Page 394 - Essencials of Sociology

Marriage and Family in Global Perspective 367

I was living in a remote village in the state of Colima, Mexico. I
had chosen this nondescript town a few kilometers from the ocean because it had no other Learning
Americans, and I wanted to immerse myself in the local culture. Objectives
The venture was successful. I became friends with my neighbors, who were curious about
After you have read this chapter,
why a gringo was living in their midst. After all, there was nothing about their drab and
you should be able to:
dusty town to attract tourists. So why was this gringo there, this guy who looked so different
from them and who had the unusual custom of jogging shirtless around the outskirts of town 12.1 Define marriage and family
and among the coconut and banana trees? This was their burning question, while mine was and summarize their common
cultural themes. (p. 367)
“What is your life like?”
We satisfied one another. I explained to them what a sociologist is. Although they 12.2 Contrast the functionalist,
never grasped why I would want to know about their way of life, they accepted my expla- conflict, and symbolic
nation. And I was able to get my questions answered. interactionist perspectives on
marriage and family. (p. 371)
“ It was his wife’s job Summarize research on love
I was invited into their homes—by the men. The
to pick up the used women didn’t talk to men outside the presence of their 12.3
husbands, brothers, or other women. The women didn’t and courtship, marriage,
toilet paper. ” even go out in public unless they were accompanied childbirth, child rearing, and
by someone. Another woman would do, just so they family transitions. (p. 374)
weren’t alone. The women did the cooking, cleaning, and child care. The men worked in 12.4 Summarize research on
the fields. families: African American,
I was culturally startled one day at my neighbor’s house. The man had retired from the Latino, Asian American,
Native American, one-parent,
fields, and he and his wife, as the custom was, were being supported by their sons who worked
couples without children,
in the fields. When I saw the bathroom, with a homemade commode made of clay—these
blended, and gay and
were poor people—I asked him about the used toilet paper thrown into a pile on the floor. He lesbian. (p. 381)
explained that the sewer system couldn’t handle toilet paper. He said that I should just throw
Discuss changes in the
mine onto the pile, adding that it was his wife’s job to pick up the used toilet paper and 12.5
timetable of family life,
throw it out.
cohabitation, and elder care.
I became used to the macho behavior of the men. This wasn’t too unlike high school behavior— (p. 388)
a lot of boisterous man-to-man stuff—drinking, joking, and bragging about sexual con-
Summarize problems in
quests. The sex was vital for proving manhood. When the men took me to a whorehouse (to 12.6
measuring divorce, research
help explain their culture, they said), they couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t have sex with
findings on children and
a prostitute. Didn’t I find the women attractive? Yes, they were good looking. Weren’t they grandchildren of divorce,
sexy? Yes, very much so. Was I a real man? Yes. Then why not? My explanation about being fathers’ contact after divorce,
married didn’t faze them one bit. They were married, too—and a real man had to have sex ex-spouses, and remarriage.
with more women than just his wife. (p. 390)
Explanations of friendship with a wife and respect for her fell on deaf cultural ears. Summarize the dark and
12.7
bright sides of family life.
(p. 396)
Marriage and Family in Global Perspective
12.8 Explain the likely future of
marriage and family. (p. 398)
These men and I were living in the same physical space, but our cultural space—which
we carry in our heads and show in our behavior—was worlds apart. My experiences with
working-class men in this remote part of Mexico helped me understand how marriage
and family can differ vastly from one culture to another. To broaden our perspective for
understanding this vital social institution, let’s look at how marriage and family customs 12.1 Define marriage and family
differ around the world. and summarize their common
cultural themes.
What Is a Family?
“What is a family, anyway?” Family should be easy to define, since it is so significant to
polygyny a form of marriage in
humanity that it is universal. Although every human group organizes its members in
which men have more than one wife
families, the world’s cultures display an incredible variety of family forms. The Western
polyandry a form of marriage in
world regards a family as a husband, wife, and children, but in some groups, men have
which women have more than one
more than one wife (polygyny) or women more than one husband (polyandry). How
husband
about the obvious? Can we define the family as the approved group into which children