Page 381 - Sociology and You

Chapter 11 The Family
❖ With equalitarian control, authority is split evenly between husband and wife. Many families in the Scandinavian countries and in the United States follow the equalitarian model.
Where do couples live? Where newly married couples set up their households also varies from culture to culture.
❖ The patrilocal pattern, such as in premodern China, calls for living with or near the husband’s parents.
❖ Residing with or near the wife’s parents is expected under a matrilocal pattern. The Nayar caste of Kerala in southern India is an illustration of this type of arrangement.
❖ In the neolocal pattern (if finances allow) married couples establish residences of their own. This is the Euro-American model. Extended families, of course, have different norms.
Marriage Arrangements
Mention a wedding and Americans commonly think of a bride walking down the aisle in a long white gown. She and the groom make vows that in- volve some form of loving, honoring, and (until recently, in some cases) obeying. In other cultures, the wedding ceremony looks very different. This is part of the ceremony among the Reindeer Tungus of Siberia:
After the groom’s gifts have been presented, the bride’s dowry is loaded onto the reindeer and carried to the groom’s lodge. There, the rest of the ceremony takes place. The bride takes the wife’s place—that is, at the right side of the entrance of the lodge—and members of both families sit around in a circle. The groom enters and follows the bride around the circle, greeting each guest, while the guests, in their turn, kiss the bride on the mouth and hands. Finally, the go-betweens spit three times on the bride’s hands, and the couple is formally “husband and wife.” More feasting and revelry bring the day to a close (Ember and Ember, 1999:310–311).
Whatever form it takes, the marriage ceremony is an impor- tant ritual announcing that a man and woman have become husband and wife, that a new family has been formed, and that any children born to the couple can legitimately inherit the family name and property.
What forms do marriage take? Monogamy—the mar- riage of one man to one woman —is the most widely practiced form of marriage in the world today. In fact, it is the only form of marriage that is legally
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equalitarian
family structure in which authority is evenly shared between the husband and wife
patrilocal
refers to the pattern in which married couples live with or near the husbands’ parents
matrilocal
refers to the pattern in which married couples live with or near the wives’ parents
neolocal
refers to the pattern in which newly married couples set up their own households
monogamy
a marriage consisting of one man and one woman
Although wedding ceremonies may vary, the basic social structures of marriage are common to all societies.