ighth Week/Eight Module. Family and Marriage
Chapter 8 “Family and Marriage”. Discussion Questions And A Film
Dear all,
For this week I would like you to focus on the chapter FAMILY AND MARRIAGE and address the Discussion Questions so you can place your responses on the forum with the title Family and Marriage.
Here I'd like to highlight a few important points from your textbook:
1. The enormous variation in family forms; think about what we have here in the US now that includes families formed before and after the same sex marriage recent law.
2. The importance of status and roles as defined by a kinship system a cultural pattern that defines and recognizes who is related to whom and what they should do or expect from these relationships. It is obvious that there many different kinship systems. They depend on DESCENT, whether it is PATRILINEAL OR MATRILENEAL OR BILINEAL. Please, read carefully the examples from Croatia, from China and from the US. Think about your own background and try to analyze the kinshipsystembased on descent.
3 Think about what the above means for gender relations (equality? Inequality? Complementarity?), about property rights (who inherits what and from whom? (mother or mother’s side of the family? Or father or father’s side of the family?), think about the name (or last name of the children and issues of identity).
Here are the Discussion Questions:
1) 1.Why is it important for anthropologists to understand the kinship, descent and family relationships that exist in the cultures they study? In what ways can family relationships structure the lives of individuals?
2)
2.
Status and role define the position of people within the family as well as the behaviors they are expected to perform. What are some of the statuses and roles found in families in your community? How have these changed over time?
3)
3.
In this chapter,Gillilanddescribes several different patterns of family organization including nuclear families, extended families and joint families. While small nuclear families are common in the United States, larger families are common in many other societies. What do you think are some of the practical effects of both small and large families on everyday life?
Also, I’d like you to watch a film,THE NAMESAKEdirected by Mira Nair. It is a feature film that I like for its craftsmanship and because is a vehicle for reflection on family, marriage, identity, migration. It will also provide important insights on some aspects of Indian cultures (at least one from the state of Bengal in NE India) and the lives of immigrant children in the US (NYC and the metropolitan area).Please, write a response to the following question:
Applying a cross-cultural perspective on marriage and family, what did you notice in terms of contrasts between mainstream US culture and that depicted from India? Expand by using a couple of the concepts presented in the chapter.
You can watch it from the STREAMING VIDEO at the library fromLaGuardia. You need to click on Streaming Video, underneath STUDENTS. Then you need to sign in (top right). Click OK at the prompt. Then you will be on a page STREAMING MEDIA PROJECT and you can type the title of the film, THE NAMESAKE and it should start.
NOTE:
If you have Issues with Flashpluginand you use Chrome, on the upper right hand corner, there is a small icon (the one on the left) which you can click to manage the Flashplugin. Click Manage, and you will see "Block sites from running Flash," click on the switch to the right until you see Ask first. Then when you play the video, you will get the option to allow flash to run.
If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer, download Adobe Flash Player, install it and then try again.
PLEASE, TAKE GOOD NOTES AND CORRELATE THE MAIN THEMES WITH THOSE IN THE CHAPTER ON FAMILY AND MARRIAGE. ADD THIS WORK TO YOUR RESPONSES TO THE FORUM AT THE END OF DISCUSSION QUESTIONS..
I HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY IT.