Ged210 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Unit 2 Exam

According to the Guest textbook, what is cultural anthropology (summarize in your own words in a sentence or two), and what is a key method used to conduct research in cultural anthropology. How does one employ this method, according to Guest (pp. 7-19)?

Marriage is defined as a legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship. There are three types of marriages; Traditional Marriage, Independent Marriage, and Separate Marriage. There are five other types of marriages founded by the Cuber and Harroff’s Five types of Marriage Theory, they are Vital Marriage, Total Marriage, Passive-Congenial Marriage, Devitalized Marriage, and Conflict-habituated Marriage.

What is a family? How are families shaped and what effect do they have on society? In the United States a family consists of both parents, one’s self, siblings (biological or adoptive) and extended family members; however, this is not the case around the world. The concept of family and who is family changes in each culture, but is mostly centered around who is kin and who a person marries. Family, kin, and marriage are established through how society decides their lineage, which establishes cultural rituals within the society.

The word family has changed so much in the past century. A family back in the 1950’s was probably considered a husband, wife, and one or more children. Times have changed and families have become much different. The Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others book defines family as a, “Unit made up of any number of persons who live in relationship with one another over time in a common living space who are usually, but not always, united by marriage and kinship” (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 243). Families can be broken up into five different types. The first is the traditional family, which includes a mother, father, and their biological children. Next, is the blended family which includes

Families around the world consist of many variations. The traditional family includes a mother and father of the same racial background and their children. While this is the most acceptable type of family dynamic, today there are families that consist of countless different types of deviations. Many children grow up with one parent, gay parents, or with their grandparents. There are also families that consist of two parents that are of different races. Interracial families consist of relatives who are from diverse origins. Interracial families include families where the parents are of two different races or when the adopted children are of a different race than their parents.

The ideal traditional family consists of a father, a mother, a couple of kids and maybe a dog in a rather spacious home. We all know examples of families like this but are also aware that there are different renditions of it. There are single parent families, divorced/split families, and a family with a remarried couple with stepchildren and same sex couples with/without children. I, myself, have been included in a

Another term, “nuclear family” is commonly used and describes the family as male/father, female/mother and children. Saggers and Sims (2005), state that the

A family consists of a group of interacting individuals related by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption who interdependently perform relevant functions by fulfilling expected roles. (Edelman, Kudzma, & Mandle, 2014, p. 150)

There are many types of families; the most common family group is a nuclear family consisting of two adults of both sexes whom are in a sexual relationship, with children either biological or adopted. They must cohabitate in the same house hold and share income or domestic tasks to some extent. Then there are extended families, an extended form of the nuclear family. The extended family consists of kin and other various relatives. Another version of the extended family is the local extended family

There are many lost civilizations that today anthropologists and archaeologists are slowly finding. They go into these places and dig up artifacts and information about the people that live in these places. They also try and find what happened there to see what government they had, what they usually did in these places, and how they became lost. There are three places where each has an old, small, lost culture or civilization. These three places are Peru, Bangladesh, and Florida. Here is some information found in three videos about the civilizations in each country or state.

There are many forms of families around the world. The structure of these families are influenced by the culture around them. Family is defined as "two or more people related by blood, marriage or adoption. The family may take many forms, ranging from a single parent with one or more children, to a married couple or polygamist spouses with or without offspring, to several generations of parents and their children” (226). There are many functions of the family unit around the world.

According to the Dictionary of Contemporary English, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, formed by a father, a mother and children. On the other

The functions of the family are characterized by raising children responsibly, and provide emotional and financial support. Nowadays, there are a variety of family structures that were identified as a postmodern family such as single mothers or fathers and couples of same sexes that were raising children. Also, the theoretical perspective of family ecology, “the ecological context of the family affects family life and children’ s outcomes. (pg. 33).

Determining family structure and dynamics as well as defining the family is a complex process. Personally, I come from a very traditional family. Much like the assumptions made by the students in the article Defining Family: Young Adults’ Perceptions of the Parent-Child Bond by Mellisa Holtzman (2008). This is what comes to mind when most people define family; a nuclear family, with married parents, and biological children. However, a family is a complex system and can take on many different forms.

A family can be defined in many ways, but the common denominator in all is the love and fulfillment one gets by being surrounded by family members. Families can sometimes be at odds with each other, but the strain of this type of relationship usually creates an upsetting feeling to the people involved. People want others to rely on, talk to, do things with, share, love, embrace, and be part of. No matter what the family dynamic is the qualities the word family has will remain the same, as time goes by, and life evolves once again for every person living their