Culture

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Family & Kinship Lesson 6

Family & Kinship

This lesson is the second in a series of lessons dedicated to one or more of the 12 Domains of Culture. We began the series of domain lessons with the domain of Language & Communication in lesson 5. In that lesson we learned that language shapes culture, and culture shapes language.

Additionally, Lesson 2 described the role of the family as a person's first introduction to culture. As a person's first social and cultural contact, the family instills in the child cultural values, norms and behaviors. In this sense, the family transmits and ensures the continuity of a person's native culture. Family defines who a person is, what role they play in the culture and society, and it even influences members' worldview.

For that reason, it makes sense to start exploring different types of groups and worldviews by starting out with the ways they communicate, and the ways they are first introduced to the world and to society, or, to culture.

As a reminder, the cultural domain framework illustrates categories of human interaction shared by all cultures and is provided as a tool to help you as:

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a basis for cross-cultural comparison

a context for observation and orientation

a framework for you to consider your own cultural background

For a brief 'refresh' of each domain, see below.

This lesson on family and kinship will present some factors related to family organization and roles that you should be aware of when you are deployed to, or based in another culture. This is the heart of learning about domains: helping you to interpret behaviors, practices, values, and beliefs in other cultures that are new to you.

Why is the study of family and kinship important to Airmen and to cross- cultural competence (3C)? Understanding family relationships in other cultures gives Airmen information about what is important to local people, where their allegiances lie, who they are likely to turn to in times of stress, and even to the social structure of the society itself.

This lesson examines the many different types of family organization in existence in the world, and the role these groupings play in a person's life. You may find things that will surprise, or even shock you. Nevertheless, you will also find there is considerable change taking place throughout the world in this domain as societies adapt to dynamic social and economic situations.

Lesson Objectives

It's important to keep Lesson Objectives in mind as you go through the rest of this lesson. All of your exam questions - and life skills - are built around understanding these lesson objectives:

1. List universals related to family and kinship

2. Recognize kinship patterns and their impact on inter and intra cultural interactions by:

Contrasting the concepts of family and marriage in the United States with that of more collectivist cultures Identifying observable cultural cues that can indicate a society's concept of kinship

3. Identify different marriage arrangements and the reasons for influences that drive them by:

Giving practical reasons for the practice of endogamy and exogamy Explaining how economic and/or social forces influence acceptable marriage arrangements

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Lesson Enhancement

The required reading(s) appear throughout the lesson. For your convenience, they also appear at the beginning of the lesson in case you want to read ahead.

SMSgt Meyers' Story: A Single Day In Iraq

Air Force Culture and Language Center Cultural Studies Project Cross-Cultural Communication. Undated.

Arranging a Marriage in India

Nanda, Serana. From Stumbling Toward Truth: Anthropologists at Work, edited by Philip R. Devita, 2000, pp. 196–204. Published by Waveland Press. 2000.

BEST way to OPEN internal links like these is by first RIGHT CLICKING the link and SELECTING "Open Link in New Window".

Cultural Log Exercise

Each lesson opens with a particular domain by asking you to think of cultural universals, or aspects of the domain that are common to all people in all cultures. Then you will compare your answers to those provided. This comparison leads to some basic definitions of terms related to that particular domain and sets the scene for the main part of the lesson: a discussion of cultural differences. Remember that our focus is culture- general information, but many culture-specific examples are provided.

CULTURAL LOG ACTIVITY 6.1 – Universals related to family and kinship

Make a list of 5 characteristics regarding family and family organization that you think would be common to all societies in the world. After you have done so, read our list of universals on the next page.

To print this exercise and record your responses for future reference, see below.

Cultural Universals Related to Family & Kinship

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Here are eight cultural universals related to Family and Kinship. These similarities stem from sexual difference, the need to care for babies until they are able to care for themselves, the desire to regulate reproduction, and ideas of genealogical relatedness.

1 Families in every culture provide the weaning environment for an infant.

2 All societies have ways of defining ties between people, by both blood and marriage, which weusually call relatives.

3 Kinship, or the relations between people that one defines as relatives, is humanity's most basicorganizing principle.

4 People's identities and roles (including gender roles) are defined through family and kin relations.

5 The family is the first social group through which people learn cultural norms, traditions, and values.

6 The family is also the primary group through which wealth is transferred from one generation toanother.

7 Some type of marriage is common to all cultures and societies. Marriage provides a sociallyacceptable context for procreation.

