Last week in class:
How do you get your food? How are resources (incl. food) distributed?
INTEGRATION - should have been integrated in some way

This week:
How do you reproduce? Who has sex with who?
Marriage relations. Moving from production to reproduction

All societies regulate sexual behavior.

Three common sexual regulations
1. by gender (prohibiting either homo or hetero-sexual activities)
2. by age
3. by relation (the incest taboo)

Homosexuality & Heterosexuality:

• terms invented as medical terms in late 1800's
• Webster's 1923: "homosexuality: morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex"
• "heterosexuality: morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex"
• 1934: "heterosexuality: normal sexuality"
• Homosexuality became a mental illness and a perversion.

Notes on homosexuality
2-10% in America homosexual- yet nearly 100% in cultures who approve the practice.
Common in Ancient Greece - pursuing virtue - LOVE usually only between males.
Love between men and women considered a madness.

Story aboutdrum dances in Papua New Guinea, which are very erotic.
The lyrics of these songs are:
Men: "Cut the grass, cut the grass" (meaning, "women, cut your skirts off")
Women: "Make me piles of firewood in the garden, prepare for me to come." (meaning, prepare the garden for our sexual meeting there)
While Wesch was dancing: "Whiteman stop dancing and poor us some tea to drink."

Incest Taboo
Universal - but different everywhere

So What is Marriage?
Definition: a union between two or more people that estabishes certain rights and obligations between the people, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws.

What about love?
Love has nothing to do with marriage in many cultures.

Bride Price - NOT ABOUT "BUYING AND SELLING" WOMEN
Must be understood in a broader cultural context, which takes into account the differences between societies structured around gift-giving and those structured around a market economy.

• must ask for parents permission to marry; parents charge a bride price
• culture in New Guinea Wesch worked with considers the daughter to be a gift when approving marriage
• the gift of a daughter is extending a bond across two families (bonding these families together for life)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/magazine/09BRI.html

http://family.jrank.org/pages/181/Bride-Price.html



Dowry - Giving the bride and her new family her share of the family wealth at marriage.




http://www.indianchild.com/dowry_in_india.htm

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/ind-j04.shtml