1) Chapter three started out with a description of what life was like for families in the colonial times. This included topics about family structure, sexual relations, marriage, children, social class, and the differences between regions. The regions section included topics about the three different types of classes there were during the time, which included, the merchant (or upper) class, the artisan (or middle) class, and the laboring (or lower) class. The chapter then moved on to topics about early non-European families who lived in America. The groups included in this section were American Indians, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. The next topic was about the years 1820 to 1930, when many things occurred such as immigration, industrialization, and urbanization. Next, the family was discussed as it was during the times of the Great Depression and World War II. Then, it moved on to the “golden” 50s, which may or may not have actually been so great. Last, there was a section about the family from the 1960’s to the present.
2) I found that there were a lot of interesting things brought up in this chapter. In the first section about colonial times, there was a part that listed all the roles a family needed to play. The people in the family were responsible for conducting business, educating children, preparing children to work, teaching and practicing religion, and a few other things as well. This was interesting to me because, now, it just seems like a lot to expect a single family to be able to accomplish on it’s own, without any outside help. Also, in these times there were a lot of things accepted, that would be considered to be horrible today, such as the husband’s infidelity and domestic violence.
3) One main question came to mind while I was reading this chapter. During the section about American Indians, it was mentioned that the women actually had a lot of power in some of their societies. Also, divorce was a simple process that didn’t even require any legal actions. Why was it so simple for these women to have control over their lives, while women of so many other cultures were struggling?
NNatalie LaBarbera
I've always felt that Native Americans had a certain respect for many things within their culture. Their respect for the land and apparently for their families. As with any culture, I'm sure there are aspects of the Native American culture that you or I might disagree with. I think women were raised within the culture to have equal share of power with men. This goes back to the tradition of their culture. I believe it all goes back to how females are raised within the tradition to fight in wars alongside their male counterparts. Also, the text stated that many tribes were matrilineal and matrilocal which gave the women power as well. In my opinion, if one person can trace the history and ancestry of their family through their mother's side of the family that in itself gives the woman power because the history of their family is built on the basis of the mother's family.
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