2.3.1 Stateless Societies This is the first unit in the block “Political Processes”. In this unit you are going to learn about politics and political organisation. You will learn about the stateless societies which generally lack a centralised system of authority. Here the significance of kinship organisation is dealt with in relation to political control. We have discussed here the political principles which are present in stateless societies. We have also described the stateless tribes in India. Finally, we have discussed the emergence of government in stateless societies. Politics deals with the distribution of power in society. Political institutions refer to certain kinds of social relations which exist within a particular area. Thus, territorial area is an important aspect in the political process of any society. The territorial structure provides the framework not only for political organisation but for other forms of organisation as well. However, when we study political institutions we deal with the “maintenance and establishing of order within a territorial framework by the organised exercise of coercive authority through the use or possibility of use of physical force” One of the important political institutions in society is state. It has been described as a human community which successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a given territory. State is different from government in the sense that government is the agency which carries out the orders of the state. Thus, we can say that political organisation consists of the combination and interrelationship of power and authority in the maintenance of public affairs. In modern complex societies the police and the army are the instruments by which public order is maintained. Those who offend are punished by law. Law is one of the means by which the state carries out its function of social control. There has been a progressive growth of political organisation in different societies. As societies have developed from the simple to modern industrial societies, all other aspects of social organisation, even political institutions have become more complex. There are stateless societies without any centralised authority. Unit 16 deals with such societies. Then there are those societies which have some form of centralised authority and administrative machinery. Unit 17 describes these traditional/premodern societies. In Units 18 and 19 are discussed developed forms of political institutions in modern societies. Simple societies have very low population in comparison to modern societies. There exists a very indeterminate political community in these societies. Here, since face to face relation is possible no formal agency of social control exists. We are now going to discuss the political organisation in the stateless societies. In all types of stateless societies, however simple their organisation might be, they generally have an idea of their territorial rights. These rights are maintained through the notions of age, and social sanctions and social control. Here, we must make it clear that we are talking generally about the African tribes. In these societies various forms of political institutions such as, councils, monarchies, chiefs, etc., exist. In the stateless societies power and authority are generally diffused in different groups in society. Political order is maintained through the ties of kinship and lineage systems. 51 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
In anthropology we have studied about social system and its subsystems such as political organisations, economic organisations, religious organisations, etc. In this unit, we will focus on political systems. We must understand that political institutions are not isolated components but they are part and parcel of social system and are interconnected with other subsystems in a society. Thus in any social system, the economic system, the political system or the kinship system and the ritual life are all interconnected. While the study of political system seems more concerned to political science, anthropologists too have studied political system of both state and stateless societies. Anthropologists are interested in studying political institutions and the underlying principles on which these institutions act upon. In anthropology, inductive and comparative approaches are used in studying political institutions and explaining the uniformities found among them and to interpret their interdependencies with other features of social organisation. Since long anthropologists like Fortes, Evans-Pritchard and Mary Shepardon have emphasised that both state and stateless political systems are part of social structure through which political action takes place. Southall has noted that social anthropologists are gradually more interested in studying the political aspects of contemporary times and intensive analysis of local political behaviour and processes. Thus, the interest in studying political pattern, behaviour and processes is gradually expanded with wider attention in both simple and complex societies. However, in this unit we are going to emphasise the political system in simple societies, be it state or stateless societies. Anthropology has noteworthy contribution to the study of traditional societies, the tribes or peasant communities. The ethnographic contributions of anthropologists have helped us understand different aspects of social and cultural life and political system of these communities. Studies of tribes in India, Africa or in Australia have recorded the fact that every society has definite norms, values and recognised rules of conduct. Individuals violating such norms or values or breaching rules of conduct are punished or subjected to various sanctions. Within a locally defined community, an individual who commit some act which goes against the norms of the community invites punishment by recognised coercive authority. Political community, whether or not it is organised in the form of state has its own territory. Protection of defined territory and its individuals, organising social activities like rituals and religious activities, and organising economic activities entail organised authority. The authority decides over the level of punishment for each defied activity which goes against the societal norms or values. Every society has certain authority, whether centralised, decentralised or lack of centralised authority. Lucy Mair makes the useful remark that ‘there is no society where rules are automatically obeyed’. Anthropologists like Gluckman and others have tried to show that in all primitive societies-ranging from small bands of hunters or fishermen to kingdoms-there exists some basic mechanism of social control which regulates the affairs of the tribe and resolves conflicts arising among its component groups. The general assumption is that most of these social control mechanisms are in one way or another common to all types of traditional or preliterate societies-whether segmentary, 52 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
centralised or some other. According to Fortes and Evans Pritchard the societies which have centralised authority, administrative machinery, and judicial institutions were labelled as ‘primitive states. Some groups like the Zulu, the Ngwato, the Bemba, the Banyan Kole and the Kede are regarded as “primitive states”. They observed sharp differences in the distribution of wealth, status and privileges, corresponding to the distribution of power and authority in all ‘primitive’ states. Stateless societies on the other hand, had no great distinctions between the rank, status, or wealth of their members. But they may not be egalitarian societies. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard have defined that the societies which lack centralised authority, administrative machinery, and constituted judicial institutions-in short which lack government-and in which there are no sharp divisions of rank, status, or wealth are called stateless societies. They are the Logoli, the Tallensi and the Nuer in Africa. Examples of such tribes in India are some Andaman Islander tribes namely, Jarwa, Sentinelese, etc. Some other hunters and gatherer groups where there is no centralised political system can be included in the stateless societies. Historically speaking, many other tribes in India were stateless societies. But the evolution of political system from stateless to state has taken place subsequently. Like state, in the stateless societies, the political activities are supported by group behaviour. In stateless societies, the community members select the leader who possesses dominant characters with strong personalities, well-built physical feature, and may be with possession of wealth. In the study of the Nuer, Evans-Pritchard has reported the behaviour of the ‘leopard skin chief’ who is a dominant character selected from outside the clan group. However, this clan is not necessarily a dominant clan. He stands outside the lineage and tribal system. The leopard skin chief possesses bounty wealth in the form of cattle. He is offered cattle by community members or by the members of the guilty. Murder/killing of a fellow community member is often regarded as a serious offense to the community as a whole. Therefore, the leader takes appropriate action to compensate the kin of the deceased and the community he belongs to. Lucy Mair pointed out that in the absence of centralised political system if a man was wronged, his lineage supported him in seeking redress by force. When they got tired of fighting they invite an influential man to mediate between the two sides. However, collective action takes place in war or in maintenance of peace. The community members support the leaders in war and feud. This could be for protection of territory or could be for taking on revenge in case of murder of fellow members. While in more complex state societies, the guilty is punished by appropriate court of law or well developed judiciary system. In stateless societies there are no obvious political institutions like that in state. A leader is an institution in these societies. He also possesses ritual power. Appropriate quantum of punishment is decided by the leader. He maintains peace in the community. A leader resolves the disputes between community members both within and outside. In addition, the protection of territory or resolving territorial disputes is significant part of the decision making authority. Allocation and distribution of resources takes place with appropriate leadership. Both state and stateless societies protect social norms 53 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
and values. Factors like religion, wealth and other socio-economic factors are closely interconnected with and determine political behaviour in stateless societies. In stateless societies, both kinship and politics are often diffused. 2.3.2 Politics in Society The spectre of an insurgency haunts political science. Under the leadership of a “Mr. Perestroika,” a wide group of political scientists has abandoned the project of a scientific discipline.1 it would be convenient to write off this quasi-coordinated attack on the scientific turn in the study of society, calling its proponents Luddites. Indeed, their abhorrence of all things mathematical—and their typical but useless conflation of statistical and formal reasoning—reveals a fear of the modern. It would be equally convenient to write off this attack due to lack of any manifesto offering an alternative view of the discipline. Mostly we hear a desire for pluralism rather than a defines of best practices. But I think it would be prudent to respond, to defend what may well be a Sisyphean project in seeking a science of social life. While there is no intellectual manifesto that lays down the gauntlet, a recently published book by Bent Fryberg captures many of the core themes in Mr. Perestroika’s insurgency.2 And thus this book offers an intellectual target for those who wish to confront the perestroika challenge intellectually.3 For in this clever, succinct, and readable book, Fryberg portrays the quest for a social science as quixotic at best and self-defeating at worst. The social world, he argues, is sufficiently different from the natural world that any hopes for a Galilean conquest over the unknown in social science will forever remain unrealized.4 Social scientists, in order to sidestep the scorn that is regularly heaped on them by natural scientists who recognize the scientific limits to the study of humans, should cultivate their own turf by making reasonable judgments about the social world, based on a realistic view of power and sensitivity as to how that power is exerted. Relying on Aristotle’s categorization, Fryberg dubs this methodology phronesis. Social scientists can succeed doing phronesis, Fryberg confidently asserts, because we write and read careful case studies that provide to us an expert’s feel for how, in a particular context, our political interventions can bring social betterment. This is a viewpoint to be taken seriously. Fryberg has conducted well-conceived fieldwork in Denmark and has long been an astute commentator on urban planning and popular participation in social planning. Furthermore, Making Social Science Matter has received excellent notices from some of the leading social scientists in the world, including Clifford Geertz, Steven Luke’s, and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, the arguments in the book resonate with parallel points articulated by political science perestroika’s, who have yet to be seriously confronted with intellectual arguments. My response to Fryberg and the challenge he presents to the scientific aspirations of many political scientists proceeds in stages. First, I challenge Fryberg’s stylized facts purportedly showing the failure of what he calls “epistemic” social science. Since Fryberg presents these facts to motivate his study, it is important to establish that the premise of the book— constructed from these stylized facts— stands on weak foundations. Second, I challenge 54 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Fryberg’s portrayals of both context and science. It is important to challenge these views because Flyover argues that the irreducibility of social context makes a predictive science of the social impossible. I can then show that Fryberg’s claims for the greater intellectual payoff for phronesis, because of his mistaken views on context and science, need to be radically circumscribed. Third, I discuss phronesis at work, first in a discussion of Fryberg’s use of that method in his field research on urban planning in Aalborg, Denmark, and then in a discussion of the work by Stanley Tambiah on ethnic war in Sri Lanka. In both cases, I argue, the work would have much greater scientific value if placed within what I have dubbed the tripartite method of comparative research—a method that integrates narrative, statistics, and formal modeling.5 Fourth, I discuss the contributions that phronesis makes in scientific explanation, showing why it has equal stature to statistics and formal modelling in the tripartite method. Finally, in the conclusion, and in defence of the tripartite method as a standard, I discuss the limits of methodological pluralism Flyvbjerg introduces his brief with three examples. Astonishingly, they all work to undermine his entire argument. The opening example is that of the now infamous contribution by NYU physicist Alan Sokal to the journal Social Text. Sokol’s “contribution” was a hoax. He purposefully submitted what he conceived of as postmodern gobbledygook. Yet it sailed through Social Text’s peer review as a serious critique of science. Flyvbjerg offers this example, and the controversy that occurred in the wake of Sokol’s publication, as inter alia an “exposé of... social science.” But why, the reader might ask, would social science get implicated in this scandal? Social Text has no pretensions to science. More important, in large part because of a cult of science in leading social science journals such as American Political Science Review, Econometrical, and American Journal of Sociology, it is doubtful that a physicist could get an article of that sort past peer reviewers. Reviewers would want to assure themselves that the data set was available and subject to review, the theory was clearly articulated, and the findings were linked closely to theory and data. Sokal chose Social Text precisely because members of its editorial board had ridiculed the notion of scientific objectivity. The second example, immediately on the heels of the presentation of the Sokal hoax, concerns the study of human sexual practices conducted by scholars working at the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC). Flyvbjerg delights in quoting The Economist’s humorous put down of this study (and later on he uses an equally clever one-liner from The Economist to write off the entire profession of economics). Flyvbjerg also cites a more serious attack on the statistical methods employed in this study, written by a population geneticist, and a rather limp defence of those methods by the authors in response. This is evidence for Flyvbjerg that natural scientists hold social scientists in contempt. Social scientists, he concludes, should not even try to imitate the scientific method with fancy statistics and impressive regressions. Rather, if they sang a tune that they in fact could hold, they would no longer have opprobrium heaped on them by their natural science colleagues 55 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