8 Although purposes and incentives for marriage differ among cultures, economics and religiongenerally play a role in the process of choosing a mate.

How did your list differ from the one above?

Did you identify other universals that were not mentioned here?

Did you identify culture-specific examples rather than culture-general principles?

The universals introduced in each lesson are the key to culture-general knowledge. You will find that each cultural group varies in the ways it enacts these universals.

How Can I Use These Cultural Universals?

One way to begin to understand how a group organizes itself according to the universals above is to look at their naming conventions (the customary method that the family group uses to identify its members. In the U.S., these are terms like father, uncle, step-mother, 1st cousin on my mother's side, etc.). Here are some examples:

In Saudi Arabia, women do not take their husband's last name when they marry. By keeping their family name, they maintain symbolic ties to their family of orientation, and their larger kin group (such as a tribe).

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In Arabic and Persian languages, the people we call "uncle" and "aunt" are called by different terms, depending on whether the person is the mother's brother or the father's brother. The same principle makes the mother's sister and father's sister go by different terms. These kin terms relate to many cultural factors, but the most important is that traditional systems of inheritance favor keeping money within the father's side of the family. Knowing who your mother's brother is versus your father's brother leads to different relationships between you and those two people. In addition, children could marry cousins from their father's side of the family, but not from their mother's side of the family.[1, 2]

In Japan, different terms exist for younger siblings and older siblings. For example, ane means "older sister"; ani means "older brother"; oto/to means "younger brother"; and imo/to means "younger sister". There are also separate terms if one is speaking about "my older brother" or "your older brother."[3]

No matter where you find yourself in the world, learning about people's families give clues to what they consider important in their lives.

Importance of the Family in Other Cultures

The discussion of Family and Kinship begins with observations made by Senior Master Sergeant Meyers during his deployment to Iraq.

See Meyer's story below.

In the Cultural Studies Project interview, SMSgt Meyers emphasized how important family is to the Iraqis. In his interaction with the Iraqi Deputy Minister, the minister asked him about his family. Meyers responded from an American perspective, telling the Minister about his wife and children. However, the Minister pressed him for more information about his parents, their parents and relatives. Meyers seldom thinks about, and even less frequently visits, this group of family members.

The mainstream American understanding of family centers on the 'nuclear family' and more non-traditional arrangements where the parent/child forms the core of family relations. This is the genesis of Meyers' concept of family and is very different from the concept of family in most cultures.

Non-judgmental observations like SMSgt Meyers' are the first step towards understanding the influence of family relationships on everyday life in another culture. During the course of this lesson, we will go "below the

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water" of the iceberg to explain examples like this one from local perspectives.

Definition of "The Family"

Consider these questions:

How do you define family?

Who is included in your definition of a family and who is not?

Do you make distinctions between nuclear and extended family?

What are the functions of a family?

How is the family related to culture?

All of your responses to these questions are related to your culture.

In the U.S., you might feel comfortable saying that the family is defined at minimum by a combination of a parent and a child living together, where the parent's responsibility is to provide for the child's economic and emotional well-being and to teach him or her about living amongst other people in the society. Our ideal is probably two parents and their children living together, with cultural and economic ties to what we call extended family.

But what about married couples with no children, married couples living apart, unmarried couples who live together (with or without children), and grandparents who raise their grandchildren? Would you argue that these are not families? Probably not.

This is because our culture accepts certain variations of the family according to people's lifestyles, career choices, reproductive choices or limitations, and social and economic conditions. Well, there is as much variation in definitions and examples of families in the rest of the world as we see within the U.S.

First, people in nearly every culture experience two family situations in their lives:

the family of orientation: the family or care-giving group into which a person is born and reared, and in which he or she is raised into adulthood. Remember that we talked of the birth family as a person's first introduction to his or her culture.

the family of procreation: the family that a person 'creates' after choosing a mate and having children.

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Make Your Own Tools for Learning

An important way for you to begin to understand another culture is to compare the familiar and unfamiliar. You might get into the habit of making a table, because this helps you to focus on your observations and experiences. The one below compares the U.S. perspective regarding the family of orientation and family of procreation with that of many other cultures. When you create a table like this, you can add to it as time goes on.

U.S. PERSPECTIVE CULTURAL GROUPS THAT DIFFER

In the United States the families of orientation and procreation are considered separate entities appearing at different times in a person's life. They are not necessarily integrated.

