The Gurung Society

Kinship is defined through your descent group/ people who you are related to. In the film, Dadi’s family is shown to be related through an affine kinship. The relationships that are discussed in the film are all based on marriage. Dada, Dadi, the sons and her daughters-in-law are part of the family through marriage. The family is patrilocal extended family.

With the centrality of the family in Hmong culture, having sons or a son is very important as they are the ones who will take on the last name and lead the future generation of the family (Cha, 2010). Cha states, “The clannish nature of Hmong society favors a son. A family that does not have a son is viewed as a burden to the clan and community, because such a family will not contribute much to the community,” (p. 24). In the culture, the son(s) will take care of the parents as the daughter will get married and move to live with the husband’s family. Religion also plays a role since the traditional belief is that although the daughter can take care of the parents physically when they are alive, they cannot take care of them spiritually after they pass away. This is because the daughter becomes a part of the other family and cannot worship her parents’ spirits after death (Cha, 2010).

The essay starts with a very simple definition of a family, accompanied by an explanation of the relationship between family structure and the strength of the link between different people forming the family in question. The introduction has been put in a simple language to provide a fluid understanding of what the reader should expect throughout the text. Literal tools like proverbs and similes have been applied. There is a clear language connection of cultural legacy and a family unit where the authors explain that legacy in the society does not determine how different ethnicities connect with the family unit. Gertsel and Sarkasian believe that deliberations made on family responsibilities tend to pay more attention to nuclear family as opposed to the general family unit. The language used here implies that the general meaning of extended family unit is ignored or in some cases misrepresented.

What important changes in family patterns do you see today? Today I see family patterns change in many perspectives ways. Families are more independent. They form their own opinions in their decision making. Do you see positive changes, negative changes, or both? I would have to say that I see both positive and negative changes in families. The positive that I see is that many husbands are more involved with their children and even some are now stay home dads taking care of the children while women go to work, the negative that I see is that there are many people filing for divorce and children being raised by single parents. What do they mean for families, in your opinion? My opinion is that most people are

While Barker focuses on clans in Papua New Guinea and Hedican on Scottish clans they both come to the same result, clans are hard to gain consistent information on and much of their histories are muddled, complicated, and contradictory specifically with the whom is related to who debacle and the ‘true’ back story/ symbols accompanying each clan. Both Authors also explore the kinship terms of Papua and how it differs from the Westerner way of labelling family members (cousin being the broadest Westerner term) compared to the flexible descent groups and hazy distinction that separates immediate and extended family in the villages of Papua New

Kinship is the cornerstone for how people within a society relate to others and race lineages. Many societies trace their lineage through the father, which is called patrilineal, or through the mother which is called matrilineal. The Iroquois nation traced their kinship through the matrilineal decent lines. Kinship directly relates to how family groups think, act and live along side each other. The culture of the Iroquois can also be compared to how many American families relate to one another as well.

The kinship is a system that enables people to know precisely where they stand in relation to every person and a group. It is the heart of Aboriginal culture, and controls all facets of social behaviours. The Kinship system has been around for tens of thousands of years and is still used today. (Nations, clans, family groups, 2016). It is a system that determines how people interact with others and how people become related. Thus, controls who can get married and who supports who. Because there are over 500 Aboriginal nations across Australia the system is helpful because it simplifies the different clans and groups that share common kinship and language. (Nations, clans, family groups, 2016)

Kinship is usually much more of a cohesive social force in non-Western societies. Kin group members internalize a corporate identity - the family is viewed as an extension of the self. Often large, pyramid-shaped kin groups - usually descendants of one man (or, rarely, woman) and their dependents - serve to organize political, military, economic, and religious activities.

Over a period of time, the Hmong people have immigrated from country to country due to oppression from governments and due to their involvement in wars. For this reason, Hmong people are now found living scattered across the globe (Tatman 2004). With no country to call home, they fled to the hillsides and mountain tops of nearby neighboring countries. As a result, the Hmong people had to reestablish their communities and families wherever the settled. Although the Hmong’s lacked a formal government and a central leader, Hmong families were often lead by a dominant male figure within the family who was responsible for the decision making and wellbeing of the group (Long 2008). The social structure found within Hmong communities and Hmong

In traditional Aboriginal society inter-personal relationships are governed by a Complex system of rules, known as the classificatory system of kinship. The kinship system

Approximately 2000 years ago Tibeto-Burman ancestors of existing Mosuo culture devised a family and kinship system that is not based on marriage. They have no husbands and wives. Instead of marrying and sharing family life with spouses, adult Musuo children remain in their extended, multigenerational household with their mother and their blood relatives. The elder female("Ah mi") is the head of the house. "Ah mi" makes all the household and economic decisions

Additionally, the family of choice consists of people one feels as obligated to as if one was of blood relation. These self-constructed families are no less real or less meaningful than conventional families. In fact, they are known as one’s fictive kin. The bond of this type of family can be formed through several ways. Natalie writes, “for some people, voluntary kinship filled a void left by death or estrangement from biological family, while for others the relationships were supplemental or temporary.” It can be a friendship that turns into a family or a group that one relates to as a family. Either way, the fictive kin family is a blossoming family type. Increasingly, people refer to this as their second family. Some choose it to be their first family when they feel

This upheaval of identity can be seen in way the colonial trauma pervades the social, political, and cultural environment depicted in The God of Small Things. The social, political, and cultural environments in turn invade the lives of the characters of the novel. The Indian caste system and the love laws, for instance, are driving forces in one of the main conflicts of the novel. The caste system, which was existed in its present form in the novel due to the British colonists favoring certain castes above others, categorized groups of people within Indian society and classified some as superior to others, with the Untouchables being the lowest classification of the human. The love laws determined “who should be loved, and how. And how much” (Roy 33). These histories work in tandem to create the tragedy of Ammu, the twins’ mother, and Velutha’s, an Untouchable and friend to the twins, doomed relationship. Because of these socially constructed class structures, Ammu and Velutha’s relationship was forbidden and when Velutha’s father, Vellya, informs Mamacchi and Baby Kochamma of their relationship, they are completely horrified. Vellya’s relationship with the Ipe Family also somewhat parallels the colonized people’s relationship with the colonizer. Vellya, as an Untouchable, occupies a lower social position than the Ipe Family and sees them as superior. By informing the Mamacchi about her daughter and his son’s relationship, he maintains the social class structures and the

Kinship is how cultures define relationships with people who they think of as family. All

In American culture the view on arranged marriages are not looked at very favorably. This is because we have grown up with the knowledge that when it comes time to marry we will have chosen our spouse of our own free will. The match will be a love match and one that is chosen through our own needs. Young men and women in India grow up with an opposite view on marriage. They know that when it comes time to marry their parents will find them a suitable mate and it will be considered scared and a lifelong commitment (Agence France-Presse.) A total of 74 percent of respondents from across India voted in favour of traditional "arranged" marriages, according to the poll by private television channel NDTV. In the Hindu faith, marriage is