His inference is wrong on a second count. The book appeared when the AIDS epidemic was first spreading. Many in the press were reporting linear and ghastly projections of the spread of the disease based on briefings from medical professionals. The NORC team, relying on its scientific finding that there are in America, especially among homosexuals, closed networks of sexual practice, predicted that the growth curve would flatten, and the disease would continue to eat away within segmented sexual communities. The NORC researchers could not offer a precise prediction of how many would incur AIDS, but their research on sexual practice entailed an observable implication, which turned out to be true. This does not prove their methods to be impeccable. Indeed, one could well point to the methodological problem not only in the NORC study but also in the entire genre of studies that postulate causal sequences from cross-sectional survey data. But the NORC team’s correct analysis that AIDS would not spread generally through the American population adds confidence that they were accurately portraying American sexual networks. In sum, Fryberg’s use of the NORC example as evidence that natural scientists hold in ridicule all forms of scientific activity in the study of the social world is unconvincing. Fryberg’s third example, a study of human learning conducted by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, serves as a leitmotif for the entire book. The Dreyfuss conducted an experiment in which subjects were asked to observe videotapes and then evaluate the competence of paramedics, made up of one expert and five novices who were all engaged in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to victims of heart failure. The experimental subjects included people with three levels of expertise: experienced paramedics, students learning to become paramedics, and life-saving instructors. The experimental results showed that experienced paramedics, but not the other two sets of observers, could consistently and correctly pick out the expert practitioner of CPR. Those subjects who are novices, or so Fryberg’s preferred interpretation goes, were attuned to the question of who was best following the rules of CPR; meanwhile, the expert subjects were less interested in the rules. They were looking for the single practitioner who had an eye for context and knew which rules could be waived to save the largest number of victims. One of the study’s authors (Stuart Dreyfus) offered the following insight to make sense of the finding. He was a mathematician and a chess aficionado. For a long time, he believed that if he could solve all the necessary algorithms, he would become a master. To his chagrin, mathematical logic took him only so far. Those with an expert’s “feel” for the chessboard were able to defeat him, and very often these people had no education in higher mathematics. Only those with a feel for the chessboard (often honed by playing “fast chess” rather than studying algorithms), Stuart Dreyfus observed, could become masters. The lesson for social science that Flyvbjerg draws from the experiment and from of the chess anecdote is that in the complex world of human beings, no algorithm will correctly predict action; rather an expert’s feel for the context will bring a better grasp of what is likely to occur. Only experts who have worked and lived in the social world (in the same way as chess players having developed skills through practice) will be able to know how best, in the experimental case, to choose a paramedic if they were in need of one. One could criticize the chess analogy by 56 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
pointing out that it is increasingly dated, as supercomputers are becoming chess masters with rule-based algorithms. But there are two far more disconcerting things about the use of the Dreyfus’s study as a justification for phronesis. First, there is another interpretation of this study, never considered, that undermines the thesis of the book. From what was presented the Dreyfus’s used a rather standard scientific procedure common in experimental psychology to make a discovery concerning human cognition. The experimenters learned from their controlled environment (certainly not a case study!) that there are different levels of competence in the human learning process, with implications on what it entails to become an expert. This seems to me to be an advertisement for the scientific method in gaining new psychological knowledge rather than an invitation to jump the scientific ship. Second, there is overwhelming support in controlled experiments that statistical models outperform expert clinical intuitions in diagnosing human disease. Here is a case where natural scientists would put Flyvbjerg up for ridicule for not examining whether a finding he liked was sufficiently robust to work in other experimental settings. In sum, looking at the Sokal example, the NORC sex study, and the Dreyfus’s study as compelling reasons to abjure the scientific method in social science, Fryberg’s attempt to create a sense of scientific failure through the use of telling examples is manifestly unsuccessful. 2.4 ECONOMIC Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses the economy as a system where production, consumption, saving, and investment interact, and factors affecting it: employment of the resources of labour, capital, and land, currency inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. Other broad distinctions within economics include those between positive economics, describing \"what is\", and normative economics, advocating \"what ought to be\"; between economic theory and applied economics; between rational and behavioural economics; and between mainstream economics and heterodox economics. Economic writings date from earlier Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman, Indian subcontinent, Chinese, Persian, and Arab civilizations. Economic precepts occur throughout the writings of the Boeotian poet Hesiod and several economic historians have described Hesiod himself as the \"first economist”. Other notable writers from Antiquity through to the Renaissance include Aristotle, Xenophon, Chanakya, Qin Shi Huang, Thomas Aquinas, and Ibn Khaldun. Joseph Schumpeter described Aquinas as \"coming nearer than any other group to being the \"founders' of scientific economics\" as to monetary, interest, and value theory within a natural-law perspective. Two groups, who later were called \"mercantilists\" and \"physiocrats\", more directly influenced the subsequent development of the subject. Both groups were 57 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
associated with the rise of economic nationalism and modern capitalism in Europe. Mercantilism was an economic doctrine that flourished from the 16th to 18th century in a prolific pamphlet literature, whether of merchants or statesmen. It held that a nation's wealth depended on its accumulation of gold and silver. Nations without access to mines could obtain gold and silver from trade only by selling goods abroad and restricting imports other than of gold and silver. The doctrine called for importing cheap raw materials to be used in manufacturing goods, which could be exported, and for state regulation to impose protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods and prohibit manufacturing in the colonies. Physiocrats, a group of 18th-century French thinkers and writers, developed the idea of the economy as a circular flow of income and output. Physiocrats believed that only agricultural production generated a clear surplus over cost, so that agriculture was the basis of all wealth. Thus, they opposed the mercantilist policy of promoting manufacturing and trade at the expense of agriculture, including import tariffs. Physiocrats advocated replacing administratively costly tax collections with a single tax on income of land owners. In reaction against copious mercantilist trade regulations, the physiocrats advocated a policy of laissez- faire, which called for minimal government intervention in the economy. Adam Smith was an early economic theorist. Smith was harshly critical of the mercantilists but described the physiocratic system \"with all its imperfections\" as \"perhaps the purest approximation to the truth that has yet been published\" on the subject. 2.4.1 Education Education, in the present day context, is perhaps the single most important means for individuals to improve personal endowments, build capability levels, overcome constraints and in the process, enlarge their available set of opportunities and choices for a sustained improvement in wellbeing. It is not only a means to enhance human capital, productivity and, hence, the compensation to labour, but it is equally important for enabling the process of acquisition, assimilation and communication of information and knowledge, all of which augments a person's quality of life. Education is important not merely as means to other ends, but it is an attribute that is valued in itself, by most individuals. More importantly, it is a critical invasive instrument for bringing about social, economic and political inclusion and a durable integration of people, particularly those 'excluded', from the mainstream of any society. The process of education and attainments thereof has an impact on all aspects of life. It captures capability of acquiring knowledge, communication, and participation in community life. It alters an individual's and even community's collective perceptions, aspirations, goals as well as the ability and the means to attain them. The level and spread of education has not only been an important precondition for sustained economic growth, both in the developed and the developing countries, but it has also played a critical facilitative role in the demographic, social and political transition of these societies. Creation, application and adaptation of new technologies, lower fertility, infant and child mortality rates, better nutritional, hygiene and health status of children, reproductive health and empowerment of 58 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
women, social mobility and political freedom, all have visible linkages with educational attainments of people. It is, undoubtedly, a basic component of human development. Improvements in educational attainments have invariably been accompanied by improvement in health and longevity of the population and in their economic well - being. Educated people are likely to be more productive and hence better off. They are also likely to contribute more to a country's economic growth. At the same time, education reinforces the socio-economic dynamics of a society towards equality in attainments and opportunities for its people. Though, the returns to education may vary across individuals, regions, level and nature of education, in general, they are significantly higher for poor developing areas than for the rich. Education is therefore, the best social investment, given the synergies and the positive externalities that it generates for people in their well-being. It is also a priority for countries seeking to develop and sustain their level and pace of development. 2.4.2 Market economy The triumph of the market system over the planned economy was probably the defining economic event of our lifetime, its symbol the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the advanced economies of the West, increased government intervention, more or less unchecked through the twentieth century, was halted in 1980 by the ideologically conservative governments of Reagan and Thatcher. Their policy innovations were widely if often reluctantly imitated elsewhere. In Asia, China and India followed some of their smaller neighbours into the market economy and the global trading system. These developments provoked the hubris famously framed as The End of History by Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama argued that a combination of liberal democracy and lightly regulated capitalism was now an inevitable form of political and economic organisation. If one country was the standard bearer for that new vision of the twenty-first century, it was the United States: if one industry was the standard bearer for that new view of business, it was the financial services industry. Today, Fukuyama’s assertion lacks conviction. If there were defining events in that revisionism, analogous to the breaching of the Berlin Wall, this would be – for politics – the collapse of the Twin Towers and its bungled consequences, and for economics the bankruptcy of Lehman seven years later. There is, evidently, no end of history – as, indeed, Fukuyama today readily acknowledges. It is time for a more nuanced view of the nature of markets and the merits of the market economy. The critique of the market economy today is, as it has been since the end of socialism, largely incoherent – an incoherence nicely captured in the demonstrator’s slogan ‘capitalism should be replaced by something nicer’. But the defence of the market economy is often little more coherent. Supporters often do no more than point at the wealth of countries that have adopted the market economy – and to their own personal wealth. That isn’t necessarily a bad argument. But it looks tarnished today. When those people who are the largest beneficiaries in terms of their own personal wealth have done substantial damage to the wealth of other people, that argument becomes more difficult to sustain. I am going to argue that there are three elements to the triumph of the 59 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
market economy. The first I will describe under the heading of ‘prices as signals’, the price mechanism is generally a better guide to resource allocation than central planning. The second element is ‘markets as a process of discovery’ – the chaotic process of experimentation through which a market economy adapts to change. The third heading is ‘diffusion of political and economic power’. The economic point here is that prosperity and growth require that entrepreneurial energy should be focussed on the creation of wealth, rather than the appropriation of the wealth of other people. In what we teach, in what we say, in our economic research and most importantly in the policies we adopt – we put too much emphasis on the first of these elements – prices as signals to guide resource allocation – at the expense of the, possibly more important, second and third elements – markets as process of discovery, markets as mechanism for the diffusion of political and economic power. The result is that both supporters and critics of the market economy have often confused policies that are pro-business with policies that are pro-market. That confusion has both undermined the social and political legitimacy of the market economy, and led to serious policy errors that follow from a mistaken, or at least incomplete, understanding of how a market economy works. 2.4.3 Control economy For more than fifty years, methods which were originally created by control engineers and later fully developed by control theorists and applied mathematicians have been used to extend the theory of economic policy and its applications. Control theory can be regarded as a collection of methods to be used by economists, like statistics or some other fields of applied mathematics. A great number of economic applications of control theory relate to theoretical issues, such as growth theory, the theory of exhaustible resources, intergenerational allocation problems, etc. This work has greatly enhanced economists’ insights into a variety of problems of economic theory, but it is not immediately helpful for real applications to practical problems of economic policy. On the other hand, for short-term stabilization policy problems there is a long tradition of and experience in applying numerical economic models, and in this field control theory applications have proved to be of direct practical relevance. By stabilization policy we mean economic policy with a short time horizon (up to five years) that aims to influence macroeconomic variables such as output, (un-)employment and the price level (inflation), etc., in other words policy that is directed towards goals relevant for an entire economy. Although control theory can be applied to other fields of economic policy (and to more general economic problems) as well, we will concentrate on applications to problems of stabilization policy in this paper. The first attempt to analyse economic policy problems from the point of view of a control theorist and electrical engineer was by Tustin. He proposed starting with analogies between economic models and technical systems, tentatively applying the theory of automatic regulation. Such analogies can clearly be seen by drawing schemes of dependence for 60 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