Other cultural groups consider the two family types much more integrated than the U.S., as demonstrated by the following ways:

Americans consider that a person leaves the family of orientation (birth family) to go out into the world as an individual.

They usually live in close proximity, maintain closer ties than we are used to, or even make family ties the basis of employment and political affiliation.

After a certain age, the family of orientation has no legal control over an individual.

There are often formal legal, social, or economic bonds that tie a person to the family of origin all his or her life.

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This integration is also reflected in the naming conventions that you saw in the first Log exercise - mother's brother or father's brother instead of our "catch-all" term uncle.

What does this help you learn? When you can see how your culture influences things that you see as natural, then you begin to understand how others' culture makes their view of the world just as natural. That knowledge can help you interpret their motives and actions in many situations.

Definition of "Kinship"

Kinship can be thought of as those ties between people who see themselves as related in one of two ways: by blood (i.e. from the family of orientation) or by marriage (i.e. from the family of procreation). Those connections provide the basic organizational principles from which other forms of social and political organization spring. That is, typical family relationships often are reflected in other relationships outside the family in your society.

What we are taught as important in family life is usually what the society considers acceptable in social interaction in general.

What evidence can you think of for this statement?

Roll over for our response.

If your rollover feature doesn't work, see below.

In future lessons you will learn about these other social relationships and forms of organization; ranging from tribal groups, to religious affiliation, to neighborhood watch.

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Self and Other

Lesson 2 discussed the concepts of Self and Other and the fact that people universally differentiate between people who are alike and different. Lesson 3 discussed how this perception of Self and Other can often lead to value judgments that have a negative impact on your ability to observe and orient objectively.

At the most basic level, the family is the first group that defines the Self and helps you create your identity. Every person's first conception of the Other is made up of people who are not part of one's family. In some societies, the family members that a person interacts with regularly can be quite a large number of people. A person would consider him/herself part of that group above all else, and the extended family relationships maintain importance throughout their lives.

Clans * and tribes * are two examples of these extended family relationships that help govern people's activities in certain cultures.

* Clans: a group of people regarded as being descended from a common ancestor

* Tribes: people united by ties of descent from a common ancestor, community of customs and traditions, adherence to the same leaders, etc.

Among such cultural groups, people will understand who you are by learning about your family, because people tend to think of themselves less as individuals than as a part of their kinship association. Thus, the Iraqi asking SMSgt Meyers about his extended family was an accepted, and even polite way of learning about SMSgt Meyers himself.

Collectivist societies

In this course, we define those cultures where one's extended family affiliations maintain great importance throughout a person's life as a collectivist culture. The U.S. and many Western European cultures are more individualistic cultures. The chart below shows some contrasts between the two.

INDIVIDUALISTIC CULTURE COLLECTIVIST CULTURE

Definition: Personal identity and Definition: Personal identity and priorities are based primarily on

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priorities are based primarily on individual achievements, values, and desires.

the welfare of the greater group or extended family.

Most meaningful definition of the family is the nuclear family consisting of parent(s) and child(ren)

An individual separates from family of orientation after basic education is finished (even before, because many Americans go away to college but maintain their permanent residence with their family); later, the individual initiates his or her own family of procreation

As a child grows into adolescence, he/she becomes less dependent on parents and turns more to affiliations with other groups (sports, political, religious, and so forth) for identity. These are called micro- cultures. Economic (and legal) independence from family of orientation

Most meaningful definition of the family is the extended family consisting of:

Blood relatives of multiple generations and on both parents' sides of the family (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, children, siblings, nephews, nieces, cousins, etc.)

In-laws, relatives by marriage

These are all considered close relatives and are more involved in an individual's life than they generally are in the U.S.

An individual usually lives with the family of orientation until marriage, and even may live in the same household, building, or neighborhood as one's family of orientation after marriage. However, a wife usually moves to her husband's family household.

The family maintains importance through adolescence and adulthood as a source of group affiliation, such as in tribal membership that influences where one lives, what political candidates and parties one supports, etc. In Iraq, for example, one's family group is more binding than sectarian (religious), ethnic or economic considerations

Instead of turning to the government, businesses, or institutions to borrow money, buy a house, find a job, or find someone to do home repair (as Americans tend to do), individuals in other cultures might turn first to their extended family network

The final item listed in the chart above under Collectivist Culture is an important distinction.

Not all cultures and societies have the accessibility to, or trust in, resources we Americans take for granted such as; the Yellow pages, banks, school transcripts, credit ratings, or the Kelley Blue Book, to name a few.

