Essay Culture & Humanity EXAM 2: ANTH 152 LCC Wai`anae Moku: Fall 2020
Marriage & Culture
Culture & Humanity
Anthropology 152: LCCw
Week 9: Fall 2020
1
Overview
Methodology & Theory
Cultural Relativism Vs. Ethnocentrism
Ethnology and Marriage
Case Studies
Moso
India
Vanuatu
Key terms and Analytical Points
Marriage as Social Structure
Marriage and Kinship are social structures that organize what people value, think about, and do in their everyday lives
As a people have different social structures and associated categorical systems linked to those structures they will interpret, value, think about, and do different things in their world compared to another and generally experience their reality in terms of a different WORLDVIEW
Marriage & Culture
ETHNOLOGICAL ISSUES
Anthropologists recognize any particular marriage system, like a specific kinship system or eating practice as a “cultural construct” rather than determined by biology or some other natural force because there is diversity in the types of marriage systems human beings have.
“Monogamous (heterosexual) marriage” is not Universal because:
Cultural worlds exist without Marriage: Moso
Different Forms of Marriage in different cultural worlds
Monogamy - one spouse.
Polygamy - plural spouses.
Polygyny - one man with multiple wives
Polyandry - one woman with multiple husbands
Group Marriage - several men and women married simultaneously to one another.
And today, in response to LGBTQ activism, there is marriage equality in some counties that gives citizens rights to marry in “same’ sex relationships
4
Marriage
Marriage is Not in the genes, but a social structure that one learns to desire to participate within as one is enculturated into a world where the institution exists and is valued
Culture is “IN” the type of marriage you are used to and normalize.
5
Marriage
Cultural Context
To understand its significance in a society it is important to analyze the way it functions to support other institutions, values, and social needs in a cultural context.
In other words, how it is “integrated” into a broader cultural context
Different forms of marriage or lack of marriage are functional in societies that respond to particular ecological conditions; we will see this in the case of Polyandry below.
6
Moso, China
In the book Leaving Mother Lake
The afterword provides some analytical points and defines the term “sese” (visit relationship) that is useful to know for the broader issues of marriage, kinship, and gender.
It is valuable to tie your knowledge of “worldview” from the first part of our class to the chapter on the “Mountain Goddess” (Segge Gamu).
The films sometimes “sese” is tranlated as “Walking Marriage”. The book Mother Lake prefer to interpret sese as a “visiting relationship” not constituting “marriage”. I tend to see sese not as a form of marriage but a kind of relationship. It is certainly up to you to decide which interpretation you agree with more or if you have a different interpretation that is fine too.
Moso
Moso realities
Are constructed and hence experienced differently than standard US cultural realities because, for example, they are socially structured by matrilineal kinship and do not interpret the world in terms of categories like husbands and fathers like in the US and do not structure their families around fathers and husbands.
Cultural Relativism & Moso
Cultural Relativism can be understood as a contextual method for interpreting the meaning and value of a cultural practice in terms of “local” cultural terms.
Exercising Methodological cultural relativism involves the interpretation of a cultural practice in terms of the broader set of values, institutions, beliefs, etc. inside the cultural world studied.
Sese relations (Moso system of visits) thus would be studied in terms of broader Moso practices like the skirt ceremony, matrilineal kinship, and worldview belief in the mountain Goddess Segge Gamu.
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism, in contrast to cultural relativism, analyzes all cultures in terms of one’s own culture
An ethnocentric analysis of Moso would critique Moso in various ways using the standards of, for example, US culture that emphasizes monogamous marriage.
Anthropologists strive to avoid ethnocentrism and study and learn from a cultural world on its own terms; that is relative to its own cultural context.
Polyandry
Polyandry is a form of polygamous marriage in which a woman has multiple husbands
It is less common than Polygyny (multiple wives, one husband)
Himalayan Mountains
Polyandry is principally found in North India, Nepal, Tibet, in the Himalayan Mountain regions, as well as in Sri Lanka .
Polyandry
View Video on Polyandry
Multiple Husbands National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4yjrDSvze0
Fraternal Polyandry Tibet/North India Himalayan Region
Woman marries Brothers
An adaptive form of marriage to a mountain region where land is scarce and divided through patrilineage.
By marrying one woman, brothers do not divide land.
This keeps population lower too; polyandry is a kind of “birth control” method.
Fraternal Polyandry North India, Himalayan Region
Ethnocentric Analysis
Ethnocentric analysis could, among other things, judge it immoral in terms of Western monogamy norms
Methodological Cultural Relativism.
Cultural relativist analysis would analyze the custom in terms of the broader social context of North India, Himalayan worlds. Investigate how it is valuable in the context of patrilineal land rules and resource scarcity. From this vantage, it appears highly adaptive and smart.