aggregate quantities, that is, by representing macroeconomic models with block diagrams as is usual in electrical circuit theory and in other applications of closed-loop control systems. In this way, Tustin investigated several macroeconomic models; notions like feedback or the stability of closed-loop systems and methods like harmonic analysis and transfer functions, among others, were applied to these simple models. Although all these methods had widespread applications in the physical sciences and in engineering, the possibility of applying them to problems of economic policy remained rather limited. The tendency of Tustin’s work was continued only in models by A. W. Phillips, who became more famous for inventing the Phillips curve. A recent evaluation of Phillips’s work, including his biography as an engineer-turned-economist, together with some of his previously unpublished papers can be found in Leeson. The reason why only relatively little work was done on directly applying traditional methods of electrical engineering to economics may be found in the fact that the conditions of system construction differ between economists and engineers. In engineering, as in economics, the goal of achieving a stable system is attained by modifying the workings of the system, which consists either in changing the dependences within the system or adding further dependences for the purpose of stabilization. The differences arise when performing this task: while the engineer can typically modify his experimental design if he is not satisfied with its result, the economist cannot usually exert influence on the internal relations of the system. In some cases, however, the assumption is also justified that the economist as a planner or politician has some possibilities at hand to modify even the internal relations of the system. More specifically, with respect to the problem of time lags examined by Phillips, it is possible to influence (and especially to shorten) the information lag by changing the communication structure of the planning system, to affect the decision lag by changing the process of making decisions, and to influence the execution lag by changing the political infrastructure. These and similar measures can exert direct influence on the behaviour of the system, not only on the time structure but on system relations in general; likewise, political measures with a longer time perspective may have such an effect. For the engineer, however, the question of how to change his experimental design in order to improve his results is not as important and not as complex as the corresponding question for the economist who asks how and by what means he can influence the reactions of the system to achieve an improvement. It was probably for this reason that the methods of engineers in this field did not prove fruitful for economic problems. The other possibility of arriving at stable behaviour for a system, namely by adding further supplementary feedback loops to the system, was the only one which was developed systematically by engineers and economists alike. In the models of Phillips, this means adding government expenditures to the national income identity; these government expenditures can then take arbitrary values according to the politician’s target to limit oscillations in national income. But this is also something that belongs to the class of 61 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
problems relating to the “design” of a control system: by that term, engineers mean questions that are related to the planning and setting up of an experiment which is to have certain desired properties (in our case, stability). As an interpretation of the Phillips model, this question was generally not regarded as a problem of synthesis, but instead in the sense of an input-output scheme with a black-box structure. But this is only possible because the Phillips model, by adding the term for government expenditures to the national income identity, has become an open system, precisely because it has received an input possibility for an exogenous control variable. This addition of government expenditures may be interpreted in economic terms as the “instalment of stabilization policy” or the “abandonment of a laissez- faire attitude”, as a change in the structure which makes the previously closed system (with government expenditures being one of several components of national income) an open one – this in fact can be regarded as analogue to the formal manipulation of an engineer adding a supplementary feedback loop. Thus increased stability of the system in the last resort can be said to be achieved only by manipulating the structure of the system, not by merely introducing quantitative changes of inputs. 2.5 CULTURAL A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behaviour, dress, language, and demeanour in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valour is counted a typical behaviour for an individual and duty, honour, and loyalty to the social group are counted as virtues or functional responses in the continuum of conflict. In the practice of religion, analogous attributes can be identified in a social group. Culture is considered a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies. Cultural universals are found in all human societies. These include expressive forms like art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing. The concept of material culture covers the physical expressions of culture, such as technology, architecture and art, whereas the immaterial aspects of culture such as principles of social organization. In the humanities, one sense of culture as an attribute of the individual has been the degree to which they have cultivated a particular level of sophistication in the arts, sciences, education, or manners. The level of cultural sophistication has also sometimes been used to distinguish civilizations from less complex societies. Such hierarchical perspectives on culture are also found in class-based distinctions between a high culture of the social elite and a low culture, popular culture, or folk culture of the lower classes, distinguished by the stratified access to cultural capital. In common parlance, culture is often used to refer specifically to the 62 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
symbolic markers used by ethnic groups to distinguish themselves visibly from each other such as body modification, clothing or jewellery. Mass culture refers to the mass-produced and mass mediated forms of consumer culture that emerged in the 20th century. Some schools of philosophy, such as Marxism and critical theory, have argued that culture is often used politically as a tool of the elites to manipulate the proletariat and create a false consciousness. Such perspectives are common in the discipline of cultural studies. In the wider social sciences, the theoretical perspective of cultural materialism holds that human symbolic culture arises from the material conditions of human life, as humans create the conditions for physical survival, and that the basis of culture is found in evolved biological dispositions. When used as a count noun, a \"culture\" is the set of customs, traditions, and values of a society or community, such as an ethnic group or nation. Culture is the set of knowledge acquired over time. In this sense, multiculturalism values the peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between different cultures inhabiting the same planet. Sometimes \"culture\" is also used to describe specific practices within a subgroup of a society, a subculture (e.g. \"bro culture\"), or a counterculture. Within cultural anthropology, the ideology and analytical stance of cultural relativism hold that cultures cannot easily be objectively ranked or evaluated because any evaluation is necessarily situated within the value system of a given culture. The modern term \"culture\" is based on a term used by the ancient Roman orator Cicero in his Truculence Disputationes, where he wrote of a cultivation of the soul or \"culture animi,\" using an agricultural metaphor for the development of a philosophical soul, understood teleologically as the highest possible ideal for human development. Samuel Pufendorf took over this metaphor in a modern context, meaning something similar, but no longer assuming that philosophy was man's natural perfection. His use, and that of many writers after him, \"refers to all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism, and through artifice, become fully human.\" In 1986, philosopher Edward S. Casey wrote, \"The very word culture meant 'place tilled' in Middle English, and the same word goes back to Latin colere, 'to inhabit, care for, till, worship' and cultus, 'A cult, especially a religious one.' To be cultural, to have a culture, is to inhabit a place sufficiently intensely to cultivate it—to be responsible for it, to respond to it, to attend to it caringly. 2.5.1 Religion \"Faith\" is nearly impossible to define. It means something different to each individual. Faith is understood to be intensely personal and often seen as extremely private. \"The term 'faith' ranges in meaning from a general religious attitude on the one hand to personal acceptance of a specific set of beliefs on the other hand\". Yet faith is still superimposed on the lives of our students. Though most often seen in religious terms, faith remains an \"extraordinarily 63 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
important construct\". Despite the mandate from the Student Personnel Point of View to develop the whole person as part of the student affairs profession, a relative silence has permeated the faith dimension of student development. Even with the advent of Fowler's faith development theory, it has taken until well into the 1990s for student development researchers to begin investigating faith development of college students. Within the past few years, however, researchers have called on our profession to begin focusing on this dimension of students' development. With this call comes the responsibility to make clear distinctions as to the specific focus of our inquiry. The terms faith, spirituality, and religion frequently appear either side by side or are even used synonymously for one another. In fact, the focus of this special issue uses all three terms in the title, including all three as equal parts. While there is merit to including all three terms for investigating issues and areas of students' development, a distinction should also be made when discussing these three important and interrelated concepts. In this issue alone, we discuss religion, spirituality, and faith, and the developmental issues involved with each. Yet, when we discuss one, are we really talking about another? Where is the overlap of one to the other? Or are we really lumping all three into the same construct? Both Fowler and Parks have offered a fairly comprehensive notion of the term faith. Other researchers have taken their ideas and placed them in the context of student development. Both Love and Nash discuss the differences between religion and spirituality. While Love suggests that religion and spirituality overlap, he does not delve further as to why or how. Nash makes the distinction by saying that spirituality is an inward expression, while religion is an outward expression of faith. While both Love and Nash attempt to define the terms, I feel there is more to understanding these important differences. First, I will discuss the three concepts of faith, spirituality, and religion. Then, I will propose a model for understanding the nuanced differences among them. As a part of sociological research, faith development has been virtually absent until the last 10 years. In fact, according to Hiebert, faith development as a citation was not present in Sociofile, the computer index of sociological journal articles, until the middle of 1989. Interestingly, faith - defined as a general religious attitude or accepted set of personal beliefs - was not present in the ancient worlds of Greek and Roman culture. Rather, the concept of faith singularly and directly originates in the Hebrew Scriptures. Hell wig traces the notion of faith through the New Testament, the Church Fathers, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and into the Modern Era. Faith has been a part of religion, and explored by scholars from numerous disciplines. However, as Hiebert points out, Fowler departs from these conventional notions of faith and \"equates faith with individual meaning systems “Fowler describes the most generic and most profound process of being human, the process of meaning-making, as faith. Faith, in his conception, is therefore often but not necessarily religious\". 64 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
In fact, Fowler spends the entirety of Part I of his foundational work Stages of Faith describing what faith is. He takes enormous care to point out the differences among faith, religion, and belief. Additionally, he discusses faith and relationship, and faith and imagination. Specifically, he stresses the concept of \"radical monotheism.\" Although monotheism is traditionally held to be the \"doctrine or belief that there is only one God,\" as in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, he broadens the concept to be a relation \"in which a person or group focuses its supreme trust and loyalty in a transcendent centre of value and power, that is neither a conscious or unconscious extension of personal or group ego nor a finite cause or institution\". This implies a singular loyalty to the \"principle of being and to the source and centre of all value and power'. In addition to being universal, faith is relational, implying the trust of one upon another. Faith is also seeing and knowing. \"Knowing occurs when an active knower interacts with an active world of persons and objects, meeting its unshaped or unorganized stimuli with the ordering, organizing power of the knower's mind\". Another important concept to understand is Fowler's concept of faith and imagination, specifically what he calls the \"ultimate environment\". The ultimate environment is the means by which we find order and shape our actions based on what we see going on around us. As imagination, faith forms a comprehensive unit of what we see in our ordered world and deposits value and power in it with regard to self, others, and world. Symbols and metaphors can bring the shared images of an ultimate environment together as expression. Often unconscious or tacit within a community, the ultimate environment poses a tremendous influence in a person's response to life. Fowler adds that faith exhibits the qualities of a mystery, rather than a problem. \"Faith ... is perplexing, because we are internal to it\". '''Objectivity' about faith inevitably involves our 'subjectivity.' While I have tried at various points to pull definitions of faith together, I have never sought to oversysternatize it into a manageable concept,\" Fowler writes. Tam concludes that \"any attempt to reduce Fowler's understanding of faith to any simple definition is in fact doing injustice to his theory\" 2.5.2 Types of religious practices What does it mean to serve God, according to Islam? The answer is as manifold as the Muslim population as the earlier passages have already shown. Allah may have given his revelation but there exists a large degree of diversity and disagreement among the Muslim population as to how to fulfil their purpose as God's agents on earth. The Quran, the Tradition and the corresponding jurisprudence are the guide to God, but there are many routes to the mountain summit. Although following Islam should be its own reward, the devout Muslim believes that those who live according to God's design will find happiness, wealth and success, in addition to being respected members of their community for living a morally righteous life. In turn they will be blessed by God either in this life or the next and they shall be a source of comfort, blessing and pride to those who know them. Other verses connect Islam and religion1 and describe Islam as a religion of action, a way of life that is more than a profession of faith. This lends itself to the orthodox belief in the normativity of what are often 65 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
described as the five pillars of Islam. Traditionally it is held within the orthodox communities these five acts are what make a Muslim a Muslim. The Pillars of Islam are the five basic acts of Islam and considered obligatory for all believers. They are presented in the Quran as a basis for worship and a sign of commitment to Islam. They are the Shahadah (creed), daily prayers (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting during Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime. The Shia and Sunni sects both agree that these are the essential per formative acts. 2.6 SUMMARY In fact, people can be spiritual or religious and still have a faith that is not reflected upon. Or, alternatively, the meaning-making system in their own lives may be tacit to the point that acts of spirituality or religion far outpace their ability to articulate their faith. For example, one might say, \"I may not be religious, but I'm still a good person.\" Thus, he or she has not examined his or her own meaning-making system to understand why he or she is good. In my study of the faith journey of 12 students during their first year of college, the students talked about how they had \"grown spiritually\" or described instances of \"religious experiences.\" As stated, though not synonymous with faith, these elements serve as indicators of how student respondents were doing and being in their faith, and thus how they made meaning. Religion and spirituality are indicators of faith. This model allows the freedom to discuss the three terms interchangeably while giving a context for them. With faith as a foundation, spirituality and religion can be seen as by-products, those things or ways of life which allow an individual to live out his or her faith. Further, while faith is grounded within an individual, spirituality and religion are dynamic. They have motion. In other words, there is not a threshold that one can or should attain with either one. Rather, individuals ebb and flow along the \"spirituality\" and/or \"religion\" continuums. At certain times in life, one may be more spiritual and perhaps not as religious. At other times, it could be the opposite: one is more religious, yet not as spiritual. However, both essences can feed and assist the other in developing. For instance, acts of religion can assist a person to become more spiritual, and vice versa, acts of spirituality may lead to religiosity. Additionally, the arrows symbolizing \"spirituality\" and \"religion\" can take a direction that may plot them to be closer together and heading in the same direction. Or, conversely, the two may be moving in different directions. For instance, one's religious acts may not complement or enhance one's spirituality. Thus, the arrows would be heading in a much wider direction than one whose spirituality and religion both serve to edify the other. The simplicity of the model allows one to massage and 66 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
