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Re: about this 'nuclear family' thingie
karl h schwerin (schwerin@UNM.EDU)
Wed, 1 May 1996 15:12:16 -0600
On Thu, 25 Apr 1996, Ralph L Holloway wrote:
> I don't know, but some fair percentage of divorced couples still try to
> maintain a "nuclear family", even though the wife and husband are
> separated phsyically most often, and whatever child support and care that
> emrges from divorce by agreement or decree involves the two original
> parents. There are a lot of variations on this theme, surely, but even in
> some divorced cases the parents attempt to keep the "nuclear" intact. How
> successful they are is another matter.
> Do I recall some anthro jargon from 30-40 years ago regarding
> "prescriptive" and "proscriptive" that refers to this sort of ideal-real
> situation?
> R.Holloway
Levi-Strauss, in the preface to the second edition of _Elementary
Structures of Kinship_ discusses the difference between 'prescriptive
marriage' and 'preferential marriage'(1969:xxx-xxxv), though in his view the
two get quite mixed up with each other in actual practise. He concludes that
"Fundamentally, the sole difference between prescriptive marriage and
preferential marriage is at the level of the model" (1969:xxxv)
Karl Schwerin SnailMail: Dept. of Anthropology
Univ. of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131
e-mail: schwerin@unm.edu
There are people who will help you get your basket
on your head because they want to see what is in it.
-- African proverb
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