Critical thinking kinship organization
Foraging societies were small in size due to inadequacy of food. This shows that food is essential for the growth of a society. It also shows the hard kind of lifestyle that human beings used to undergo in the past. Today, life is a bit bearable as compared to the past. The environment is crucial to human beings since most of the resources required for existence, their natural source is the environment. A family gives one the sense of belonging. A family is the basic unit of organization where roles are divided making it easy for the society to beat the economic challenge.
SDL (sexual division of labor) in American culture
In northern America, roles were divided according to sex. Women used to major in household chores. Their main responsibilities were in the kitchen and child rearing. In horticultural families, there was a close collaboration between women, men and children but each did a different task. Men spent most of their time doing repairs, disbursing bills, or performing chores like taking the garbage or scything the lawn (Kerber 2004). They also spent a little portion of their time cooking.
This division of labor is undergoing transformation. With reduced child bearing, women now spend most of their time doing paid jobs. There seems to be a fight for gender equality because even women are now striving to do some of the tasks that were traditionally taken to be exclusively for men. In the US there has been deterioration in the level of respect that men and women are given due to the tasks they perform. This is because women believe they can do the tasks done by men and men also believe they can do tasks done by women.
Kinship system in the San (Bushmen)
The San is a foraging band society made up of families and relatives. They practiced a gender based division of labor. The kinship system affects everything and especially how their marriage rituals work, how they spend their leisure time and where they live during drought. The San spends their leisure time together. Polygyny is a common practice among the San. Brides are few and men marry them before they mature (Kelly 2013).
They lived their entire lives as hunters and gatherers. They lived in the bush so that they could be close to their sources of food. They resided in small mobiled groups. The society practiced a subsistence economy where they produced only what was enough for them. They have lived in the southwest of Africa for thousands of years establishing a strong kinship system that has impacted their lives. For instance, the Sans of Kalahari Desert are taken to be the best hunting and gathering community.
They operate with reciprocity behavior where they exchange food items and agree to refund the items. It is based upon mutual agreement. When one has excess food, they share it with the rest to avoid a scenario where it will go bad. They are a group of people who heavily rely on each other and enjoy company (Kelly 2013). Every bit of food is passed around so that everyone can have a share of it. They are bilaterally descent.
In my society, the close kinship system creates a sense of brotherhood and mutual cooperation. However, the San’s system is better organized since the marriage system is well stipulated. Kinship system helps the less disadvantaged in the society to survive. The sense of brotherhood makes people to respect each other and willingly cooperate.
References
Kelly, R. L. (2013). The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kerber, L. K., & De, H. J. (2004). Women's America: Refocusing the past. New York: Oxford University Press.
