Beng woman anther 110 PDF

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Mandatory assignment anthropology 110 essay on being woman...

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Côte d'Ivoire is home to the Beng, an African group. Double descent contains both matrilineal and patrilineal groups at the same time. Each person in the society belongs to two groups, one traced from the mother and one traced through the father. The Beng woman work in agriculture and continue to gather. Agriculture land is inherited matrilineally from the mother's brothers to sisters son. In the Nuer, this was not possible because everything was inherited patrilineal. The woman had no right to own anything. The Beng are divided into two groups, each with its king and queen. Kings are publicly more prominent than queens. Queens are more powerful, and the kings consult with them on major matters. The parents arranged the Beng marriage, with both the bride and the groom having little say in the matter. The residence was patrilocal, meaning that the postmarital residence pattern in which the married couple lives, the household or place of the groom's kin. The Beng females are supposed to be virgins until their engagement or marriage. If they did have sex, there were seen as dirty, and no one would want to marry them. A child was born to a woman before her engagement or marriage was killed. This is different than the Nuer because, marriages were initiated by the young couple and then approved by two sets of kin. Females married between the ages of 17-18 to older men. Before marriage, both males and females were expected to be sexually active. Young unmarried persons met and conducted affairs at various nighttime dances, often held at wedding parties for someone else. The Beng patriclan was exogamous, meaning that marriage outside a certain social group or category. This is similar to the Nuer because the clans were exogamous. The Beng religion focuses on the cult of the earth, a major deity. The earth is believed to have great powers including control over human fertility and the fertility of crops. Double descent among the beng is interwoven with relationships between the sexes and major religious beliefs and practices concerning men and women and sexuality. The politician life of the Nuer was interwoven with the patrilineal kinship structure...