Unit Two

Human Culture and Ties that Connect

Conceptualizing Culture
Definition
• Lacks consistent meanings
• “a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” E.
Taylor
• “as cumulative creation of man". B. Malinowski
Characteristics of culture
 learned: acquired not genetically transmitted
- Enculturation: the process individuals learns the rules and values of one’s culture.
 Shared: at least two people within a society.
- If not confusion and disorder
Symbolic: something verbal or nonverbal, stand for something else
Characteristics con’t
All-encompassing: all aspects affect people everyday lives
-material and non-material, all man- made objects, ideas, activities
- sum total of human creation: intellectual, technical, artistic, physical, and moral
Integrated: not haphazard collections
-culture traits fit into the whole system & organized make sense within specific
context. Culture Is Dynamic:

 Adaptive and Maladaptive:

- adaptive: People adapt themselves to the environment using culture. creating
and using culture
- Maladaptive: adaptive behavior may turn to harm the environment and threaten
human survival.
Dynamic: not static, rather changes through new ideas and innovations
Aspects/Elements of Culture
1. Material culture: man-made objects, tools, implements, furniture,
automobiles, buildings, dams, roads, bridges, etc.
2. Non – Material culture: internal, beliefs they hold, values and virtues
they cherish, habits they follow, rituals and practices that they do and the
ceremonies they observe.
• Values: standards by which member of a society define what is good or bad
-generalized notions of what is good and bad;
-influence the behavior of the members of a society.
• Beliefs: true or false assumptions, specific descriptions about the universe
“Education is good” is a fundamental value in American society
“Grading is the best way to evaluate students” –belief
Aspects of culture con’t
• Norms: shared rules/ guidelines that define how people
“ought” to behave under certain circumstances. Based on their
importance
A. Folkway: Norms guiding ordinary usages and conventions of
everyday life
-not strictly enforced. Eg. not leaving your seat for an elderly
people inside a bus/taxi.
B. Mores: much stronger norms, needs conformity. Eg. A person
who steals, rapes, and kills
-People who violate mores are usually severely punished
Cultural Unity and Variations
A. Universality: traits that span across all cultures.
-Life in groups, some kind of family, Exogamy, Incest taboo
B. Generality: cultural traits that occur in many societies but not
all.
-Farming, Nuclear family
C. Particularity: Trait of a culture that is not widespread
-Marriage, parenthood, death, puberty, birth are celebrated
differently.
Evaluating Cultural Differences
A. Ethnocentrism: tendency to see the behaviors, beliefs, values,
and norms of one's own group as the only right way of living
and to judge others by those standards.
-we scale and rate all others with reference to our own
- It is a cultural universal.
- Ethnocentrism results in prejudice, prevent understanding and
appreciating another culture
- It acts as a conservative force in preserving traditions of one's
own culture.
B. Cultrual relativism: examine the behavior of other as
insiders.
Cultural relativism con’t
• Appreciating cultural diversity
• Accepting and respecting other cultures
• understand every culture and its elements in terms of its own
context and logic;
• Knowing that a person's own culture is only one among many;
and
• Recognizing that what is immoral, ethical, acceptable, etc, in
one culture may not be so in another culture
• Suspends judgment and views about the behavior of other from
ones own, respect for cultural differences
Culture Change
Mechanisms
A. Diffusion: cultural elements are borrowed from another society and
incorporated
 Direct: two cultures trade with, intermarry among, or wage war
 Forced: one culture subjugates another and imposes its own
 Indirect: when items or traits move from group A to group C via group B
B- Traders, geographical position, mass media and advanced information
technology.
B. Acculturation: Is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups have
continuous firsthand contact
- either, or both culture may be changed
- trade or colonialism.
Mechanism con’t
C. Invention: process humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems
-reason cultural generalities exist
D. Globalization: a series of processes working to promote change in a world.
-nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent
-The mass media help drive a globally spreading culture of consumption.
-the media spread information about products, services, rights, institutions, and
lifestyles.
Ties That Connect: Marriage, Family and
Kinship
Marriage: a sexual union between a man and a woman such that children
born to the woman are considered the legitimate offspring of both parents.
-a permanent legal union between a man and a woman.
-The main purpose of marriage is to create new
-social relationships, rights and obligations between the spouses and their
kin
Rules of Marriage: Societies have rules that state whom one can and
cannot marry
-established some type of rules regulating mating
-Incest taboos: prohibitions on mating with certain categories of relatives.
-mating between members of the immediate (nuclear) family: mother-sons,
father-daughters, and brother-sisters.
Rules of Marriage
A. Exogamy: a man is not allowed to marry someone from his own social group.
B. Endogamy: Requires individuals to marry within their own group and forbids
them to marry outside it.
-most cultures are endogamous.
C. Preferential Cousin Marriage
I. Cross Cousins: are children of siblings of the opposite sex- that is one’s mother’s
brothers’ children and one’s father’s sisters’ children.
-preferential cousin marriage is b/n cross cousins because it functions to
strengthen and maintain ties between kin groups
II. Parallel Cousins: marriage b/n the children of the siblings of the same sex
-children of one’s mother’s sister and one’s father brother.
Parallel Cousin Marriage Con’t
• less common form of cousin marriage
D. The Levirate and Sororate
Levirate: is the custom whereby a widow is expected to marry the brother (or
some close male relative) of her dead husband.
Sororate: widower’s marrying the sister (or some close female relative) of his
deceased wife.
Number of Spouses: how many mates a person may/should have.
A. Monogamy: the marriage of one man to one woman at a time.
B. Polygamy: marriage of a man/woman with two or more mates
B1. Polygyny: the marriage of a man to two or more women at a time.
B2. Polyandy: the marriage of a woman to two or more men at a time
Advantages & Disadvantages of Polygamy marriage

-Sororal polygyny: Marriage of a man with two or more sisters at a time

 Having two/more wives-a sign of pristige.
 Having multiple wives means wealth, power, & status
 It produces more children- economic and political assets.
 Economic advantage-encourages to work hard (more cows, goats..) for more
wives
 The Drawbacks of Polygyny: Jealousy among the co-wives who frequently
compete for the husband’s attention.