manoeuvre those things both tacit and explicit that allow one to develop in faith. One can begin to see the distinctiveness, yet interconnectedness of the three terms. With this model as a guiding basis for the distinction between the terms, we can begin to investigate the subtle nuances all three derive. For instance, when we discuss spiritual development are we looking at those issues that allow our growth in the realm of being in faith? Or, are we still talking about issues that focus on the meaning making systems? If it is the latter, then we should refer to it as faith development rather than as spiritual development. This model can also serve as a basis for further study. How does one exercise faith in light of this model? What makes a person more religious? More spiritual? Are there certain experiences within one's faith development that make him or her more or less spiritual or religious? Do greater acts of religiosity or spirituality actually trigger faith development as student affairs professionals, how do we encourage or mentor the spiritual and/or religious sides of faith development? Further, the spirituality and religion sides of the model are fluid and dynamic. At some point, a numerical scale could be assigned to certain points along each continuum, which could allow for empirical research. With such a scale, researchers could study individuals at varying stages along each scale. What cognitive, psychosocial, and typological elements are present in individuals who are more spiritual or more religious or those individuals at any point along the continuums in relation to the three terms? Moreover, if faith is foundational, how do we investigate those issues for individuals who say they are spiritual or may be religious, yet have not reflected upon their personal faith? How do we uncover the meaning-making systems that lead to spiritual growth? How do we provide the avenues for questioning, examining, pause, and reflection necessary to critically examined faith? Cultures are externally affected via contact between societies, which may also produce—or inhibit—social shifts and changes in cultural practices. War or competition over resources may impact technological development or social dynamics. Additionally, cultural ideas may transfer from one society to another, through diffusion or acculturation. In diffusion, the form of something moves from one culture to another. For example, Western restaurant chains and culinary brands sparked curiosity and fascination to the Chinese as China opened its economy to international trade in the late 20th-century. \"Stimulus diffusion\" refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention or propagation in another. \"Direct borrowing,\" on the other hand, tends to refer to technological or tangible diffusion from one culture to another. Diffusion of innovations theory presents a research-based model of why and when individuals and cultures adopt new ideas, practices, and products. 67 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Acculturation has different meanings. Still, in this context, it refers to the replacement of traits of one culture with another, such as what happened to certain Native American tribes and many indigenous peoples across the globe during the process of colonization. Related processes on an individual level include assimilation and transculturation. The transnational flow of culture has played a major role in merging different cultures and sharing thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. In the United Kingdom, sociologists and other scholars influenced by Marxism such as Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams developed cultural studies. Following nineteenth-century Romantics, they identified \"culture\" with consumption goods and leisure activities. They saw patterns of consumption and leisure as determined by relations of production, which led them to focus on class relations and the organization of production. In the United Kingdom, cultural studies focuses largely on the study of popular culture; that is, on the social meanings of mass-produced consumer and leisure goods. Richard Hoggard coined the term in 1964 when he founded the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies or CCCS. It has since become strongly associated with Stuart Hall, who succeeded Hoggard as Director. Cultural studies in this sense, then, can be viewed as a limited concentration scoped on the intricacies of consumerism, which belongs to a wider culture sometimes referred to as \"Western civilization\" or \"globalism.\" 2.7 KEYWORDS Anomie - According to strain theory, the feeling of being disconnected from society that can occur when people aren’t provided with the institutionalized means to achieve their goals. The term was coined by Émile Durkheim. Assimilation - The process whereby members of a group give up parts of their own culture in order to blend in to a new culture. Body Language- The ways in which we use our bodies consciously and unconsciously to communicate. Bourgeoisie - Karl Marx’s term for the owners of the means of production—factories, businesses, and equipment needed to produce wealth. Bureaucracy - According to Weber, a type of formal organization in which a rational approach is used for the handling of large tasks. 2.8 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Create a session on concept of Political. 68 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Create a survey on concept of Economic. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2.9 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What is Family? 2. What is term Marriage? 3. Describe about Kinship? 4. Define the term Education? 5. Write the meaning ofMarket economy? Long Questions 1. Explain the concept of Control economy. 2. Discuss the concept of Religion. 3. Examine the types of religious practices. 4. Describe the features of Marriage. 5. Illustrate the concept of Political. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Where was Irawati Karve born? a. Germany b. England c. Britain d. Burma 2. When Comte was born? 69 a. 1722 b. 1760 c. 1798 d. 1792 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3. Where was Comte born? a. Epinal b. Renish c. Trier d. Montpellier 4. What is the meaning of the term socious in the word sociology? a. Companion b. Collection c. Herd d. Consensus 5. What is the term logos derived from which language? a. American b. Roman c. Greek d. Latin Answers 1-d, 2-c, 3-d, 4-a, 5-c 2.10 REFERENCES References book Guralnik, D. B. (Ed.). (1984). Webster's new world dictionary of the American language. New York: Simon & Schuster. Hell wig, M. K. (1990). A history of the concept of faith. In]. M. Lee (Ed.), Handbook of faith (pp. 3-23). Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press. Hiebert, D. W. (1993). Schools of faith: The effect of liberal arts, professional, and religious education on faith development. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Manitoba, Canada. Textbook references Hiebert, D. W. (1992). The sociology of Fowler's faith development theory. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 21, 321-335. 70 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Lee,]. M. (Ed.), (1990). Handbook of faith. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press. Love, P. G. (2001). Spirituality and student development: Theoretical connections. In M. A. Jablonski (Ed.), the implications of student spirituality for student affairs practice. New Directions for Student Services, no. 95. (pp. 7-16). San j Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Website https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ956981.pdf file:///C:/Users/Sony/Downloads/EncyclopeadiaEntry-religiouspractice.pdf http://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Publication-The-Market- Economy-Twenty-one-years-after-the-fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall-John-Kay.pdf 71 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT 3 - SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS PART I STRUCTURE 3.0 Learning Objectives 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Marriage 3.2.1 Different forms of marriage 3.3 Definition 3.4 Types 3.5 Rules of Mate Selection 3.5.1 Prescriptive and Preferential Rules 3.6 Changing Trends. 3.7 Summary 3.8 Keywords 3.9 Learning Activity 3.10 Unit End Questions 3.11 References 3.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Describe the Different forms of marriage. Illustrate the concept of Rules of Mate Selection. Explain the Prescriptive and Preferential Rules. 3.1 INTRODUCTION This book began with a discussion about the interaction of the individual and society. We saw that each of us as individuals, occupies a place or location in society. Each one of us has a status and a role or roles, but these are not simply what we as individuals choose. They are not like roles a film actor may or may not opt to do. There are social institutions that constrain and control, punish and reward. They could be ‘macro’ social institutions like the state or ‘micro’ ones like the family. Here in this chapter we are introduced to social institutions, and also to how sociology/social anthropology studies them. This chapter puts 72 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
forth a very brief idea of some of the central areas where important social institutions are located namely: family, marriage and kinship; politics; economics; religion; and education. In the broadest sense, an institution is something that works according to rules established or at least acknowledged by law or by custom. And whose regular and continuous operation cannot be understood without taking those rules into account. Institutions impose constraints on individuals. They also provide him/her with opportunities. An institution can also be viewed as an end in itself. Indeed people have viewed family, religion, state or even education as an end in itself. We have already seen that there are conflicting and different understandings of concepts within sociology. We have also been introduced to the functionalist and conflict perspective, and seen how differently they saw the same thing, for instance, stratification or social control. Not surprisingly, therefore, there are different forms of understanding of social institutions as well. A functionalist view understands social institutions as a complex set of social norms, beliefs, values and role relationship that arise in response to the needs of society. Social institutions exist to satisfy social needs. Accordingly we find informal and formal social institutions in societies. Institutions such as family and religion are examples of informal social institutions while law and education are formal social institutions. A conflict view holds that all individuals are not placed equally in society. All social institutions whether familial, religious, political, economic, legal or educational will operate in the interest of the dominant sections of society be it class, caste, tribe or gender. The dominant social section not only dominates political and economic institutions but also ensures that the ruling class ideas become the ruling ideas of a society. This is very different from the idea that there are general needs of a society. As you go about reading this chapter, see whether you can think of examples to show how social institutions constrain and also offer opportunities to individuals. Notice whether they impact different sections of society unequally. For instance, we could ask, “How does the family constrain as well provide opportunities to men and women?” Or “How do political or legal institutions affect the privileged and dispossessed?” Perhaps no other social entity appears more ‘natural’ than the family. Often we are prone to assume that all families are like the ones we live in. No other social institution appears more universal and unchanging. Sociology and social anthropology have over many decades, conducted field research across cultures to show how the institutions of family, marriage and kinship are important in all societies and yet their character is different in different societies. They have also shown how the family is linked to economic, political, cultural and educational spheres. According to the functionalists the family performs important tasks, which contribute to society’s basic needs and helps perpetuate social order. The functionalist perspective argues that modern industrial societies function best if women look after the family and men earn the family livelihood. In India studies however suggest that families need not become nuclear in an industrial pattern of economy. This is but one example to 73 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
show how trends based on experiences of one society cannot necessarily be generalised. The nuclear family is seen as the unit best equipped to handle the demands of industrial society by the functionalists. In such a family one adult can work outside home while the second adult cares for the home and children. In practical terms, this specialisation of roles within the nuclear family involves the husband adopting the ‘instrumental’ role as breadwinner, and the wife assuming the ‘affective’, emotional role in domestic settings. This vision is questionable not just because it is gender unjust but because empirical studies across cultures and history show that it is untrue. Indeed, as you will see in the discussion on work and economy how in contemporary industries like the garment export, women form a large part of the labour force. Such a separation also suggests that men are necessarily the heads of households. This is not necessarily true as the box which is given below shows Figure 3.1: Family Social scientists are interested in the various aspects of social institutions such as family, religion, economy and politics as they relate to the society. For example, politics is not society, but there is hardly any society in which we do not have politics in one form or the other. Society and politics are closely interrelated, they interact in various ways. Political sociology, a branch of sociology, is concerned mainly with the analysis of the interaction between society and politics. This interaction involves the effect of various social factors, such as kinship, land (territory), religion, value systems, economy, etc., on politics and vice versa. The political system is part of the total social system yet it is distinct, at least analytically, and it affects the rest of the society in several ways. There are two main traditions about the study of politics. The first, the older tradition, restricts politics to the 74 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
state; here there can be no politics except within the state structure and functions. Politics in this sense serves to maintain order in a state. This tradition suggests that we do not have politics in those societies which are stateless or in those smaller organizations, such as churches and student bodies which are part of larger nation-state societies. The second tradition maintains that politics is found in any type of society. Man is a political animal; he seeks power and authority in relation to Control processes in a society. Society needs to be ordered, otherwise, there would be chaos. This need for order and control through politics is not limited to only state societies. Whatever the size or scope of the social unit: stateless societies, churches, trade unions, commercial bodies, kinship groups, etc., there is bound to be politics in one form or the other. This is the case because power and social control processes are vital phenomena in all forms of societies. Politics thus deals with power relations in a social context. There is politics when people who have differential access to power (and authority) relate to one another in a society. The concept of power is relevant in any discussion of politics. We are with Max Weber when we define power as the ability to do things or to act with autonomy according to one’s will. Politics involves the struggle to share or distribute power or the struggle to make authoritative (policy) decisions. In discussing the concept of power, we have in mind the ability to make certain events and things occur. Such ability must involve overcoming resistance from any person or groups of persons and rules. Politics deals with these power relations, which are public, not private, and involve conflicts and confrontations. However, although public, politics affects the private life of members of the society concerned. Politics could be concealed, it could be obvious, and it could involve the use of force or the mere possibility of the use of force. Although politics involves the opposition of groups or persons in the determination or exercise of power, it is also a means for organizing the total society and maintaining its integrity and boundaries. An order is maintained in society because those who exercise power and make rules are obeyed. Usually, political actors and rule-makers are also government functionaries. The government in this sense is not only the control structure but also the rule-making and control process of a society Socio-Political differentiation can be made in two main aspects: the presence or absence of state forms, and role differentiation. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard identified three main forms of socio-political organization. The first consisted of societies with state and government structures, such as the Zulu and Ngwato of South Africa, in which we had “centralized authority, administrative machinery and judicial institutions” with privileges and wealth corresponding to status and power. 3.2 MARRIAGE In Block I, you were introduced to the elements of unity and diversity in Indian social structure. You were told that though certain institutions like family, marriage and kinship are universal in India, there are variations in these institutions based on region, religion, 75 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
