culture. Only men have a right to divorce and women may run away or commit suicide. 4

Sex, love and wealth are discussed in the context of the three cultures. For the San beauty is more important than material goods or wealth so sexuality itself is the main asset. Taking extra lovers is fairly casual and common. They have a dynamic of individual independence that allows them to change partners or change their situations to maintain their independence. A very informal system of love and marriage. Among the Trobriand Islanders beauty and sexuality are also highlighted in women have a fair degree of sexual autonomy and power. Women also have an economic role which enhances the status of their men. Men are seen to have less of a role in procreation than in many cultures. Different social ties based on wealth and exchange are common in Trobriand society within the patrilineage family structure. For the rural Chinese things are very different wealth plays a role in who may be an appropriate partner and repressing sexuality and virginity are more valued in women in particular. Men are free to take on lovers as long as they don’t spend all their money doing it. Sexuality is more quiet and repressed. What threatens to disrupt the family unit? For the San it might be infidelity or a man wanting another wife there are three terms for multiple partner marriage polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry. I generally explain the differences, please refer to the book. The text explains these in the context of the ethnographic examples. For the Trobriand Islanders being able to compete with the exchanges of yams and other forms of ritual wealth such as banana leaf bundles will determine a person’s status and marital happiness. The use a lot of spells and magic to make themselves attractive and influence the outcome of affairs within any natural lineage. Sorcery can disrupt the power of a natural lineage either enhancing or diminishing it. For the rural Chinese the lack of a son is a big deal male heirs are necessary for the continuance of the household and the entire patrilineage through time. Not bearing a son threatens any marriage. Heirs and inheritance are a big deal in rural China and inheritance comes in two forms partible inheritance or assets they are divided or impartible inheritance which is given to one person usually the eldest son. Conflicts over household property are rather common.

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The last question asked in this chapter is how has the anthropological study of families changed? The section goes through changes in anthropology and how we look at kinship and family. Many anthropologists have reconsidered older explanations and added new ones based on less sexist or ethnocentric beliefs about biology and descent. One of the newer emphasis is on how we see the ties of law and blood at work. This part of the chapter looks at how anthropologists see things within our culture and in others somewhat differently in terms of theoretical influences. Many more female anthropologists in the picture less sexist a bit more enlightened. Many of the theoretical concerns in anthropology in general are played out in the context of looking at old ethnographic material in a new way. The expansion into looking at same-sex families and all of the kinship possibilities that that involves is another growth area. New reproductive technologies figure highly in this as does the legal and social acceptance of same-sex relationships. The last question examines understanding family patterns as relevant outside of academia and the focuses on AIDS prevention in Namibia and I’ll leave it to you to read the details about. Key terms: bilateral kinship-- bride service—bridewealth—clans-- dowry – endogamy-ethnographic present—exogamy-- extended family-- impartible inheritance-- incest taboo—kinship-- matrilineage-- matrilineal kinship-- nuclear family-- partible inheritance—patrilineage-- patrilineal kinship—polyandry—polygamy-- polygyny

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