Family Individuality Research

What if your mother was not considered related to you? What if you had to live with three or more generations of your family in the same home? To us questions such as these confuse or surprise us, they may even upset us but in other parts of the world these ways of life already exist. The purpose of this paper will be to compare just how different the family model can be in eastern parts of the world because of differences in individuality, household makeup, and the purpose of the family group. How does the idea of individuality vary in different parts of the world? In the United States individuality has become extremely prominent throughout the nations families. This is not so in parts of the eastern world. Some people in eastern society …show more content…
The subjects were told to group the pictures together, the Americans grouped the chicken and cow together because they were animals and the Asians grouped the cow with the hay because of the dependency of the animal on its food (Brooks). There are many studies that show that as a society became wealthier, the people become more individualistic (Luhrmann). This is not the only factor one should take into consideration. The Chinese and Japanese seem to have a more collective society, they are not by any means un-advanced. Studies show that the difference in the wheat and rice farming practices may explain the variation (Luhrmann). The use of water in rice farming has a strong effect on how the neighboring rice farmer uses his water …show more content…
There are very many different ways that societies can organize their families. In the US we seem to put most emphasis on the Nuclear family. Our extended families are very important to us but we do not seem to rely on them very heavily. This is most defiantly not the case around the world. An example would be the traditional Asian family. Traditionally the extended family shares a household with a nuclear family at the head, they share the house also with the sons and their families and the unmarried daughters (New World). The men have the strongest influence on the family (New World). Once married, the women become part of the male’s family but the women do keep in connection with their natal families after marriage (New World). Societies also have ways of tracing their ancestry. Some societies trace their ancestry matrilineal. This means they trace through the women of the family. An example of this type of kinship model would be the Mosuo of southwestern China. In this society all of the sisters are considered mothers to each sister children (Yan). The women are considered to be most important and they are used to connect the families together. This is not as rare as one might think in fact there are many different types of kinship. To categorize them we can consider them one of four types which are Patrilineal (through father), Matrilineal (Through Mother),