This image illustrates a difference in the Systems and Structures portion of the Iceberg model we discussed at the beginning of this course.

Systems and Structures, although generally unseen, have a huge impact on our cultural worldviews and behaviors. Americans unfamiliar with the function and significance of the family in collectivist societies may encounter confusion and uncertainty when interacting with people in those cultures.

It's important to remember that in collectivist societies, kinship has a greater role in defining a person's sense of self, family obligations, resources, and responsibilities than it does in the

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U.S.

What significance does the value of diversity have in the American worldview?

Do you think people from collectivist societies would think differently?

Why or why not?

Marriage

Before proceeding, read the following article about arranged marriages in India.

The author begins with a worldview typical of most Americans, who find the thought of marrying someone chosen for us by our parents to be unthinkable.

By keeping an open mind, and exploring the worldview of another culture, the author expands her own cultural schema about what comprises a successful marriage. Although the author does not advocate ADOPTING the practice of arranged marriages, she has ADAPTED her worldview to accommodate a practice that may work well for another culture.

That is, in essence, the goal of cross cultural competence.

Arranging a Marriage in India, by Serena Nanda

Purposes of Marriage

The next several pages discuss different cultural factors related to marriage:

Purposes of marriage

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Process of choosing a mate

Economic considerations

Types of marriage

As you read in the cultural universals list for this lesson, some type of marriage is common to all cultures, with economics and religion usually playing a significant role in people's choices. Gender roles are also defined in large part by the roles people play in marriages.

First, let's look at the purposes of marriage, cross-culturally.

Marriage as a social institution is older than written history. While there are many theories regarding the origins of marriage, most authors agree that marriage arose as a way for people to:

1 have legitimate sexual relations

2 validate the status of the children fromthe union

Long-lasting partnerships probably began before legal codes were established in human history. However, once regular practices (conventions) became law, marriages and the resulting children's status became legally recognized in most cultures. Making children legitimate would allow them to inherit wealth or property from their parents, and depending on the culture, would transfer to them the social status of their parents.[5]

In today's world, the purposes of marriage still include the two reasons above, but marriage means so much more to most of us.

CULTURAL LOG ACTIVITY 6.2 – What does marriage mean to you?

In your log, write a few sentences about both the purposes and meaning of marriage in your life, and in American culture in general. Then think about these questions:

How does your list compare to reasons the Indians gave in the reading about the importance of marriage in their culture?

What are the similarities and differences?

To print this exercise and record your responses for future reference, see below.

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Process of choosing a mate

A good place to start our discussion of cultural attitudes and practices regarding marriage is to compare the process of choosing a mate. You may find that the main differences occur between collectivist and individualistic cultures.

Americans tend to think of marriage as a personal choice between two people with the purpose of living together permanently as a family unit, typically resulting in children. Although people have different reasons for marrying, the initial choice of a mate is thought to be on the basis of romantic love. If you think about it, however, you may realize our purposes for marriage are many and varied:

Live permanently with someone you love

Provide economic security, especially survivor benefits

Follow religious principles of proper behavior

Follow culturally accepted rules of proper behavior

Provide a family unit for raising children

Did any of the purposes of marriage you wrote in your Cultural Log match any of the purposes listed above?

For the majority of people who live in collectivist cultures, marriage is not as much a personal choice between two people based on romantic love, but more of an arrangement between the families of each spouse, based on social, political, and economic motives.

Many cultures, both within the U.S. and abroad, encourage a person to marry within his or her own ethnic group, social class, family, or religious group. This is called endogamy. As a matter of fact, several studies show that social pressure to marry someone of similar background is very real, even in the United States.[6] We'll discuss the purposes for endogamy in more depth on the next page.

By contrast, exogamy is the practice of marrying outside one's social group. This is also locally defined, and so can mean marrying outside one's tribe, ethnic group, social class, extended family group, or religion. Exogamy most often occurs when social and economic contacts need to be made outside one's cultural group.

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If you think of alliances between royal families in Europe in past centuries, they were practicing both endogamy and exogamy.

On the one hand, they were searching for a mate within their social class (royalty, extreme upper class), so they were endogamous. On the other hand, they were marrying outside their cultural group to make political alliances between nations, such as between France and England. Thus, a group can be both endogamous and exogamous, based on the context and their needs.

This lesson will focus more on endogamy because it is the most connected to the values of keeping a group together, and because Airmen will probably encounter more overt endogamy in their travels than overt exogamy.