US Polyamory
While officially, polyandry is illegal in the US; increasingly, people are engaging in “polyamory” (coupling with multiple partners and or having open relationships).
Check following youtube (look for others as desired)
Polyamory: 1 Mom, 2 Dads and a Baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFbwydevo2o
Sorry, Wrong Number, From At Home and in the field Ashley Vaughn
Malekula Island, Vanuatu
A story of how gender, marriage, and kinship is changing amidst the globalization of Vanuatu
Kinship System is Patrilineal
Marriage Traditionally is Arranged
Gender Roles strongly separate male and female life
Vanuatu
Independence in 1980
Previously under colonial rule by both France and Great Britain in the so-called “Condominium” system.
Island Geography
Approx. 80 islands, 60 inhabited
Language
Over 100 Indigenous Languages, English, French
Melanesian Pidgin is the lingua franca
Population
Approximately 200,000
Global Resources
Copra, Fish, Timber, Coffee, Coconuts, Beef
Patrilineal Descent
Vanuatu people in story are patrilineal.
People trace their primary kinship connections to the ancestors and living relatives of their fathers.
Sorry, Wrong Number Ashley Vaughn
The story takes place in Malekula island; on the left upper side of this map (thus North Eastern Vanuatu)
Story is about Cultural Changes associated with Mobile Phone Technologies
Arranged Marriage system is undermined as couples meet outside of the family systems
Sorry, Wrong Number Ashley Vaughn
Mobile Phone Technologies
Increases Participation in Cash Economy—need cash to buy minutes on the phone
This moves folks away from “kastom” practices of subsistence economy
Sorry, Wrong Number Ashley Vaughn
Mobile Phone Technologies
Gender Norms Changing
Relations between males and females are increased with the technology;
traditionally, males and females have separate everyday lives given a strongly gendered division of labor
Technology creates a new “place” for communication and is altering the place of marriage relationships
Sorry, Wrong Number Ashley Vaughn
While Vanuatu is unique, it is likely many cultures of the world will be impacted by the new technology.
It appears sexual relations and marriage is increasingly impacted by digitalization in the US
Vanuatu is just one example of global changes in relations resulting from the technology
Sorry, Wrong Number Ashley Vaughn
Applying Methodological Cultural Relativism
From a global perspective, perhaps the introduction of the technology seems positive—enables Vanuatu people to join broader global system of technology
From a local perspective, particularly Vanuatu elders, the technology is likely seen as destructive of cultural traditions that could destabilize aspects of Vanuatu society.
In other words, the technology is potentially undermining “LOCAL KNOWLEDGE” of how to marry youth in a way that reproduces their cultural world.
Digital Marriage
In Cultural Context
Like any aspect of a cultural world, marriage can change as technology of the world changes.
Relationships world-wide are changing with the new digital technologies of cell-phones and computer dating apps
Vanuatu is a good case to see how an island world with very traditional, arranged marriages is changing with new technology.
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Network Society
The rise of digital technology in organizing relationships that used to be achieved through organic, face-to-face communications is associated with the rise of a digital “Network Society” increasingly replacing the organic “KINSHIP” based society.
Example:
Children/youth/adults not able to or disinterested in a sit down, unplugged, dinner. Kinship (family) gathering, if attended, is complicated as everyone or most disconnect from the gathering and connect to their devices.
KEY EXAM ANALYTICAL STUDY POINTS
Marriage is a social institution that has functional significance within a broader set of cultural values, knowledge, institutions, etc.
Anthropologists analyze differences in cultural norms in terms of methodological cultural relativism rather than ethnocentrism
This involves studying differences in terms of cultural context rather than some standard of norms outside of the cultural world investigated.
Marriage is not universal; has variable forms; and is a cultural practice that must be learned.
Cases like Moso, and Fraternal Polyandry in Himalayans show that different kinds of relationships and forms of marriage are functional in different cultural worlds.
Cases like Vanuatu show marriage and sexuality is changing in light of new digital technologies
Network societies organized by digital technology are replacing kinship based societies organized by organic social relations
KEY EXAM ANALYTICAL STUDY POINTS
ETHNOLOGICAL ISSUES
Anthropological Implications
By disclosing variation, it entails that our own systems or any others, are a result of a cultural context and not based in “nature”. Culture is “IN” our marriage system and our marriage system articulates in a broader cultural context that establishes its significance and function.
Since, for example, we see the Moso functioning without “husbands and fathers” both gender roles are not essential but “cultural constructs”
While biology necessitates a role of males in reproduction, there is no necessity for husbands and fathers and thus it is NOT NATURAL to want them; only cultural.
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POSSIBLE EXAM ID TERMS
Sese
Polyandry
Malekula Island
Network Society
Himalayan Mountains
Ethnocentrism
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