A Culture's View of Relationships

1. Who do the members of your culture consider to be part of their family?

Anyone who is related by “blood” or related by a marriage to someone of “blood” is considered to be “family”.

Immediate family is the man and wife and whatever children they might have. Typically it is only these people that live in a home together.

Extended family is made up of grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, and cousins.

2. What are some roles and responsibilities of specific family members?

The mothers are often the nurturer, while the fathers are the providers. Mothers are expected to be the parent who is responsible for housework, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the kids. Fathers are often expected to be the parent that makes more money of the two and also does the more laborious work.

The children are participating members of the immediate family; children are often asked to help do small chores around the home. The older children sometimes take on a caretaker-like role for their younger siblings. Grandparents are considered special and are present for birthdays, holidays, and other special events for the children. Extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) are often present for special events as well.

3. Are family members encouraged to stay in the same house/area as their family after adolescence?

Once children graduate high school, they are most often encouraged to enroll in college and leave home for good.

4. What are the cultural norms and taboos regarding dating and meeting people with whom to become romantically involved?

People usually date others that are close to their own age, geographic location, and from the same cultural background.

It is taboo to date someone who is a lot older or younger. Dating someone who is related in some fashion, a person from your work environment, or a teacher would also all be considered taboo.

5. How are marriage proposals conducted in your culture?

Men ask women to marry them. They most often present her with a diamond ring and get down on one knee to ask the question.

6. What is a typical wedding like?

Weddings are usually a big, expensive affair. I’d guess that the average guest list is around two hundred. It usually consists of such events as: a rehearsal dinner, ceremony, and reception. The wedding party and the family are invited to the rehearsal dinner. The guests are made up of family and friends who are invited to attend the ceremony and join in the reception that immediately follows.

7. How do members of the culture view divorce?

In more recent years, divorce rates have greatly increased and so has the acceptance of them.

8. If divorce occurs, what are the rights of each partner?

Most often a fortune is spent on divorce lawyers before this is ever determined.

9. What is the general opinion of the culture toward homosexuality?

Homosexuals are still struggling for acceptance and equal rights. Those that are extremely religious within our culture are the people that have had the poorest opinions of homosexuals. Many people have become more open-minded and accepting of gays within our culture.

10. How are the general perspectives of this culture the same/different from yours regarding gender roles?

The cultures perspective of gender roles is slowly changing and evolving with time. However, many of the stereotypes that have existed for many years still exist today. I hear ideas still alive within my culture that make me think of the “dark ages”. The idea that married women are supposed to be the caretakers of the children and do all the housework, cooking, ect, while the men’s role is that of being the provider and doing the laborious work outdoors. I think it’s outdated and naive to believe in such explicit gender roles. I differ in that I think there should be equality between genders. I think that we have to keep evolving and recognizing where we’ve made mistakes in the past. To judge a mother for working hard to provide for her family or judge a father for devoting his time to caring and loving his children and taking care of the home would be quite shameful on our part.

This activity brought to my attention how different my beliefs and ideas often are from the beliefs and ideas of my culture. As I wrote about my culture above, I couldn’t help but shutter a bit about some of their feelings, ideas, and traditions about relationships. How could the way I feel be so different from that of my own culture? I had such trouble with this activity because of two things that were written in the directions for the assignment, “Remember, this is your CULTURE, not necessarily you individually” and “Define your culture how you wish”. I struggled to write down what my culture represents, instead of what I represent as an individual. Secondly, I struggled with defining my culture, “as I wish”. These two sets of directions seemed somewhat contradictory to me, even though I know what Jen meant. If I were to define my culture as I wish, I would define it based on the way that I wish it was, instead of a more accurate assessment. Did you find yourselves feeling this way at all? Do you think you are a good representation of your culture or after this assignment did you feel like you were talking about “them” instead of you?