Economic Factors in Marriage

When you listed motivations for marriage in your Cultural Log, you probably mentioned economic security. There is an economic component to marriage everywhere in the world.

Formerly in the U.S., when men were the main breadwinners of a family, economic security was an important factor in a woman's choice of a husband. A person's current or future earning ability is still a factor in marriage choices today, though women have gained much more independence than they had during the early to mid-twentieth century.

While nearly 60% of women in the U.S. are part of the labor force, they often occupy lower-paying jobs and get paid an average of 20% lower wages than men. [7] This no doubt encourages women to consider men more seriously as marriage partners if the men have stable incomes, or the possibility of gaining a "good" income during their careers.

For their part, contemporary American men don't usually want to bear the entire burden of providing financially for the family, so they are also likely to weigh a woman's earning potential before getting married. At the very least, couples usually discuss money issues and what kind of lifestyle they might be living in the future, whether they can afford for one person to stay home with children, or what kind of support they might expect from family members.

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An increasingly successful movement in American society involves legalizing marriage for homosexual couples. The primary driver of this trend is fundamentally economic. As legally married couples, homosexuals would enjoy the financial benefits of sharing a health care plan, rights of inheritance, and leverage to demand financial support in the case of marital dissolution or child support.

How does the U.S. government reinforce the high value that the majority of people put on marriage and the well-being of the nuclear family? Mouse over HERE to find a sample answer.

CULTURAL LOG ACTIVITY 6.3 – Economic Factors in Marriage

Return to your Cultural Log to write short answers to the questions below.

To print this exercise and record your responses for future reference, see below.

1 What were the economic factors contributing to the family's choice of a wife for their son in the Nandaarticle?

2 Do most Americans talk about economic factors with their family when it comes to choosing a marriagepartner?

If you responded NO, why do you think we don't?

If you responded YES, is it talked about in our culture as overtly as in the India article?

Economic considerations are a main reason for endogamy, or marriage within one's social group, because it serves to restrict access to property, power and authority.

The family in the Nanda article felt it would be inappropriate to marry outside their subcaste. They also thought it was not a good idea for their son to marry a person more educated than he was, because it would cause problems. Either the bride would think she is better than her new husband's family, or more importantly, the families just wouldn't get

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along. Aside from keeping the family happy, there are other purposes endogomy serves in the societies that practice it:

Endogamy maintains distinctions between social classes, ethnic groups, religious groups, etc. This may serve to maintain the power of one group over another. If men can choose a bride from a lower- status social group, but not vice-versa, then in general, women's position in society also stays lower than men's.

In societies where women have few legal rights and little autonomy, endogamy can be a means for women to enjoy a little more equality and decision-making authority within the family, and to have a built-in familial support system. It can actually serve as protection from abuse, divorce, and separation from her children. [2]

Bridewealth payments - which you'll read about on the next page - may be much lower, due to the trusting relationship between families in endogamous marriages where there is already a close kinship (i.e. marrying a cousin).

In Arab or Muslim societies with high levels of inter-family marriages, marrying a cousin from the father's side of the family keeps any inheritance within the same family's control.

In societies where marriage among blood relatives is most widely practiced, you will find enormous emphasis on preserving and protecting the traditional culture from outside influences.

In any culture, pressure to marry someone "just like us" is a natural, human tendency that helps to preserve a culture or lifestyle, alleviate potential for misunderstandings and conflicts within a marriage, and more easily integrate the families involved.

One endogomistic practice, and that which most Americans may find hard to understand, is that of marrying cousins, which is banned in 25 states.

It is generally believed that marrying cousins - especially first cousins - will lead to birth defects. However, inter-cousin marriages have a long and storied history throughout the world, including the United States, and still prevail in much of the world. Medical research seems to be mixed about the physical, medical, or biological impact of inter-cousin marriage, and many claim that the US practice of banning inter-cousin marriage is based on outdated and unsupported 'facts.' Our Western cousins - Canada and Europe - have no such bans.

Both Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein - well respected names in American intelligentsia - were married to first cousins!

For an expanded view of "the other side" of cousin marriage, read the article below.

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Dowry and Bride Price

A common wedding custom in many societies is the practice of providing a dowry or bride price, both of which involve a transfer of wealth from one group to another.

Dowry

A dowry is offered by the bride's family to the bride or to the groom's family (depending on the local tradition). It is usually seen as either money or goods that help the new couple set up a household, or money that may stay with the bride upon the death of her husband.

