Comparison/ Contrast Essay
The following reading is from a chapter of a college textbook in cultural anthropology.
It discusses cultural differences in the custom of exchanging gifts at a marriage.
Marital Exchanges!
1 In most cultures, the marriage of a man and a woman is accompanied by
some kind of transfer of goods or services. These marital exchanges are used
to create in-law relationships, compensate a family for the loss of one of its
members, provide for the new couple's support, or provide a daughter with
an inheritance that helps attract a desirable husband.
2 Marital exchanges take numerous forms, including the North American
custom of wedding showers and wedding gifts. In these, the presents given
by relatives and friends supposedly help the newlyweds establish an
independent household. We give things that are useful to the couple jointly,
with food-preparation and other household utensils easily. the most common
type of gift. Many couples even register at stores so that their relatives and
friends will provide the items they want.
3
From a cross-cultural perspective, the most unusual feature of North
American marital exchange is that nothing is transferred between the relatives
of the groom and bride: The couple treat the gifts as their private property. Like
most of our other customs, this seems natural to us. Of course the gifts go to
the couple--what else could happen to them?
4
Plenty else, as we shall see in a moment. For now, notice that the fact that the
couple receives the gifts fits with several other features of Euro-American marriage.
5
First, in addition to creating new nuclear families, marriage is the bond
through which new independent households are started. So the husband and
wife "need their own stuff." If, in contrast, the neWlyweds moved in with one
of their relatives, they would not have as great a need for their own pots and
pans, wine glasses, silver candlesticks, and other "stuff."
6
Second, our marriage-gift customs fit with the value our culture places on
the privacy of the marital relationship: It is a personal matter between the husband
and wife, and their relatives should keep their noses out. If the in-laws get along
and socialize, that's great, but our marriages generally do not create strong bonds
between families of the bride and groom. (In fact, the two families often compete for
the visits and attention of the couple and their offspring.) ... The fact that the
in-laws do not exchange gifts with each other is a manifestation of the absence
of a necessary relation between them after the wedding. If, in contrast, the marriage
created an alliance between the two sets of relatives, some kind of an exchange
would probably occur between them to symbolize and cement their new relations.
7
Third, gifts are presented to the couple, not to the husband or wife as
individuals, and are considered to belong equally and jointly to both partners.
But there are marriage systems in which the property of the wife is separate
from that of her husband; if divorce should occur, there is no squabbling over
who gets what and no need for prenuptials.
1peoples, James, and Garrick Bailey. "Marriage, Family, and Residence." Humanity: An
Introduction to Cultural Anthropolof'.y. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003: 177-178.