book chapter

West Indian family structure

University of Washington Press • Seattle • Published In 1962 • Pages: i-vii, 1-23, 125-311

By: Smith, M. G. (Michael Garfield).

Abstract

This is a demographic study of the types of household structures and mating patterns in West Indian societies. The survey includes rural and urban sample from Grenada and Jamaica; all those sampled are rural peasants or urban lower class. The author finds three marital patterns attributed to conditions endured under slavery: extra-residential mating, consensual co-habitation (common-law marriage) and marriage, which couples cycle through as they age. In Kingston, however, the density and anonymity of urban life creates a more disorganized situation in which all three forms compete and prevent any stability and development.

Region

Middle America and the Caribbean

Sub Region

Caribbean

Document Type

book chapter

Evaluation

Creator Type

Ethnologist

Document Rating

5: Excellent Primary Data

Analyst

Martin Malone ; 1976

Field Date

1955

Coverage Date

1953-1955

Coverage Place

Jamaica; Grenada

Notes

by M. G. Smith

Extraresidential mating has been marked for Category 836. The statistical tables referred to in the text are located at the end of each chapter, on pp. 145-162, 181-197, and 226-242.Only the sections dealing with Jamaica have been processed for the Files. In the processed sections, material specifically on the other societies has been zeroed out, but where it is employed in comparison with the Jamaican data, it has been marked for Category 171.

At head of title: The American Ethnological Society, Viola E. Garfield, editor; a monograph from the Research Institute for the Study of Man

Includes bibliographical references(p. 303-305)

Only pages i-vii, 1-23, 125-311 have been processed for the Files

LCCN

61014502

LCSH

Family--West Indies, British