In India, as you read in the article for this lesson, the bride's dowry goes to the groom's family.

In the U.S., a dowry tradition that is rarely practiced these days is the "hope chest." A woman was supposed to store up goods like blankets, handmade items, dishes, etc., for the time when she would be married and need to set up a household. Click HERE for some interesting information about the production of hope chests in the U.S.

Another traditional gift from the bride's family to the couple is paying for the wedding, which is still practiced widely in the U.S. today. From an economic viewpoint, parents may be publicly demonstrating how much they value their daughter.

Bride Price

In contrast to dowry, bride price (also sometimes referred to as bride wealth) is a payment made from the groom or the groom's family to the bride or the bride's family. It is usually seen as a promise of marriage or as a demonstration that the groom and his family have enough financial resources to support the bride.

In the U.S., we can see evidence of this traditional practice in the engagement ring that a groom offers to his future bride. You only have to watch popular movies and TV shows to know that a common stereotype about engagement rings is "the bigger the ring, the bigger the catch." That is, a man's success is often gauged by how much he can spend on an engagement ring.

Reciprocal Exchange Networks

A final example of economic influence on family and kinship is the exchange networks that are set up or extended through marriage.

Reciprocal Exchange Networks are groups of people who regularly give each other items of value in return for specific goods and services. Reciprocal (two-way) exchange doesn't always happen at the same time. Some gifts or trades take years to be reimbursed. These networks support long-term group relations. You've already read how marriages are often seen as unions between families. In cultures where both bride

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price and dowry are practiced, these monetary exchanges also further cement the symbolic ties that the marriage represents.

Even where only one of the traditions takes place, you should still be aware of strong economic ties that often occur between families through marriage in other cultures.

Types of Marriage

Just as economic considerations drive the choice of a mate, the types of marriage and where people live after marriage reflect concern for all of the following:

Economic reproduction (getting a job, maintaining a home, etc.)

Preservation of society's values and local cultural traditions

Religious beliefs

Parental roles and responsibilities

Aid expected from family members

The culture's degree of collectivism or individualism

In your duty location, you are likely to find variation in rules about the makeup of a family. If you use your Observing and Orienting skills to:

(1) keep an open mind and

(2) observe closely what goes on; you can then learn how these societies operate

Remember, the family environment is the first exposure a child has to the customs, values and behaviors of his or her own society.

One major difference between the U.S. and Western Europe (individualistic societies) and some other parts of the world is the practice of having more than one spouse concurrently. In most Western societies, monogamy, or marriage between two people, is the only legal form of marital union.

One practice that many Americans find hard to accept is polygamy, or the institution of one person being married to more than one spouse (a man with multiple wives OR a woman with multiple husbands).

Studies suggest that more than 80% of the world's societies allow polygamy, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. However, polygamous marriages are the minority in those societies where it is practiced. About 25% of married women in a

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survey of sub-Saharan African countries in 2001 were involved in polygamous marriages.[8]

Since polygamy is so widespread in the world, it is worth mentioning that there are different forms of it. Polygyny is the practice where a husband marries more than one wife. This is the form which Americans hear the most about because of the visibility of Muslim world in the media.

There are also cultures where a woman can take more than one husband.

This is called polyandry. Most polyandrous marriages (and they are rare) are practiced in Tibet and Nepal.

In those cases, the husbands are usually brothers. Many anthropologists believe that polyandry originated as a tradition in order to keep land in a family, or to prevent over-population in (and increasing demand and competition for) an environment with few natural resources.[9]

Mission Focus: How can information about marriage practices help Airmen?

There are two main ways this information may help you:

1

Marriages involve money, cultural traditions, and entire extended families, and can lead to major conflicts and misunderstandings.

If you understand people's motivations in cross-cultural contexts, then you will be able to:

a. Relate to their problems (i.e. see their perspectives, understand their worldview)

b. Communicate with them specifically about the problem at hand

c. Negotiate solutions that are acceptable to the parties involved, and to U.S. interests

Guess what? All three of these activities are part of cross-cultural competence!

2 Since marriage and family relations are a cultural universal, you will always have something to talk about with people.

Don't take this too lightly. As you saw with SMSgt Meyers in the video earlier in this lesson, talking about family is an important part of relating to people. Especially in more collectivist cultures, a person relates to the world through his or her family.

