Family Culture Essay

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Introduction I am from Igbo-land which is located in south eastern Nigeria [in West Africa], with a total land mass of about 15,800 square miles (about 41,000 square kilometers). The type of family culture in which I was raised is the extended family system where. This consists of the nuclear family, the western type of family organization, (man, wife, and children), plus the couple's parents, brothers, and sisters; their grandparents and great grandparents. The extended family takes the form of three or four generations of nuclear families of lineal descendants. My family structure expands the range of consanguine relationships, or membership by blood, and affinity relations, or membership by marriage. The marriage is patrilineal. One has to take a wife outside his kinship community. There is much emphasis placed on compatibility of the couples and social standing within the kinship community. There is much screening for hereditary illness, for insanity, and sanctions are placed on incest rules. Marriages between bloods related individuals are considered incest and therefore not allowed. Traditional Roles of Women and Men in my Culture The established or actual head of family in my culture is the male, hence, marriage is considered solidified with the birth of a male child who will in the future inherit the land. From the interviews I had with my 80 year old mother, she revealed that in olden days, the Igbo traditional marriage is no marriage of romantic love through beauty or handsomeness. The couples only establish a family for procreation. Important functions were reproduction, child care, socialization, economic support, collective responsibility and status placement. Polygamy was widely practiced. Under the practice of polygamy, the men had more than one wife. A successful man married as many wives as he could support. This involved providing farm plots
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