Gender, Kinship And Marriage

Gender, Kinship and Marriage

Introduction

According to Kottak, Kinship or Kin groups are “social units whose members can be identified and whose residence patterns and activities can be observed”. A good example of this is a nuclear family which is the most prominent in state societies as well as foraging bands which we discussed previously.

Gender (which I based) several questions on is defined by Kottak as “the cultural construction of sexual difference”. What Kottak is referring to be “sexual difference” is the biological difference between men and women due to things such as X and Y chromosomes and hormones which give men and women different physical features. As Kottak points out on page 456, “Sex differences are biological, but gender encompasses all the traits that a culture assigns to and inculates in males and females”. He goes on to say that gender is a cultural construction. This is similar to race and ethnicity. Often when people are talking about race they are actually talking about ethnicity just as when someone is talking about вЂ?gender’ they may actually be referring to sex differences.

And finally, on to the topic of marriage. Marriage, Kottak says, is difficult to define. Kottak refers to marriage as mostly in legalities. He says marriage usually involves a domestic partnership and “establishes the legal parentage of children and gives spouses rights to each other’s sexuality, labor and property. In my Anthropological study I focused on several elements of marriage/relationships and also gender.

Hypothesis:

Non-religious and non-traditional women would be more lenient in their answers (e.g. in terms of controversial questions such as inter racial and gay relationships) than men, and actively religious men or women.

I also believed going into this study that perhaps some men still think of women as inferior to men or believe that a woman’s place is in the household, if you will. In addition, I considered that some females (despite the fact they are in school) may have notions of patriarchy and males supporting them. I was also wondering if ethnicity or marital status would factor in to any of the answers that I asked so I made sure to get a diverse group of people. Some people I talked to were married, some were not, some were faculty, some were students, some where black, some were white, etc. I asked slightly different questions to men and women.

For men I asked the following questions:

Do you think women should have the same rights as men, namely in the workforce?

Is it more appropriate for the man in a relationship to be the provider of the household?

How do you feel about inter racial relationships?

What is your stance on gay marriage and should it be legal?

Are you in a relationship currently?

For women I asked:

Currently or in the future, would you like to focus on a career or a family?

Do you feel more comfortable with the male in your relationship being the breadwinner of the household?

Does it matter?

And the last three questions are the same:

How do you feel about inter racial relationships?

What is your stance on gay marriage and should it be legal?

Are you in a relationship currently?

Research methods:

I picked out 15 women and 16 men from the campus at our school: U of M Dearborn to fill out questionnaire’s and ask follow up questions. Several of the men and women I talked to were staff members and one man I spoke with did not attend U of M but was listening in on a race seminar. Ages ranged from 20-55 and ethnicities varied.

Most of the participants were Caucasian, however, I also interviewed: 1 Arabic male and 4 Arabic females, 1 man from China, 2 black men, one man from the UK, 2 Hispanic men and 1 Hispanic female, 1 German man and 1 Hispanic-Native American girl who was in a relationship with a black man I also interviewed.

I interviewed a total of 7 faculty members, 2 of them being professors and one male student assistant who was gay. Generally what I would do is walk throughout the CASL building, University building and Social sciences building and approach someone who was walking down the hall or sitting down. On several instances I went to various offices in the University building and talked to faculty that were relatively non-busy. I approached everyone with a questionnaire which I asked to be filled out, assuming they were willing. Willing participants were informed that this survey was anonymous and names were not asked. I thought people would be more honest this way and felt that a survey type approach would be the best way to get non-bias answers. Participants were also told that this research is for a class project and could possibly make an impact on our society here at U of M.

Everyone I approached agreed to do this survey, infact, many of them seemed zealous at the fact that their opinions may be heard. 31 males and females were given the attached questionnaire and filled it out which generally took 7-10 minutes. After the participant’s questionnaires were completed I took note of their major and the participant’s religion/religious affiliation or lack thereof. I would briefly scan the given answers and then ask follow up questions to the participants, if necessary. Sometimes the participant was willing to elaborate and sometimes they were not. Here are my findings.

DATA:

Some of my hypothesis proved true and some not. While young non-religious women were more lenient in tough questions such as “Should gay marriage be legalized?”, their answers were no more compassionate than non-religious males. It did prove true that actively religious men and women (notably Muslim) were vehemently against gay marriage or unions after speaking with them.

One Muslim male I spoke to in the library was outright disgusted with my