language, caste, class and occupation. That is why it is difficult to make generalisation about the institutions of Indian social structure. Keeping this observation in mind unit 6 of this Block introduced you to the various aspects of the institution of family. Secondary marriage of a widow or a separated or divorced woman is accompanied by a nominal ceremony, where there are no or little rites. Similarly, pattern of selection of spouse may differ in a primary and a secondary marriage. In the course of discussion of each of these aspects we shall talk of the changing patterns of marriage with particular reference to the changes that have taken place since Independence. We will discuss each aspect of marriage with suitable illustrations from some of the major communities like the Hindus, the Muslims and the Christians. Except for passing references, patterns of marriage that are found among the tribal population have not been described mainly because there is a separate Block in this Course on tribal population Marriage is an important social institution. It is a relationship, which is socially approved. The relationship is defined and sanctioned by custom and law. The definition of the relationship includes not only guidelines for behaviour relating to sex but also regarding things like the particular way labour is to be divided and other duties and privileges. Children born of marriage are considered the legitimate offspring of the married couple. This legitimacy is important in the matter of inheritance and succession. Thus marriage is not only a means of sexual gratification but also a set of cultural mechanisms to ensure the continuation of the family. It is more or less a universal social institution in India. The religious texts of many communities in India have outlined the purpose, rights and duties involved in marriage. Among the Hindus, for instance, marriage is regarded as a socio- religious duty. Ancient Hindu texts point out three main aims of marriage. These are dharma (duty), praja (progeny) and rati (sensual pleasure). That is to say that marriage is significant from both the societal as well as the individual’s point of view. Marriage is significant in that it provides children especially sons who would not only carry on the family name but also perform periodic rituals including the annual “shraddha” to propitiate the dead ancestors. Majority of the Hindus look upon son(s) as a support in old age to parents and as the most important source of economic enrichment to the family. Marriage, in the Hindu system, enables a man to enter into the stage of a householder. Both a man and a woman are regarded incomplete without marriage. Even among other communities in India, marriage is regarded as an essential obligation. Islam looks upon marriage as “sunnah” (an obligation) which must be fulfilled by every Muslim. Christianity holds marriage as crucial to life and lays emphasis on the establishment of a mutual relationship between husband and wife and on their duty to each other. The significance attached to marriage is reflected in the fact that only a very small percentage of men and women remain unmarried. The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India has indicated that only 0.5 percent of women never marry in India. By and large girls are brought up to believe that marriage is a woman’s destiny; married state is desirable and motherhood is a cherished achievement. Only a very small percentage of men and women remain unmarried by choice. Today, marriage is still considered important and necessary, and only few individuals remain unmarried by choice. Goals of marriage are, 76 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
however, undergoing changes especially for the urban and educated sections of the population. The older notions regarding large size family, (i.e., large number of children especially sons being the source of status for parents) are being replaced by preference for small size family. Marriage for self-fulfilment rather than primarily for procreation or societal welfare is also becoming prevalent. Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock is a culturally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. It is considered a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding. Individuals may marry for several reasons, including legal, social, libidinal, emotional, financial, spiritual, and religious purposes. Whom they marry may be influenced by gender, socially determined rules of incest, prescriptive marriage rules, parental choice, and individual desire. In some areas of the world arranged marriage, child marriage, polygamy, and forced marriage are practiced. In other areas, such practices are outlawed to preserve women's rights or children's rights (both female and male) or as a result of international law. Marriage has historically restricted the rights of women, who are sometimes considered the property of the husband. Around the world, primarily in developed democracies, there has been a general trend towards ensuring equal rights for women within marriage (including abolishing coverture, liberalizing divorce laws, and reforming reproductive and sexual rights) and legally recognizing the marriages of interfaith, interracial, and same-sex couples. Controversies continue regarding the legal status of married women, leniency towards violence within marriage, customs such as dowry and bride price, forced marriage, marriageable age, and criminalization of premarital and extramarital sex. Marriage can be recognized by a state, an organization, a religious authority, a tribal group, a local community, or peers. It is often viewed as a contract. A religious marriage is performed by a religious institution to recognize and create the rights and obligations intrinsic to matrimony in that religion. Religious marriage is known variously as sacramental marriage in Catholicism, nikah in Islam, nissuin in Judaism, and various other names in other faith traditions, each with their own constraints as to what constitutes, and who can enter into, a valid religious marriage. In Islam, polygyny is allowed while polyandry is not, with the specific limitation that a man can have no more than four legal wives at any one time and an unlimited number of female slaves as concubines who may have rights similar wives, with the exception of not being free unless the man has children with them, with the requirement that the man is able and willing to partition his time and wealth equally among the respective wives and concubines (this 77 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
practice of concubinage, as in Judaism, is not applicable in contemporary times and has been deemed by scholars as invalid due to shifts in views about the role of slavery in the world). For a Muslim wedding to take place, the bridegroom and the guardian of the bride (wali) must both agree on the marriage. Should the guardian disagree on the marriage, it may not legally take place. If the wali of the girl is her father or paternal grandfather, he has the right to force her into marriage even against her proclaimed will, if it is her first marriage. A guardian who is allowed to force the bride into marriage is called wali mujbir. From an Islamic law perspective, the minimum requirements and responsibilities in a Muslim marriage are that the groom provide living expenses (housing, clothing, food, maintenance) to the bride, and in return, the bride's main responsibility is raising children to be proper Muslims. All other rights and responsibilities are to be decided between the husband and wife, and may even be included as stipulations in the marriage contract before the marriage actually takes place, so long as they do not go against the minimum requirements of the marriage. In Sunni Islam, marriage must take place in the presence of at least two reliable witnesses, with the consent of the guardian of the bride and the consent of the groom. Following the marriage, the couple may consummate the marriage. To create an 'urf marriage, it is sufficient that a man and a woman indicate an intention to marry each other and recite the requisite words in front of a suitable Muslim. The wedding party usually follows but can be held days, or months later, whenever the couple and their families want to; however, there can be no concealment of the marriage as it is regarded as public notification due to the requirement of witnesses. In Shia Islam, marriage may take place without the presence of witnesses as is often the case in temporary Nikah mut‘ah (prohibited in Sunni Islam), but with the consent of both the bride and the groom. Following the marriage, they may consummate their marriage. Apart from marriage being universal, early marriage is also common in India. Though there are differences between various religious groups, classes and castes in the matter of age at marriage, the median age at marriage is low in India. As early as the 18th and nineteenth century, efforts have been made to curb infant or child marriage. Reformers like Raja Rammohun Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Jyotiba Phule and others in the nineteenth and early twentieth century opposed child marriage. In 1929, the Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed and the minimum age for marriage for girls and boys was fixed at 14 years and 17 years respectively. The Act was made applicable to all Indians. The latest amendment has raised the minimum age for marriage for boys and girls to 18 years and 21 years, respectively. Though the age at marriage of females in India has been rising slowly since around the middle of the twentieth century; the level at the end of the twentieth century was low in comparison to the most of the low fertility countries. 78 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
3.2.1 Different forms of marriage The institution of marriage, quite like that of the family, is universal. There cannot be a family without marriage. Thomas Hylland Eriksen very rightly says that marriage is essential for human survival. Women are important because it is they who procreate children; men do not. Similarly, women cannot procreate without alliance with men. The observations made by Eriksen needs to be quoted here: Seen from the male point of view women are a scarce resource. No matter how male- dominated a society is, men need women to ensure its survival. In matrilineal systems, the men’s sisters do this; in patrilineal societies, their wives do it; or in cognatic or bilateral societies, sisters and wives each do part of the job. A man can have a nearly unlimited number of children everyday while a women’s capacity is limited to one child per year, and moreover, in many societies many children die before they grow up Whatever may be the rituals related to marriage, it remains an alliance. This alliance can be for a lifetime or it may be short-lived. But in all situations there are some alliance, some understanding, and some sharing between those who give their daughter or receive a bride. In Indian society we find several marriage alliances established for several purposes between royal families. In medieval India a treaty was signed or peace was bought by entering into a marriage. The Rajput’s gave their daughters in marriage to the Mughals. Marriage therefore is an exchange of male and female, it is an alliance, a contract. A number of anthropologists have struggled to formulate a definition of marriage that would apply to all human societies. Eriksen has made an attempt to define marriage. He observes: Whether or not persons choose their spouses, marriage is very commonly perceived as a relationship between groups, not primarily between individuals. Eriksen conducts a stock- taking of the ethnographic atlas of world communities and finds that spouses are chosen between groups, clans and communities. It is more a concern of the group and very little of the individuals. His survey shows polyandry occurs only four times. It is a rare kind of marriage. So is the case of polygyny. “Comparatively speaking romantic love is rarely seen as an important precondition for a good marriage. Rather marriage is frequently arranged by kin groups, not by the individual concerned.” Eriksen further argues that the marriage institution almost in all the cases is a concern not of individuals but of groups. If Eriksen is taken seriously, it could safely be said that though marriage binds two individuals, it also binds a large number of kin groups in alliance. We not only accept our daughter-in-law but also accept other marital kins. In Village India, Iravati Karve informs that the daughter-in-law of a family traditionally becomes the daughter-in-law of the whole village. She is obliged to observe purdah when she is at public places. And when son-in-law comes to his wife’s village, the women observe purdah. Thus, marriage in India binds a man not only with the kin of the inlaws, but also with the whole caste and the village. Westermarck is an authority on marriage. His three volume work on the history of marriage is an in-depth study of the subject. It has been abridged in a single volume entitled a short History of Human Marriage. 79 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
He devotes considerable space to Hindu marriage, and it is in this respect his definition of marriage assumes importance. He writes: Marriage is a relation of one or more men and women which is recognized by the custom or law and involves certain rights and duties both in the case of the parties entering the union and in the case of children born of it What is important in Westermarck’s definition is that marriage permits sex relations between husband and wife, and these sex relations are legitimized by the society. It is because of this legitimization that marriage undergoes certain rituals which are performed publicly. Secondly, the objective of marriage is to bear children. The upbringing of children is also the responsibility of a family. From all considerations marriage is an institution which regulates sex relations and condemns promiscuity. Yet another definition of marriage is given by D.N. Majumdar and T.N. Madan in their book An Introduction to Social Anthropology. They write: Marriage ensures a biological satisfaction (that of sex) and a psychological satisfaction (that of having children) on individual plane, and on the wider collective plane, it ensures a two-fold survival, that of the group and its culture. The definition given by Majumdar and Madan stresses the importance of sex, children and survival of the children at large. The meaning of marriage comes close to the concept of marriage propounded by the Hindu Shastras. P.N. Prabhu who dwells elaborately on Hindu social institutions says that marriage among Hindus is for Dharma, Procreation and Rati, (sex). It is the duty of a Hindu to enter into marriage because there is no salvation without marriage. Secondly, a man and woman should bear children and finally it is for sex. Hindu Shastrakaras, however, give precedence to religion over procreation and sex. Figure 3.2: Different forms of Marriage 80 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
All persons normally do not get married. Monogamy appears to be a natural form of marriage. But a person could choose his mate through other forms of marriage also, namely polygyny and polyandry. Anthropologists have widely discussed the forms of marriage. Sometimes, it is termed as acquiring a mate. These forms of marriage are: Monogamy and Polygamy. Polygamy is further divided into Polygyny and Polyandry. Some anthropologists have also found traces of group marriage. But this form of marriage is fast on the way to extinction. We shall discuss the forms of marriage as found in different societies. Under monogamy one man marries one woman. Monogamy seems to be the earliest form of marriage though its evolution has been controversial. Some argues that in the earlier periods of history there was promiscuity followed by matriarchal and patriarchal forms of marriage. But there is also enough evidence to suggest that before the emergence of agriculture, people of subsistence economy had monogamous marriage. If we do not enter into the debate and look at the present popular form of marriage, it could be safely said that all over the world monogamy is the most favourite form of marriage. Even those who practice polygamy- polygyny and polyandry are returning to monogamy. The tribals in India are also abandoning polygyny. The classical Hindu joint family is also getting weak in the present context of globalization. If democracy has become a standard mode of government, monogamy has become a standard form of marriage all over the world. In all cases, it consists of husband, wife and unmarried children. According to Malinowski, “Monogamy has been and will remain the only true type of marriage Figure 3.3: Polygamy Though popularly polygamy is understood to mean marriage with two or more wives, it properly designates marriage of either a man or woman with more than one mate. What is 81 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
commonly reckoned as polygamy is accurately called polygyny, the complementary institution being polyandry. In addition, it must be considered as the union of a group of men with a group of women – a custom known as ‘group marriage’. Polygamy is further divided sub-divided into polygyny and polyandry. Under this system one man has two or more wives at a time. Polygyny is generally called polygamy but strictly speaking the latter is a general term including both polyandry and polygyny. Robert H. Lowie has written authoritatively on primitive society. His book Primitive Society is considered to be the second important work after Morgan’s Ancient Society. While working among tribals, Lowie has found out and recorded several cases of polygyny. Introducing this form of marriage, Lowie observes: Polygyny is one of those dangerous catch-words that required careful scrutiny lest there result a total misunderstanding of the conditions it is meant to characterize. In every human society, the number of male and of female individuals born is approximately equal. Hence, in order to have either polygyny or polyandry as a fairly common practice, it is obviously necessary that some non-biological factor should disturb the natural ratio. Lowie has put his argument in a very logical way. He says that nature has ordained human procreation in such a way that the ratio of males and females in a society remains more or less equal. In such a situation, polygyny and polyandry is not created by nature or due to biological reasons. They are the cultural constructs made by the society. If some people keep more than one wife, some others have to go without a wife. Similarly, if the natural equilibrium of male female ratio is disturbed, there would be two or men to share one wife. Lowie argues that except monogamy, all other forms of marriage are socially and culturally constructed. The question is why polygyny? The answer to this question can be sought with reference to history. In simple food-gathering economies polygyny was rare, though it was permissible. Since the sexes were of equal status it was not often that a woman wanted another wife in her home. Occasionally however, she asked her husband to take another wife, or she acceded to his wish for another. Lowie critically examines the available empirical evidences. He says that the practice of polygyny is found among the Eskimos. Eskimos works as hunters of fish in the Arctic sea. The life of the fishermen is quite risky. This reduces the male population. Thus polygyny became arithmetically possible among them. This form of marriage is also found in many parts of Africa. Considering all the empirical data that are available from the tribal societies, it could be concluded that polygyny is practiced only among the wealthier classes whose male can afford to buy multiple wives. These societies, mostly agricultural were wealthy enough to permit the nobles or monarchs to exceed by far the maximum of five wives found in African tribes. It is said that some of the African monarchs have been reported to have hundreds of wives. The Indian scene is not very different from that of Africa. Here too, tribal groups also practice polygyny. It is a different thing that in the wake of development and modernization polygyny among them is increasingly decreasing. The monarchs or rulers in our country also had bands of wives in 82 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
their palaces. In Hindu mythology, Dasharatha of Ramayana had three wives. The rulers of the princely states also had a rich tradition of polygyny. Very clearly polygyny has been the true idiom of the rich class. It was assumed that polygyny gives status to a man. Today, however, polygyny is on the way to extinction. It must also be observed that its emergence is not due to biological reasons. In all situations it is a form of marriage which is constructed by society. However, it should be made clear that even a tribal community, which is theoretically polygynous, majority of members, do not practice polygyny. It is empirically the privilege of very few. John Lewis had provided a definition of polyandry. He says “It is a marriage in which a woman can have more than one husband at the same time”. Polyandry has been found in small number of societies. It has been reported in simple food-gathering societies, for example among the Wahuma tribals of East Africa and among the tribal groups of Tibet and Toda (South India). Among the Wahumas polyandry is an altogether unique phenomenon. Though it is legitimate to practice polyandry, it is not a dominant institution among them. When a man is too poor to buy a wife alone, he is assisted by his brothers, and they share the marital rights until the woman’s pregnancy when they become his exclusive prerogative. There is a wide prevalence of polyandry among the Todas of Nilgiris. We have some data to indicate that in the past, the tribe had marked excess of men over women, coupled with the practice of female infanticide. But this custom has been abandoned and now there is a progressive diminution of male preponderance. Among the Todas, when a man marries a woman it is understood that she automatically becomes the wife of his brothers, who normally live together. Even a brother born afterwards will be regarded as sharing his elder brother’s rights. In such cases of fraternal polyandry no dispute ever arises among the husbands, and the very notion of such a possibility is flouted by the Toda mind. When the wife becomes pregnant, the eldest of the husbands performs a ceremony with a bow and arrow by which legal fatherhood is conventionally established in this tribe, but all the brothers are reckoned to be the child’s fathers. The situation becomes more complicated when a woman weds several men who are not brothers and who as may happen, live in different villages. This is non-fraternal polyandry. When the husbands are scattered over several villages, the wife usually lives for a month with each in turn, though there is no absolute rule. In such cases, the determination of fatherhood in a legal sense is extremely interesting. For all social purposes that husband who performs the bow and arrow ceremony during the wife’s pregnancy establishes his status as father of not only the first child but of any children born subsequently until one of the husbands perform the requisite rite. Usually it is agreed that the first two or three children shall belong to the first husband, that at later pregnancy another shall establish paternal rights and so forth. R.H. Lowie in 1921 took an account of the statistics regarding the incidence of polyandry among the Todas. His conclusions are found relevant even today. He observes: What the 83 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Todas have done is to cling to polyandry and to temper it with polygyny, where formerly three brothers shared a single woman, they now tend to share two. Figure 3.4: Group Marriage Another form of marriage called ‘group marriage’ is also mentioned in the study of primitive marriage systems. The empirical data generated by social anthropologists hardly provide any detail about this form of marriage. Lowie says that the term ‘marriage’ as we understand it by customary definition if applied, there is “hardly something of the kind of group marriage”. He says what we actually term ‘group marriage’ is actually sexual communism. In each society, besides the tradition of monogamy, polygyny and polyandry, there are instances of pre- marital and extra-marital sex relations. These sex relations could be loosely called group marriage. Lowie argues at length referring to a large number of social anthropologists, particularly Rivers, Morgan and others that there has never been a form of marriage called group marriage. He denies the existence of sexual communism in any part of the world. Thus on the basis of the inferences drawn by Lowie and others, it can be said that the popular textbooks of social anthropology are wrong to refer to group marriage as a form of marriage. It has also been stated, in categorical terms, that there has never been and nowhere is there any incidence of group marriage among Indian tribes. Despite prevalence of polygyny and polyandry in parts of Africa and India, the general form of marriage all over the world remains to be monogamy which has come to stay for all times to come. 3.3 DEFINITION A social institution is an interrelated system of social roles and social norms, organized around the satisfaction of an important social need or social function. • Social Institutions are organized patterns of beliefs and behaviour that are centered on basic social needs. Social institutions need to be distinguished from less complex social forms such as conventions, social norms, roles and rituals. The latter are among the constitutive elements of 84 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
institutions. Social institutions need also to be distinguished from more complex and more complete social entities, such as societies or cultures, of which any given institution is typically a constitutive element a) Soc. Inst. are often organisations, moreover many institutions are systems of organisations. For example capitalism is a particular kind of economic institution, and in modern times, capitalism consists in large part in specific organisational forms. b) Nevertheless, some institutions are not organisations, or systems of organisations, and do not require organisations. For example, the English language is an institution, but not an organisation. 3.4 TYPES When trying to understand what is meant by the concept of institution we must analyse the context in which institutions are assumed to play their role. In a typical economic analysis institutions are rules that serve the interests of economic-rational actors, and must enhance the efficiency of their actions. In a typical sociological analysis institutions are rules that serve the interests of social actors, and must enhance the formation of stable systems of hierarchically ranked groups. In the real world human behaviour also has a psychic aspect. In a typical psychological analysis institutions must promote the integration of different parts of a personality. This article assumes that in real life humans are driven by a composite of three categories of forces, namely the economic, the social and the psychic motive. Real life institutions have the function to mould these drives in such a way that economic, social and psychic goals can be reached more effectively. As a matter of illustration of this moulding process a short sketch of the emergence of the Dutch welfare state is given. Community A community may be a group of people who live in the same geographic region, but the term also refers to individuals who have common interests and goals. An example of a geographic community is people in a town or city, whose common interest could be their community’s safety and prosperity. An example of a non-geographic community would be those who have common goals, such as the “LGBTQ community,” whose members seek equal rights and opportunities for those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Community service organizations These organizations serve a community by fulfilling a need or providing an opportunity to participate in the community. For example, a local social service organization may sponsor projects such as clearing up litter or providing scholarships to needy students. A local club, such as a chess club, may invite participants to learn and enjoy the game. On a national or international level, social institutions include Médecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders). Education and Schools as a Social Institution 85 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Schools are institutions in the sense that students have come together to learn scientific knowledge, develop skills, acquire values, and develop good habits (such as study habits, self-discipline, and hygiene). The school as a social institution prepares students to contribute to society and have a productive future. In addition to mastering the curriculum, students are also learning how to interact with others, such as peers and teachers, which involves governing their behaviour, conforming to established norms and values, and negotiating outcomes. Family as a Social Institution In sociology, the family is considered a social institution. Through parents and other family members, individuals learn to define goals and expectations. The family affects the individual’s habits, beliefs, and values, and helps define what is normal and what is not. Traditionally, a family is defined as a group of people who are related to an individual by blood, marriage, or adoption. However, it can also refer to other kinds of relationships. For example, members of the wider community may teach values or beliefs that affect an individual’s decisions. The individual may turn to others outside the traditional unit when s/he is under stress or need support. Additionally, families can be nuclear or extended. A nuclear family consists of parents, siblings, and offspring. An extended family consists of grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The nuclear family tends to have a greater impact on individual social norms compared to the extended family. While families and education influence our goals, expectations, and norms, genetics also play an important role in defining behaviours (including criminal behaviour) and the ability to interact socially. Epigenetics refers to the environment’s effect on our genes. For example, an epigeneticist may study families who have endured trauma or tremendous stress during their lives to determine whether the second or third generations show signs of anxiety or depression. Surprisingly, anxiety disorders were found to be significantly more common up to the third generation, even when the parents (second generation) reported no major stressful events in their lives. 3.5 RULES OF MATE SELECTION All societies set restrictions on marriages by establishing rules governing certain aspects of marital relationships. The question of selecting the marriage partner has been given due consideration in Hindu view of life. Endogamy is a rule that requires a person to select a spouse from within certain groups. These endogamous groups specifically refer to Varna, Caste and Sub-caste Varna endogamy prescribes marriages between the members of same Varna. Marriage between the members of same varan was regarded as proper and ideal. The rules of endogamy were strictly followed and nobody dared to play violate them. According 86 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
to Prabhu, “In practice the law of endogamy has come to play a varnas; according to this the, the endogamic circle is restricted within the orbit of each of the jaits. Of course, there were occasional instances of inter-varan marriage, but such a marriage was not considered desirable by the Hindu society. Caste endogamy is the rule which prohibits the members of a caste to marry outside their own caste. A Hindu can marry someone within his or her own caste. According to the rule of caste endogamy, a Brahman is bound to marry within the Brahmin caste. Until recently, violation of this, rule was — seriously and punishment for violation may go up to ex-communication from the caste. Each caste is again subdivided into a number of sub-groups or sub castes ‘Each-of these sub-castes is endogamous group. According to this rule a person has not only to marry within his own caste but also within his sub-cast, For example a Kanyakubja boy has to marry a Kanyakubja girl. Thus the sub-caste endogamy further restricts the choice of selection of spouse to a still smaller group Exogamy refers to the rule that man must marry someone outside his own group. It defines the range within which a person cannot marry. The ruts of exogamy pertain to three types, namely Gotra, Pravara and Sapinda. Gotra exogamy forbids marriages between members of the same gotra. Gotra originally meant a herd but later on it denoted the family or the clan. . The gotra of a Lily was named after some Rishi (ancestor) who founded the family in the past Hence, persons belonging to same gotra are supposed to be the offspring of the same ancestor and they are related by blood. Therefore, the members of same gotra forbidden to enter into marital relations. As Prabhu has remarked, whatever Chave been the origin of gotra, the exogamic rule relating to Hindu marriage, According to Grihya Sutras and the Dharma Sastras, is that no man shall marry a maiden from within his own gotra. Pravara exogamy is the rule that forbids marriages between members of fame pravara. Pravara refers to ‘Rishi’ ancestors whom a Brahmin invokes at the sacrifice to Agni. According to this rule, members having the same Rishi ancestor are not eligible to marry one another. Pravara exogamy is applicable only to Brahmins. This rule prohibits marriages between ‘Sapindas Sapinda means one who carries the particles of same body. Sapinda relationship arises from being connected by having particles of same ancestor. Sapinda group consists of those who possess the religious or legal right to offer ‘Pinda’ (ball of rice) to the same ancestor Marriage cannot take place between such persons. Some limit is prescribed for avoiding persons for marriage related to each other within certain generations on the father’s and mother’s side. Gautama has recommended avoiding seven generations from father’s side and five generations from mother’s side. Vasishta wanted to avoid only five generations from father’s side. But in practice and according to the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, five generations from 87 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
father’s side and three generations from mother’s side are avoided. However, breach of Sapinda exogamy was never penalised. Sapinda exogamy has not been followed in Indian society uniformly. Cross-cousin marriage was practised in ancient Hindu society as shown by Hindu mythology records. Kapadia has said that the rule of Sapinda exogamy was of the nature of a pious recommendation and remained so till the end of the eighth century. Today this rule is followed by and large by all Hindus. The Hindu marriage Act, 1955 prohibits Sapinda marriage in general although it allows cross-cousin marriages as a peculiar custom in South India. Iravati Karve has said that marriage in the South is not arranged with a view to widen kin-group but each marriage strengthens already existing bonds and makes doubly near those people who were already very near him. But it will be irrational and illogical to link the practice of cousin marriage with strengthening of kinship bonds. 3.5.1 Prescriptive and Preferential Rules Rules prohibiting certain persons as spouses may be accompanied by rules designating others as particularly appropriate. If it is the rule – no matter whether it is sometimes broken – that a man ought to marry a person in a particular category of person, this is called a preferred or preferential marriage. For example, one must marry his/her cross cousin and, if one would like to have the prescription waived in one’s case, compensation has to be paid to the losing party. There are many societies in which marriage between first cousins is permitted or even sought, where there is a rule of lineage exogamy they must of course be cousin belonging to different lineages. Since a person derives his lineage membership from a parent of one sex, it is usually the child of his parent’s siblings of the other sex who becomes his mate. In this relationship the children of the siblings of opposite marriage are cross-cousin. Prescribed or prescriptive marriages are usually with the matrilateral cross-cousin. Prescribed or prescriptive cross-cousin marriage is most commonly found in patrilineal societies. Levi- Strauss has said that preferential mating has for its main purpose the strengthening of solidarity within a tribe. They are often designed to promote inter-familial cordiality by making certain linkages imperative. The following are the rules that are found under prescribed or prescriptive marriage. All societies have prescriptions and proscriptions regarding who may or may not marry whom. In some societies these restrictions are subtle, while in some others, individuals who can or cannot be married are more explicitly and specifically defined. Different forms of marriages are based on rules governing eligibility such as endogamy and exogamy In endogamy a member is required to marry within his own group. Lewis defines endogamy as “The rule that requires a person to marry within a specific social group of which he is a member”. In the Indian context, the caste is defined as an endogamous group just as the tribe endogamy. The Gond is a tribal group. In caste, for instance, a Brahmin would not marry a Rajput. In the same way, a Gond would not marry a Santhal. However, there are cases of 88 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
intercaste and inter-tribal marriages though such marriages are not the rule. Where the society is stratified on class lines, a member would marry within his own class. In this sense membership of class is endogamous. Eriksen’s writes: “In a sense, all human groups are both endogamous and exogamous to varying degrees .One is expected to marry one’s own kind, but not someone classified as a close relative and who is not is naturally, culturally specified, although the people classified as parents, children and siblings in Europe are virtually everywhere seen as close kin”. 3.6 CHANGING TRENDS We need to completely refine and reimagine education. As Adam Grant would say, “It’s time to Think Again”. The unprecedented times have allowed us to reflect and come to the realisation that to survive and get the better of challenging times we have to be flexible in everything we do. The same applies for trends in education. We are living in a world supported by digital technology, virtual learning is the norm, and hybrid models of education are no longer just a point of discussion, rather it is the only pragmatic approach that needs to be deployed to sustain in the long term. Students now have to be encouraged to ‘learn how to learn’, instead of being asked to memorise facts and figures. Problem solving is no longer an additional skill to acquire, rather a basic necessity. Educational institutions across the spectrum need to develop a sustainable process to ensure they are able to prepare the leaders of tomorrow. Effective digital responsibility requires educators to be aware and trained in ethical use of digital technologies, and for its utilisation in a safe and responsible manner. This is crucial to ensure students understand the ethos of digital citizenship and also are able to think beyond themselves and to understand their responsibilities to others and how they can improve their communities. The vision behind digital responsibility as a trend in education is to connect students as global citizens through ethical technology. Owing to the rapid development in Information Technology, blended learning has become more acceptable. Blended learning combines the best of both worlds: an opportunity to distribute time and effort freely and to acquire knowledge limitlessly beyond the classroom, as well as advantages of working with the teacher face to face. The modern trend is that more and more educational institutions count on an effective combination of technologies and traditional personal tutorship. When we address trends in education, we cannot overlook changing trends in the way teachers are imparting the knowledge to students. Students are quick to adapt to the changing dynamic, but are the teachers equipped to do the same? Teachers will need to be comfortable working with digital tools in order to communicate ideas to their students. But beyond that, they must be capable of equipping their students with the skills they need to thrive in the near future. Overview on Social institutions 89 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
The second group of societies, for example, the Nuer of the Sudan and Tallensi of Ghana lacked these three main criteria and was therefore stateless or segmentary and had no governments. The third group of societies were small band-societies, such as the Pygmies in the forests between Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola and the Khoi-san of the Kalahari Desert, who’s political and governmental organizations were coterminous with their kinship organization. This classification of indigenous African socio-political systems is a useful starting point although it has been criticized by several scholars including anthropologists, political scientists and sociologists. As we stated earlier, the current political analysis suggests that we have government and politics even in the so-called less differentiated “stateless” and band societies. There are rules and coercive and control processes which regulate the affairs of such societies. Yet not every society may be termed a state. A state usually involves some social complexity and heterogeneity as well as the impersonal though objective assertion of political authority from one centre. Hence a state is a special over-arching institution or apparatus with legitimacy and the monopoly of the use of force for maintaining a people’s social and territorial integrity and exclusiveness through government and political organization. Two traditional theories of the state may be mentioned in this connection. The first is structural functional in which the state is regarded as an institution whose component parts and the functionaries in them seek to prosper the whole society. The state here is a veritable organ for attaining harmony and social advantage. On the other hand, the Marxist theory of the state involves its use as a means of exploiting a section of the society. Here those who rule use their political, economic, and the state resources to consolidate their position and to exploit their relationships with the politically and economically underprivileged in society. Hence a Marxist theory of the state involves its use as an instrument for mass oppression while maintaining a society’s territorial integrity. Role differentiation is also an important aspect of political studies. Since politics and society are in a continuous interaction, it is, at least analytically, possible to separate political roles from other social roles. Social roles are varied: those of the priest, father, soothsayer, diviner, craftsman, market woman, trader, etc. They involve several roles in the other subsystems such as in economic, religious, and familial systems. On the other hand, political roles are themselves of various kinds and are played by persons (actors) or institutions. They are defined by competition over power, its retention and exercise. As M. G. Smith pointed out1, political actions are inherently segmentary, they involve contraposition of groups, for example, political parties, which compete for power in a particular society. The King and the Kingship, the President and the Presidency are all different; each has a role in the political subsystem. Likewise, the Electoral Committee,, the Local Government Councils, the State Houses of Assembly, the Central House of Representatives, the Senate or the House of Lords, like an Emir’s or King’s Council, all have their political roles played with various degrees of effectiveness in different circumstances and arenas in the “modern” and or traditional sector of contemporary societies. These several political roles are not played haphazardly. They are organized. Such an 90 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
organization allows some members of the society to exercise authority which carries rights of issuing an order, including military and judicial orders, and of applying sanctions to regulate their society. The continuous interaction between these various political roles produces the political system. Every society has at least potentially, its own political system, and every political system involves a political structure and a pattern of role interaction. Hence Dahl defines a political system as “...any persistent pattern of human relationship that involves, to a significant extent, power, rule or authority”. All political systems have certain basic characteristics. These include a territorial boundary and the monopoly of the use of power and force, or of the possibility of their use, in order to regulate society, control deviant and disruptive behaviour, maintain the integrity of the society and implement its goals. The political system functions in an environment, both social and cultural. But because the political system has power resources, it is capable of controlling the other aspects of society, its social environment. It removes obstacles in its environment, it interacts with and changes this environment. Hence attention is often directed to the way a society is organized politically as a means of understanding its other subsystems. 3.7 SUMMARY Westermarck has provided yet another interpretation for exogamy through an anecdote once when his barber had come to his house. Westermarck enquired from him, “Are you married”? “No” the barber replied, Westermarck suggested that he could have married in his village as there were enough girls. To this the barber commented: “Oh, the girls of my village are good for nothing. I knows them all”. The statement made by barber shows that it is instinct in man to look for a girl who generates curiosity. Such a man is considered heroic who brings a girl from great distance. Such kind of male attitudes also explain the prevalence of exogamy. Westermarck gives yet another empirical evidence to support the practice of exogamy. In London, there are two schools situated on opposite sides of the road. One is a co-educational school while the other one is exclusively for girls .He found that the boys of the co-education school often went to the girls’ school in search of love and romance. When they were reminded that there were girls in their own class and they could very well choose one from among them, the boys replied: “The girls of our school! We know them all; they are rotten”, and hence exogamy. It is a kind of marriage which means marriage of a man with either his mother’s brother’s daughter or his father’s sister’s daughter. This is popular and orthodox type of marriage among the tribal communities of India. But marriage with mother’s brother’s daughter is more common. This type of marriage is found to be prevalent among most of the tribes of North-East India such as the Garos, the Khasis, the Kukis, the Karbis, the Noctes, and the Nagas etc. The Gonds, the Oraons, the Baizas and some other tribes of the rest of India practise this type of marriage. 91 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Virtually all the tribes of North and Central Melanesia practise cross cousin marriage. It is also practised in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Australia, Polynesia, South and East Africa, Siberia etc. There are two types of cross-cousin marriages: Symmetrical and Asymmetrical. When both mother’s brother’s daughter and father’s sister’s daughter are acceptable as a mate, it is called a Symmetrical cross-cousin marriage. It is also termed as bilateral cross-cousin marriage. In Assam symmetrical cross-cousin marriages are prevalent. Similarly the Dravidians practise symmetrical cross-cousin marriage. Asymmetrical cross-cousin marriage is the one according to which, marriage is preferred with either mother’s brother’s daughter or father’s sister’s daughter and not with both. That is if one marries mother’s brother’s daughter, he cannot marry father’ sister’s daughter and vice versa. Marriage with mother’s brother’s daughter is called Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage and that with father’s sister’s daughter is termed as patrilateral cross-cousin marriage. The Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia permit marriage only with father’s sister’s daughter. The Murngins of Australia and the Miwork of California practise asymmetrical cross-cousin marriage. Cross-cousin marriage is the only form of exogamy under dual organization of a society. Cross-cousin marriages are often devised as a balance against the high bride price, the bargaining of price is often minimized among the familiar kin. Moreover, the amount lost in paying bride-price for getting a bride is regained in due course when a girl from his family has to be given in marriage to the same family. The simple implication here is that the bride- price paid for A’s marriage would be returned to his family when a daughter would marry her mother’s brother’s son. The Gonds of Madhya Pradesh express mother’s brother’s daughter as ‘dudhlautawa’, i.e., return of milk. It means the marriage of man with either his father’s brother’s daughter or mother’s sister’s daughter. It is prevalent among the Semitic Arabs and also found amongst the Muslim of India. It is also practised by the Riangs of Tripura. It has been said that marriages with close relatives lead to fewer number of issues. That is why marriage of this kind is discarded in many societies. Parallel-cousin marriage: In our country this type of marriage among the Muslims, women traditionally inherit the property, perhaps to control the property devolution, they preferred parallel-cousin marriage. Again, among the Bedwins of Arab, this type of marriage is very popular. The Bedwins is a nomadic people. Such marriages help to keep their males within the band and so manpower is protected for fighting and other purpose of defence. Usually in a community, where cross-cousin marriage is allowed, parallel-cousin marriage is forbidden. A man maintains formal as well as respect full relationship with his female parallel-cousin. Joking relationship prevails only among the cross-cousin. Significance of joking relationship lies in the possibility of marriage, whereas respectful relationship 92 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
indicates rigidity of the incest taboo. In most of the societies of the world parallel- cousin marriage is prohibited. When the younger brother marries the wife of his deceased elder brother, it is known as junior levirate. This is found to have been practised by Australians; the Biblical Hebrews, the Incas, the Muslims of India the Kukis, the Lushai’s, the Nagas, the Karbis and the Veddas etc. When marriage takes place between the widow and elder brother of the deceased husband, it is called Senior Levirate. The Bhumijas of Orissa, the Hos, the Panino’s, the Kirghiz, the Turks, the Mongloids etc. practise this system of marriage. The custom of Levirate is regarded more as a duty than as a right. The nearest relative is obliged to care for the widow left with children, land and herd. In some societies the children of the new couple are regarded socially as the children of the dead man. When the bereaved husband marries his deceased wife’s younger sister, the system of marriage is called the Junior Sororate, which is prevalent in many parts of the world. Hindus, Muslims, and many tribes of India are found to practise sororate. It is practised by virtually every tribe of North America outside the Pueblo area and is found widely distributed throughout the world. Sororate is sometimes mistaken for Sororal Polygyny. Under the true sororate a man is married to one sister at a time. But, in sororal polygyny a man is not required to wait for the death of his wife to marry her younger sister. He asks her hand when she comes of marriageable age. In this way he can marry several sisters at a time. High rate of bride price generally leads to difficulties in securing mates, which results in sororate marriage. Younger sister of the deceased girl is given to her husband as a compensation for his loss. Both levirate and sororate signify interfamilial obligation and cordiality. 3.8 KEYWORDS Communism - An economic system similar to socialism in which all the means of production would be owned by everyone and all profits would be shared equally by everyone. Conflict Theory- Marx’s theory that in any capitalist society there is eternal conflict between the owners of the means of production and the workers. Commoners - The lowest stratum of the estate system of stratification, composed of the masses of people who spent their lives engaged in hard physical labour. Conflict View of Deviance- The view that purports that equality in a capitalist society is an illusion. The owners of the means of production have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo by keeping the working class in a disadvantaged position. 93 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Conformists - According to Merton’s theory of goals and means, those who accept cultural goals and the institutionalized means of achieving them. 3.9 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Create a session on Prescriptive and Preferential Rules. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 2. Create a survey on Rules of Mate Selection. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ 3.10 UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. What is Marriage? 2. Write about theTrends? 3. Define the term Prescriptive 4. Describe about the term Preferential Rules? 5. Write the main feature of Social Institutions? Long Questions 1. Explain the types of Social Institutions. 2. Describeabout Rules of Mate Selection. 3. Examine the concept of Prescriptive and Preferential Rules. 4. Discuss the Changing Trends. 5. Illustrate the concept of Marriage. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. What is the meaning of logos in the term sociology? a. Science/Study b. Social c. Society d. Companion 94 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
2. Which among the following is a youngest science? a. History b. Geography c. Sociology d. Philosophy 3. What is intended by norm? a. Specific Guide to action b. Framework c. Discipline d. Deviance 4. Which are suitable factors enforce the norms? a. Positive and Negative Sanction b. Religion and caste c. Punishment and arrest d. Reinforcement and recognition 5. Who defined “sociology as the science of social phenomena subject to natural and invariable laws?” a. Spencer b. Karl Marx c. Durkheim d. Comte Answers 1-a, 2-c, 3-a, 4-a, 5-d 3.11 REFERENCES References book Homans, G. (1961), Social Behaviour: Its Elementary Forms, New York.. James, W. (1890), the Principles of Psychology, New York. 95 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Keizer, P. (2001), Social Security and Welfare in The Netherlands Before and After the Year 2000, Gilbert, N., Razvan Voorhis (eds.), Changing Patterns of Social Protection, International Social Security’s Series, Volume 7. Textbook references Parsons, T. (1978), Action Theory and the Human Condition, New York: Free Press. Popper, K. (1957), the Poverty of Historicism, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rabin, J. (1998), Psychology and Economics, Journal of Economic Literature. Website https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/society/rules-of-mate-selection-in-hindu- marriages-essay/4371 https://iasfreeanthrocom.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/preferential-and-prescriptive- marriages.pdf https://www.lecturio.com/magazine/social-institutions/#types-of-social-institutions 96 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT 4 – SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS PART II STRUCTURE 4.0 Learning Objectives 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Family 4.2.1 Socioeconomic Characteristics 4.2.2 Family Contexts 4.3 Definition 4.4 Types 4.5 Structure and Functions 4.6 Changing Trends. 4.6.1 Family Life Cycle Stage 4.7 Summary 4.8 Keywords 4.9 Learning Activity 4.10 Unit End Questions 4.11 Reference 4.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Describe the concept of Family. Illustrate the Structure and Functions of Social Institutions. Explain the concept of Family Contexts. 4.1 INTRODUCTION The need to holistically understand social groups or society is of primary concern to sociology. In this task, the discipline engages herself in a systematic process of analysis which cut across various aspects of society. It looks at the nature and dynamics of diverse socio-cultural attributes of different societies. These include patterns of social interaction, belief systems, norms, values and social roles required in specified social positions etc. Also of crucial importance to the discipline is the examination of types, character and functions of 97 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
the major parts of the social structure without which social organization and social functioning of the society will be defective. Among those critical organs that enable society experience cohesion and stability are her social institutions. Such institutions form the bedrock for a meaningful social existence and provide guiding templates for social processes in society. Indeed, the social system is essentially made up of social institutions which represent the engine house or heartbeat of society. The concept of institution has been regularly used among scholars to describe cherished socio-cultural landmarks of groups, time –honoured traditions or ancestral structures and sites. However, sociologists view social institutions in broader perspective as complex social relationships among people directed toward satisfying basic needs, including the rules governing those relationships. According to Nnatu a social institution is a recognized normative pattern, a system of required, concerted, co-operative and reciprocal relationships and practices whereby people concerned tend to satisfy their individual and social needs. Igbo notes that a society has basic needs of procreation, training of member, transmission of culture, provision of food, shelter and clothing as well as allocation of power and maintenance of order. According to him, society creates the institutions of the family, education, polity, economy and religion to cater to such needs. On their part, Schaefer and Lamm defined social institutions as organized patterns of beliefs and behaviour centered on basic social needs. They re-affirmed that institutions are organized in response to particular needs such as replacing personnel (family), and preserving order (the government). It could be concluded therefore, that social institution constitute an enduring system of norms, values, statuses, roles, internal clusters of people (groups), regulative principles and culture which organize behaviour toward fulfilling some basic and recurring human needs. They ensure perpetuation of those necessary and acceptable aspects of social life and are very essential for overall survival of society. Social institutions are part and parcel of the culture of the people. Although, groups or associations constitute part of social institutions, the concept of social institutions represents both groups and processes or patterns of beliefs and practices peculiar to the group. 4.2 FAMILY A thorny question for many policymakers is, “What is a family?” Definitions abound, but consensus does not. How we define the family is often hotly-debated because the definition has significant consequences in people’s lives. Government agencies often have to define what a family is in order to determine who benefits from their program and who does not. Towns or cities often have to define families in developing zoning and housing regulations. Family definitions can have a bearing on access to such resources as health and life insurance, educational, recreational, and mental health services. Furthermore, definitions sometimes convey societal beliefs about what is “normal” and “acceptable” and thus, by implication, what is “deviant” or socially sanctioned. In this section of the briefing report, we 98 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
will begin by summarizing the diversity of American families. Then we will review three definitions proposed in the scholarly literature and the consequences of each. Finally, we will take a historical look at how the family is defined in Wisconsin law. The family is said to be universal because it is found in more societies than any other social institution, including the economy, the state, religious communities, and educational organizations. Yet this universal term conveys a variety of images. For some, it may bring to mind the work of American painter Norman Rockwell white picket fences, and freckled boys and girls playing under the watchful eye of doting parents and community elders. The word family may mean something quite different to an African-American, an American Indian, or a Southeast Asian refugee, a stepparent, a foster parent, a landlord, or a zoning board member. One’s image of family may reflect one’s position in the family life cycle ranging from a childless couple to the “sandwich generation” with both young and old dependents to the “empty nest” stage. Ooms and Preister categorize the variety of families that dot the landscape according to socioeconomic characteristics, structures, family life cycle stage, and different family contexts including racial, ethnic, and cultural settings. In a country like ours that prides itself on being a melting pot, coming up with a universal definition of the family is no easy task. While this definition is intended to be more inclusive never married couples and homosexual couples would meet these criteria it would exclude family types who do not fulfil these functions. For example, a noncustodial parent who fails to pay child support would be excluded from this definition. A legally-sanctioned marriage where the couple no longer has a meaningful relationship but stays together for economic reasons or for fear of social sanctions would not qualify as a family. Even a biological parent who fails to provide care and support would probably not be considered “family” under such a definition. Trying to identify only one definition of the family is like trying to cheat death: it doesn’t work and you end up feeling foolish for trying. Rather than settling for a universal definition, it seems more appropriate to define families according to the particular issue involved. For example, policies concerned with the socialization of children might use a definition of family that includes minor or dependent children. A structural definition would contend that the children be related by blood or adoption, while a functional definition might define family as whoever is there to care for the child. If the issue is care for frail elderly members, structuralists would be concerned with who has legal responsibility for the dependent; functionalists, on the other hand, would stress who is providing the care whether it be an adult sibling, a life-long adult friend or close companion. One guideline may be to write the definition in a way that reinforces rather than defeats the intent of the specific program or policy. Although there are many references in law and public policy to the family, there is no clear legal definition of the term. You cannot, for example, turn to a definition of “family” in the Wisconsin statutes. There is no such entry. However, the fact that there is no explicit definition of the family in the law does not mean that courts and other legal policymakers do 99 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
not base decisions on a particular view of what is a family. That view is, more likely than not, a traditional one. Someone has remarked that American family law is middle-class, mid- western and middle-aged. Nowhere is this more evident than in the response of the law to changing family forms. A reference to “family” is usually to a traditional model of a mother and father, married to each other and their biological or legally adopted children. When the family form is less traditional, difficulties of definition arise. Informal families in which the parents are not married or same gender relationships for which formal marriage is not available create problems, even in cases where these changing societal attitudes come in the ranks of the middle class that segment of our society whose values are most likely to be expressed in our public policy in terms of statutes and case law. When the courts are faced with the necessity of determining whether these units constitute a family, they respond in the manner described earlier in this briefing paper the definition often depends on the circumstances of the case. An excellent example of this approach to the definition of “family” is found in the landmark United States Supreme Court case of Moore v. the City of East Cleveland. In that case a grandmother lived with her son, his son and another grandson who was a cousin. The local zoning ordinance limited dwellings in the area to single families and the grandmother had been notified that she had to move because she was in violation of the ordinance: her grandchildren were not of a single family. When she failed to move, she was convicted of violating the ordinance. The case eventually made its way to the United States Supreme Court. That court held the municipal ordinance to be unconstitutional as a denial of substantive due process because it interfered with freedom of personal choice in matters of family life. At least for the purposes of zoning regulation, the family that the constitution protects from governmental intrusion includes some extended families. The difficulty with this approach to defining the family is that the analysis may reflect value judgements about non-traditional lifestyles that are unrelated to the psychological, supportive and dependence relationships involved. On the other hand, it may be that a pragmatic approach, considering a closely-involved unit as a family for some purposes, but not for others, is the best solution. The lack of a definition of the family in the law stems partly from the fact that the family has no legal status separate from its members. The role of the law is usually one of defining and enforcing rights and obligations of the individuals who are members of the family husbands and wives, domestic partners, parents and children. This is why the field of law, now called family law, was historically described as the law of domestic relations; it deals with the relations of individuals in a certain type of relationship, known as the family. The substance of family law is not the rights of the family, but of its members. This emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of the members of family units has the advantage of allowing persons in non-traditional relationships to assert rights and seek remedies without relying on family law doctrines or a family relationship. A case recently decided in Wisconsin Court of Appeals illustrates this approach. The case involved an unmarried couple who lived together for seven years, sharing expenses equally. Each partner had children of a previous relationship. When the relationship broke up, family law would have afforded the woman no economic relief. 100 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Search
Read the Text Version
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- 138
- 139
- 140
- 141
- 142
- 143
- 144
- 145
- 146
- 147
- 148
- 149
- 150
- 151
- 152
- 153
- 154
- 155
- 156
- 157
- 158
- 159
- 160
- 161
- 162
- 163
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- 169
- 170
- 171
- 172
- 173
- 174
- 175
- 176
- 177
- 178
- 179
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- 185
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- 195
- 196
- 197
- 198
- 199
- 200
- 201
- 202
- 203
- 204
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- 210
- 211
- 212
- 213
- 214
- 215
- 216
- 217
- 218
- 219
- 220
- 221
- 222
- 223
- 224
- 225
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- 231
- 232
- 233
- 234
- 235
- 236
- 237
- 238
- 239
- 240
- 241
- 242
- 243
- 244
- 245
- 246
- 247
- 248
- 249
- 250
