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Gender Roles and Marriage Among the !Kung. Gender Roles and Marriage Among
the !Kung Although we have yet to discover complete equality ...
... Marriage for a women usually happens around the age of their first ... the !Kung culture
is very different than ours, in subsistence, gender, and age roles. ...
... Attitudes toward gender roles are part of a culture and can be passed down from ... Among
!Kung who have adopted a farming and herding lifestyle and the number of ...
Submitted by CheyenneQ on December 13, 2006
Category: Book Reports
Words: 1839 | Pages: 8
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Gender Roles and Marriage Among the !Kung
Although we have yet to discover complete equality among the sexes in any pre-existing or presently existing society, the !Kung people are among the closest to reach such equality. The !Kung are an egalitarian society, meaning everyone has access to the valued resources. While the amount of access does vary, just the fact that everyone is included–at least on some level–when it comes to meeting the essential needs of living is significant.
Much of !Kung life consists of caring for one another and there is a strong effort put forth to keep everyone relatively on the same status level. A great example of this exists in the traditions of hunting. When a man returns to the village after killing a large animal, there is a certain role-playing he is expected to participate in. As people approach him about what happened, he pretends that nothing worth mentioning took place. This signifies to the rest of the !Kung that the hunt was a success as they continue to inquire for further detail. The successful hunter continues to tell his story, however, if he appears to be too proud the people will not hesitate to make jokes as a means of humbling him. The credit for the hunt invariably goes to the one who made the arrow (which, although rare, can be a woman as well as a man) and it is his (or her) duty to divide the meat fairly between everyone in the village. One way or another, either directly or indirectly, everyone will be given a part of the animal.
The !Kung also have a “network” of relationships among them called hxaro relationships in which gifts of various quantities and qualities are given. Men have these relationships with other men and women have them with other women. Each adult has around five or six people with whom they exchange gifts. This system of gift giving contributes to the !Kung egalitarian way of life and in making sure that everyone, in one way or another, is taken care...
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