Reasons for Comparative Study of the Family
It is understood now that we do not expect to find a direct line of evolution through which the family has come to its present state in our own or any other culture. Neither are we looking for data to support the belief that ours is the most satisfactory form this institution has ever assumed. Nor are we seeking standards of domestic behavior and arrangements which might conveniently be labeled "normal" or "natural" or "right." From the study of the family in various cultures we hope to gain perspective on the possible variety of patterns. We are bound to be impressed by the wide range of forms. We may also get a hint of probable limits to such variation. 1f we confined our observations to our own culture, we might easily be misled into the notion that certain familiar sentiments, practices, and relationships are instinctive or otherwise inevitable. By viewing the institutions of other cultures we discover that there are substitutes or alternatives for most, perhaps all, of these traits. Instead of being automatic products of our biological makeup, they are seen to vary with other culture complexes and with general environmental conditions. Any number of utterly divergent arrangements are found to "work" in divergent settings. However, we shall find little support for the idea that a custom can be picked up out of one culture and set down in the midst of another without causing some disturbance. For example, the adolescent "experimentation" of Samoans is followed by rather stable marriage in their culture; similar behavior in the United States has often been associated with instability and unhappiness. Thus another aspect of our perspective lies in the appreciation of the interrelatedness of traits. The Samoan family institution is not merely the sum of child-tending by little girls, sex freedom in adolescence, large households containing many kinsmen, and other separate traits. It is all of these taken together and viewed in their relation to the social system as a whole. No one of them can be understood apart from the rest, nor can the family be understood apart from its general cultural setting. Hence instead of starting with a comparison of marriage or inheritance or child care in many cultures, we shall examine in some detail the family system of one culture after another. At the end we shall turn to contemporary North American family systems.
Proceeding on the assumption that every type of family institution has a history of its own, we shall be on the lookout for evidence of changes that have taken place and other events which may be associated with them. In the case of the so-called "historical" cultures, as distinct from the "primitive" or nonliterate cultures, we shall note not only changes but also continuities.
work under copyright
copies may be available at:
