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The Iroquois

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The Iroquois
Vonda Matthews
Cultural Anthropology
July 7, 2013
Instructor: Rebekah Zinser

Kinship is the cornerstone for how people within a society relate to others and race lineages. Many societies trace their lineage through the father, which is called patrilineal, or through the mother which is called matrilineal. The Iroquois nation traced their kinship through the matrilineal decent lines. Kinship directly relates to how family groups think, act and live along side each other. The culture of the Iroquois can also be compared to how many American families relate to one another as well.
Iroquois Lineage The Iroquois nation traced their lineage through the female sex; this is called the matrilineal line. Women of the …show more content…

Often times there are couples that get married but have chosen not to stay with one another because of a difference in opinion, this is called divorce.
Iroquois and divorce Often time’s couples marry only to find out that they have a difference of opinion or one spouse has caused serious marital strain on the other. Since the Iroquois couples lived matrilineally, this makes it easier for the woman to dissolve the marriage, keep her children and continue to live at home with her family. “If a woman no longer desired to be married to her husband, all she had to do was pack up her husband’s belongings and leave them on the steps of the longhouse. When he came home, the husband would find them, realize his wife had terminated the marriage, and return to his home village and his own patrilineage.” (Nowak, B. & Laird, P. 2010 chapter 4.5 Divorce) In the American culture it is more difficult to obtain a divorce.
Americans and divorce Americans divorce for the same reasons the Iroquois divorced for however, in the American culture it is harder to divorce. Many times couples divorce because of infidelity of one or both of the spouses, or from irreconcilable differences. In order to obtain a divorce in America many states require the couple to attend counseling to see if they can fix their marriage. Sometimes this is successful and the couple will stay together and often times it is not possible for the couple to stay together so they will then obtain a divorce

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