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| Why do anthropologists focus so much energy on studying kinship? Ans: Although the study of kinship may seem somewhat trivial to some Americans, if you are interested in studying the culture of people all over the world it is an important first step to recognize that everyone is necessarily related to someone. How people of different cultures choose to classify the people they are related to has a great deal of influence on the interactions that shape a person’s life and can be very informative to the anthropologist. In addition, in nonindustrial societies, much of the human interaction between people occurs between people who consider themselves to be related, so kinship takes on a more important role. How "normal" is the nuclear family that most Americans are familiar with? Ans: Nuclear family organization is widespread, but it is not universal. In certain societies, the nuclear family is rare or nonexistent and in other cultures the nuclear family has no special role in social life. In these societies other social groups such as descent groups and extended families assume the functions associated with the nuclear family. Interestingly, groups that rely on the organization of the nuclear family tend to be highly mobile. This includes modern industrial societies and forager societies. Increasingly, the nuclear family household, which might traditionally include two parents and children, is rare in the United States. In 1998, nonnuclear family arrangements outnumbered the "traditional" American household three to one. Can television help me understand the material in this chapter? Ans: Yes it can! The American family has changed a great deal in the last four or five decades, and this change is reflected on television. In the sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s, the families were idealized middle-class and upper-middle-class examples of perfect nuclear families with an all-knowing dad. This began to change in the 1970s: think of the blended family of The Brady Bunch. Now sitcoms regularly show co-resident friends, roommates, unmarried couples, single parents, unrelated retirees, nannies, housekeepers, and working mothers. In addition, the father (think of Homer Simpson of The Simpsons) is almost never depicted as being as omniscient as his 1950s sitcom counterpart. How is the American family changing? Ans: In the last thirty years, there has been a significant decrease in the percentage of households that meet the "traditional" ideal of an American family. Today only 25% of American households are composed of married couples with children, down from 40% in 1970. In addition, more people are living alone, more people are waiting longer to get married, and more parents are raising children on their own. There are many reasons for these changes, including an increasing number of women in the workforce, an increasingly mobile society which causes people to move away from their families, and increased job and educational requirements that can compete for romantic attachment and delay the age at which people are first getting married. |