Gender, Kinship and Marriage
Gender, Kinship and Marriage
Introduction According to Kottak, Kinship or Kin groups are “social units whose members can be identified and whose residence patterns and activities can be observed”. A good example of this is a nuclear family which is the most prominent in state societies as well as foraging bands which we discussed previously.
Gender (which I based) several questions on is defined by Kottak as “the cultural construction of sexual difference”. What Kottak is referring to be “sexual difference” is the biological difference between men and women due to things such as X and Y chromosomes and hormones which give men and women different physical features. As Kottak points out on page 456, “Sex differences are biological, but gender encompasses all the traits that a culture assigns to and inculates in males and females”. He goes on to say that gender is a cultural construction. This is similar to race and ethnicity. Often when people are talking about race they are actually talking about ethnicity just as when someone is talking about ‘gender’ they may actually be referring to sex differences.
And finally, on to the topic of marriage. Marriage, Kottak says, is difficult to define. Kottak refers to marriage as mostly in legalities. He says marriage usually involves a domestic partnership and “establishes the legal parentage of children and gives spouses rights to each other’s sexuality, labor and property. In my Anthropological study I focused on several elements of marriage/relationships and also gender.
Hypothesis:
Non-religious and non-traditional women would be more lenient in their answers (e.g. in terms of controversial questions such as inter racial and gay relationships) than men, and actively religious men or women. I also believed going into this study that perhaps some men still think of women as inferior to men or believe that a woman’s place is in the household, if you will. In
Introduction According to Kottak, Kinship or Kin groups are “social units whose members can be identified and whose residence patterns and activities can be observed”. A good example of this is a nuclear family which is the most prominent in state societies as well as foraging bands which we discussed previously.
Gender (which I based) several questions on is defined by Kottak as “the cultural construction of sexual difference”. What Kottak is referring to be “sexual difference” is the biological difference between men and women due to things such as X and Y chromosomes and hormones which give men and women different physical features. As Kottak points out on page 456, “Sex differences are biological, but gender encompasses all the traits that a culture assigns to and inculates in males and females”. He goes on to say that gender is a cultural construction. This is similar to race and ethnicity. Often when people are talking about race they are actually talking about ethnicity just as when someone is talking about ‘gender’ they may actually be referring to sex differences.
And finally, on to the topic of marriage. Marriage, Kottak says, is difficult to define. Kottak refers to marriage as mostly in legalities. He says marriage usually involves a domestic partnership and “establishes the legal parentage of children and gives spouses rights to each other’s sexuality, labor and property. In my Anthropological study I focused on several elements of marriage/relationships and also gender.
Hypothesis:
Non-religious and non-traditional women would be more lenient in their answers (e.g. in terms of controversial questions such as inter racial and gay relationships) than men, and actively religious men or women. I also believed going into this study that perhaps some men still think of women as inferior to men or believe that a woman’s place is in the household, if you will. In