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One caution, however: start with general talk about family. Let the other people take the lead in this type of conversation, so you can gain some clues about what is acceptable and unacceptable to discuss in their culture, and you can find out what is important to them. Talking about marriage or weddings may not be appropriate in every situation.

On the other hand, for female Airmen, discussing a wedding with local women is more appropriate in most cultures.

Each cultural domain incorporates specific behaviors and symbols. Also, personal interconnections between you and host country nationals, or between foreign nationals themselves, are valuable sources for cross-cultural knowledge.

Even if you do not understand the language, there is a lot to be learned.

Let's take a look at one way to help you do that.

TOOL – Observations regarding Family and Kinship

Here is a tool that you can use to help you record your observations and develop questions about your host culture. Note that the questions are divided into two groups: observations made in public, and those made in a private home or other area such as a restaurant, where you can have private interaction with people.

Download the Observation Tool here.

NOTE: Make an effort to pick up some terminology in the native language.

Attaching names to items give them additional meaning, and present a positive image to your host country colleagues when you are able to refer to things that are important to them. Also, greetings are useful to learn. You will be surprised how quickly you can learn a few important phrases. Lesson 5 Language and Communication talked about this.

The Cultural Observation Tool is reproduced in text form below:

Things to Look for Related to Family and Kinship

1 Date(s) of observations

2 Describe the situation: Where did the observations take place? Who was present?

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3 Observations made in public (in the work environment and in public places outside of work)

4 What type(s) of marriage is/are practiced in the host culture?

5 Is there any evidence of these practices in your observations and conversations with host cultureindividuals?

6 What is the family structure that you most often observe?

7 What do you observe about the behavior of parents and children in public? Husbands and wives?

8 What symbols of marriage, family, or kinship can you see? Record an incident that left animpression on you.

9 Observations made in private (typically in a home)

10 What was the occasion of your visit? (a meal, a casual visit, a celebration, something connectedwith business?)

11 Which people did you encounter during your visit?

12 Were the family connections clear? Could you tell who specifically lived in the home you werevisiting?

13 Were men and women grouped separately, either for part of the time or the whole time?

14 Were children present? How did they behave/speak to their elders, and vice versa?

15 Did you learn any terms or words in the foreign language? What were they?

16 For repeated visits to families: What similarities and differences did you notice on visits to differentfamilies?

17 Did you notice any differences between the way spouses and children behave in the home and howthey behave in public?

Cultural Domain "Overlap"

So far in this course, you learned that cultural domains are areas of human interaction that provide a good basis for cross-cultural comparison. Now let's talk about domain overlap.

This occurs when one domain is exhibited or emphasized during a discussion of another domain. For example, we just looked extensively at Economic factors as they relate to Family and Kinship. Other domains relate and overlap as well, and if we had more time, we could discuss them all in more depth. In lieu of that, we have the exercise below for you to use.

You will be asked to complete this exercise in future lessons in hopes it encourages you to reflect on domain overlap. Please review it and keep it in mind as you go through the rest of the course. You will be asked to make a two-column table like the one below.

In the column on the right, indicate how each domain on the left affects Family and Kinship.

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CULTURAL DOMAIN HOW IT AFFECTS FAMILY AND KINSHIP

Religion & Spirituality ???

Political & Social Relations ???

Sex & Gender ???

Economics & Resources (making a living) ???

Other ???

For our responses, hover over the ???s. Keep in mind, your responses may be different based on your own cultural experiences.

One More Thing

There is one more thing to think about before leaving this lesson. The course talked about collectivist cultures and the strong reliance they place on kinship groups and on relationships. The course also talked about individualist cultures where personal achievement and individuality is valued. Did this remind you of anything else you've previously learned in this course?

It should have sounded similar to portions of lesson 5, Language and Communication! Lesson 5 talked about high context communicators, and the strong consideration of relationships and hierarchy and group reputation on their worldview and communication style. The course describes how cultures that tend toward high context communication styles must consider how their words and actions reflect on the reputation of their family and their group (whether that is tribe, ethnicity, religion, etc.). These values closely correlate with those frequently found in collectivist cultures, and it is common to find that collectivist cultures are also high context communicators. Both collectivist cultures and high context communicators are relationship-oriented.

