Using what you know about cross-cultural comparison of marital practice, discuss (criticize and/or defend) the following statement "Serial monogamy is the result of a cultural emphasis on individualism, while polygamy is the result of a cultural emphasis on social responsibility."

Question

Cedric Lambert

Social Studies

13 March, 15:10

Using what you know about cross-cultural comparison of marital practice, discuss (criticize and/or defend) the following statement "Serial monogamy is the result of a cultural emphasis on individualism, while polygamy is the result of a cultural emphasis on social responsibility."

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Answers (1)

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Jerome Sexton · Answer 1

Serial monogamy is more the result of historical material needs than the result of a different individual/society value scale.

Explanation:

In The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State (1884), German social scientist Friedrich Engels traces back the origin of the modern nuclear family. Engels argues that before the existence of private property, people in hunter-gatherer societies lived under a form of primitive communism, where what little they had was communally shared and owned. This extended to family relationships, as the notion of monogamy was non-existent. However, as humans domesticated different plants, dominated agriculture, and became sedentary, for the first time in history there existed a surplus of production that could be appropriated by someone. This became the basis of private property and the birth of social classes, as the owners of this surplus were above those who owned nothing but their labour.

Soon after, the richest among the population had the economic power to impose their will on society. These people were interested in leaving their wealth to their children, but under the old communal regime, they couldn't know for sure whose children were their own. These owners created monogamy, that is, having women that would be exclusively their own, in order to ensure paternity over their own children, thus creating the nuclear family as it is known even to this day. In some societies, the wealth that was hoarded by the first owners was so vast that they could afford to have multiple wives. Over time, in some places, having multiple wives became a way to show off wealth and power. So, in short, the difference between monogamy/polygamy was more more the result of historical material needs than the result of a different individual/society value scale. Modern notions of individualism didn't exist until very recently.