Transcript Family • The social institution regulating the biological reproduction of human beings, the social structure provided by the ongoing relationship between an adult male, and.

Family
• The social institution regulating the
biological reproduction of human beings,
the social structure provided by the
ongoing relationship between an adult
male, and an adult female, in which the
male can provide food and protection and
the female can nurse and provide the
nurturing for the healthy development of
their biological children.
• This is only a social ideal about the family
that produces specific moral assumptions
about people.
• What assumptions are being made?
Affinity
• Relationships based on mating.
Descent
• Relationships based on birth.
Adoption
• Relationships based on nurturance alone,
that don’t involve birth.
Kinship Systems
• Regulate sexual access between people and
establish the legitimacy of group members
• Establish links between generations
• Assign responsibility for child care
• Determine residence rules
• Provide a clear framework for organizing
individual’s rights and responsibilities
• Provide for the transfer of property and social
position between generations
Assumptions about the family
• Relationship that is based on cooperation
as opposed to competition, that is
enduring as opposed to temporary, that is
non-contingent rather than contingent
upon performance, and that is governed
by feeling and morality, instead of law
and contract.
• Kinship is not a human recognition of
actual biological bonds, but a social
interpretation of assumed biological
bonds.
David Schneider
Basic Terms
• Mother, father, sister, brother, daughter,
son, wife, husband, aunt, uncle, niece,
nephew, and cousin.
Derived Terms
• Terms used in conjunction with a modifier:
• Step, in-law, foster
• Grand, great, first, second (etc.) once,
twice removed, half
• Ex
• These terms distinguish blood relatives
from those in comparable positions who
are not blood relatives.
• Or mark distance between people.
• The heart of American kinship involves a
concern with consanguineal or “blood”
relationships.
• Blood in North American culture is the
symbol for biogenetic relationship.
• American kinship is based on a cultural
distinction between the “order of nature”
and the “order of law.”
Order of Nature
• As pertaining to kinship, refers to shared
biogenetic substance.
Order of Law
• Is imposed by man and consists of rules
and regulations, customs and traditions.
Code for Conduct
• Entailed by custom, that is, the pattern of
behaviour that determines how people
should proceed in any given situation.
• 1) relatives in nature alone – such as the
biological parents of an adopted child;
• 2) relatives in law alone – such as inlaws, or step relationships;
• 3) relatives in nature and in law.
• Genitor = Biological father (Victor)
And someone’s
• Pater = Social father (Brad)
• Genetrix = Biological mother
• Mater = Social mother
Jane Dolgin
• Studied several examples of these
ambiguities in contemporary court cases in
the US, having to do with the paternal
rights of parents who were not married,
and with the maternal rights of surrogate
mothers.
• In the cases of children being born out of
wedlock, biological maternity automatically
turned a woman into a social mother, but
biological paternity didn’t automatically
make a man the social father.
Surrogacy
• The cases show that when a surrogate
mother impregnated with the sperm of the
husband in the couple decided to keep the
child, then the court decided that biological
maternity wasn’t enough to be a mater.
• Biological facts were called into play by
the court only when they justified the
preservation of traditional families, that is,
nuclear, middle-class, North American twoparent family.
Zumbagua, Ecuador
• According to Mary Weismantel, family
consists of those who eat together.
• Eventually, people will come to share “the
same flesh”, no matter who gave birth to
them.
• Ascribed Statuses: Are social positions
that are assigned at birth, and that are
seen as immutable or unchangeable.
• Achieved Statuses, on the other hand,
are social positions that people attain later
in life, as a result of theirs or someone
else’s effort.