Lesson 5 also described low context communicators and highlighted the fact that in many of those cultures, such as the U.S., Canada, and Germany, they rely on their words, personal knowledge, and facts versus the power of their social group to back up their words. Saving face for the group (group reputation) is generally less of a concern. So, it is very common to find that low-context communicators and individualist cultures go hand in hand. Study the table below for a side-by-side comparison:

COLLECTIVIST CULTURE INDIVIDUALIST CULTURE

kinship groups

high context communicators

relationships and hierarchy

group reputation

relationship oriented

individuality more important than groups

low context communicators

personal achievement

individual reputation

individual oriented

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rely on power of social groups

saving face is very important

rely on words, knowledge, and facts

saving face not as important

The beginning of this lesson reminded you that language shapes culture and culture shapes language.

It also reminded you that the very first introduction to culture a person has is from their family. That means language and family are the two earliest, and likely strongest, influences on a person's worldview.

You now have one more area of domain overlap to add to the chart on the previous page: Language and Communication.

How does it affect Family and Kinship?

Lesson Summary

Family is the first group that defines the Self and our identity, which is our starting point for interacting with others. Understanding family relationships in other cultures gives Airmen information about what is important to local people, where their allegiances lie, who they are likely to turn to in times of stress, and even to the social structure of the society itself.

When you can see how your culture influences things that you see as natural, then you can begin to understand how others' culture makes their view of the world just as natural. That knowledge helps you interpret others' motives and actions in many situations. Think back to how you addressed questions mentioned earlier in the lesson while you complete this optional jigsaw puzzle.

Societies can often be considered either individualist or collectivist.

It's important to remember that in collectivist societies, kinship has a greater role in defining a person's sense of self, family obligations, and responsibilities than it does in the U.S.

There are universals to all family relationships in all societies, including raising children, defining ties by blood, marriage, and economics, defining individual roles, and passing on common values, norms, and traditions. These universals, however, are often starkly contrasted when compared between collectivist and individualist cultures. Some of the contrasts discussed in this lesson included purposes of marriage, considerations in choosing a mate, willful application of

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endogamy and exogamy, and economic factors such as dowries and bride price. Economic factors in other cultures tend to create much more significant economic ties with relatives than typically seen in American macro-culture.

A common denominator between the idea of collectivist cultures and high context communicators is the emphasis on relationships. For this reason, you will generally find that high context communicators often come from collectivist cultures, and vice versa.

As you go out into other cultures and regions, make a conscious effort to observe and orient to information concerning family and kinship. Ask questions, as appropriate, to understand differences and to enhance your ability to approach situations objectively. Understand that domains overlap, and that this domain, Family and Kinship, will have an enormous impact on the situations you may find yourself dealing with. Local conceptions of identities, roles, economics, and traditions, all of which are shaped by family relationships, will impact others' goals when interacting with and the manner in which they interact with you.

References

Lesson 6 Endnotes

[1] Mahootian, Shahrzad and Lewis Gebhardt. 1997. Persian. New York: Routledge. Pp. 346-350.

[2] Weinreb, Alexander A. The Determinants of Consanguineous Marriage in Egypt, 1988-2000. Online, available at: http://uaps2007.princeton.edu/papers/70821

[3] TV Tropes.com. 2013. Useful Notes: Japanese Sibling Terminology. Online, available at: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/JapaneseSiblingTerminology?from=Main.JapaneseSiblingTerminology.

[4] U.S. Library of Congress. 1994. Values and Beliefs. In Japan: A Country Study. Online, available at: http://www.country-studies.com/japan/values-and- beliefs.html.

[5] Westermarck, Edward. 1922. History of Human Marriage, Part1. Pp. 26-77. Preview available on Google Books : http://books.google.com/books? id=WxkMAAAAYAAJ&dq=Westermarck%2C%20Edward.%201922.%20History%20of%20Human%20Marriage%2C%20Part1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

[6] 1. Kalmijn, M. (1991) Homogamy in the United States. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 496-523. 2. DiMaggio, P. and J. Mohr (1985) Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment, and Marital Selection. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 90, pp. 1231-61.

[7] U.S. Department of Labor. Nov 2009 and Jan 2011. Quick Stats on Women Workers 2010. Online, available at: http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/QS- womenwork2010.htm

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[8] Haviland, William A., Harald E.L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and Bunny McBride. 2008. Cultural Anthropology: the human challenge. 12th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. P. 209. Preview available on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books? id=8WMGAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[9] Goldstein, Melvyn C. When Brothers Share a Wife. In Carlson and Bryant, 1998, Through the Looking Glass: Readings in Anthropology. McGraw-Hill Companies. Pp. 59-62.