Over a century of cross-cultural study has shown how people have “partnered” with one another, including living in homes, having children, building lasting relationships, and passing goods down to future generations and families. A projection of our modern cultural model of the family and gender roles onto the past and the whole human species is once again more fiction than reality. Families are a fundamental aspect of human nature in all communities.
However, societies worldwide have a wide range of cultural perspectives on marriage and family. Ideas about the relationships between individuals, the ideal type of marriage, the appropriate times for people to have children, who should care for them, and many other family-related issues vary between cultures (The Economist, 10:47). In Korea, women between the ages of 20 and 30 often opt against getting married. It is because they will look like some choose to marry someone of the same sex as their husband as a personal assistant, while others prefer to raise their kids by themselves.
When discussing family structures, anthropologists distinguish between several typical family forms, which may be the norm or favored family structure. The nuclear family comes first: parents and their minor or dependent children who are part of a culturally accepted relationship, like marriage. This type of family is often referred to as a marital family. A non-married nuclear family might consist of a single parent with dependent children due to the death of one spouse, a divorce, or the absence of marriage.
An extended family consists of many generations living together. An elder couple, one of their adult offspring, and their spouse and kids form a stem family, an extended family. When one kid in a household is chosen to inherit, it is more probable that when that child reaches adulthood and marries, only that child will continue to live with the parents. While an older boy is frequently the case, a different youngster may sometimes appear. For instance, in Burma or Myanmar, the youngest daughter was typically chosen to inherit, as she was seen as the best caregiver for aging parents (Mr. History 5:14). The other children would either “marry out” or find alternative ways to make a living.
One gender’s adult offspring, often the males, continue to live with their spouses and children and are entitled to share in the family’s assets. For instance, a family may consist of a pair of grandparents, their adult sons and spouses and kids, and adult daughters who are single. Families formed when widowed or divorced people remarry and bring children from prior marriages together are called step-families or blended families.
In 2015, the US Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples had the right to wed in each of the country’s 50 states. Same-sex unions have been legal in many nations for centuries, long before legal recognition. On the Plains, it was acceptable for males to marry other guys even if they wanted to dress and act like women. Males who chose feminine roles or attire and females who adopted masculine roles were not stigmatized.
Works Cited
The Economist. “How Modern Families Increase Social Inequality.” YouTube, 2019.
Mr. History. “A Super Quick History of Myanmar (AKA Burma).” YouTube, 2022.