essay
Courtship and marriage on Yap: Budweiser, U-drives, and rock guitars
Business of marriage : transformations in Oceanic matrimony • (14) • Published In 1993 • Pages: 149-174
By: Lingenfelter, Sherwood G..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this study, Lingenfelter examines changes in courtship, marriage, and marital relations among th Yapese during the American administration period (1946-1983). His thesis is that men have gained power relative to women through their disproportionate participation in the cash economy, which has changed the dynamic in marital transactions and relationships. Traditionally the marriage transaction was seen as a balanced exchange between a man's land and a woman's labor, on which the fertility of land and women were dependent. The landholding patrilineage needed women to work the land and the matrisib needed men to make fertile their women, and raise and support their young. Women were the economic backbone of the estate, producing the staple taro. Education and wage employment has changed the traditional equation of reciprocity. Through the cash economy men have ready access to basic foodstuffs and are able to become the main providers in the household, undermining the wife's role and source of prestige. The wife's response has been to enter into the cash economy herself in order to buy food for the household, or to continue growing taro and reject the substitute staple of rice her husband brought into the home. Education has also had an impact on domestic relations. Educated men tend to reject traditional domestic chores and responsibilities, whereas educated women are more insistent in controlling the household budget.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Gender status
- Basis of marriage
- Arranging a marriage
- Household
- Family relationships
- Education system
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Yapese
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Oceania
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Micronesia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2005
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1979-1980
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1945-1980
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Sherwood G. Lingenfelter
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 173-174)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 93001008
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Yapese (Micronesian people)/Yap (Micronesia)