86. The traditional African healer unlike a doctor trained in western biomedicine, looks for the cause of the patient's ailments as misfortune in relationship between the patient and the social, natural and spiritual environments. Sep 11, 2014 @ 9:09 am. A kingdom was only as strong as its war-leader king. The complexity of African society with different cultural and religious practices also reflects on the people's attitude and understanding of their health matters. The cultural and physical diversity added with the dramatic social changes of the last three decades on the continent makes the family pattern situation so variegated as to defy any sweeping generalizations. Source: Extracts taken from: Family and Kinship by … The research seeks to show how society changes in the contemporary world have weakened the cultural values of the Nigerian rural traditional society, which in fact was the custodian of our ancient culture and civilization. ADVERTISEMENTS: Kinship: Meaning, Types and Other Details! The basic type of bond is marriage and reproduction. Although human beings have made tremendous progress during the last 150 […] Kinship performs these social functions in two ways. Kinship is also about economic life. Hope . Kinship relation is differentiated in each society on the basis of sex. People in all societies are bound together by various kinds of bonds. Some researchers have gone so far as to describe ethnicity as being an elaborated form of fictive kinship (Yelvington and Bentley 1991). People of the same age usually have similar interests and attitudes. It is often combined with elements of Christianity and Islam. If kinship involves only blood and marriage ties, then kinship defines how family relationships form and how family members interact with one another. Family plays a central role in African society. Modernization through industrialization which included westernized educational system has affected some communities and individuals in Africa making them embracing a lifestyle that was previously unknown to traditional African communities (Ocholla-Ayoyo 1997). The forms we find in Africa are not unique to Africa, but they are an important part of African social organization. Pakistani social life revolves around family and kin. Sep 17, 2014 @ 5:17 pm. Descent Social groups based on descent The family Marriage The life cycle Everybody has kinship in one form or another. However its direction, speed and nature are affected by several factors. We analyse whether traditional sharing norms within kinship networks affect education decisions of poor black households in KwaZulu-Natal. In traditional African society, men guarded the home and the cattle, or went to war. Re-establishing livelihoods and kinship ties that were functioning before Ebola is also critical to strengthening the resilience of communities. The continuance of Aboriginal society is dependent on keeping Aboriginal families strong and healthy both physically and culturally. Geography is hard, and so, I think we all know how that works. Even among members of the most Westernized elite, family retains its overarching significance. BY DAVID ROSS, EDITOR. Social Change characterizes every society. Family and kinship ties are very strong. This explains why dynasties waxed and waned so quickly. It shapes such daily experiences as how and where individuals live, how they interact with the people around them, and even, in some cases, whom they marry. But there are exceptions to this general observation, especially in Southern Africa and some parts of West Africa. ANT 379 Africa Africa Readings. In addition to joking kinship, Gambians may construct ties by drawing upon myriad potential factors such as extended family members growing up in the same compound, sharing the same name, friendships between relatives, religious ties, mentor relationships, ties built through the participation in ceremonies. From East to West or North to South you will find this everywhere in the society. Pakistan Table of Contents . This social institution ties individuals and groups together and establishes a relationship between them. Anglo-Saxon Life - kinship and lordship. The term ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ shows the sex of blood relations. Divisions within a society can be based on several different factors, including age, sex, religion, residence, kinship and common economic interest. Traditional African religion is very popular and arrived here with our North and West African ancestors. KINSHIP SYSTEMS AND FAMILY TYPESKinship systems are mechanisms that link conjugal families (and individuals not living in families) in ways that affect the integration of the general social structure and enhance the ability of the society to reproduce itself in an orderly fashion. A traditional society is marked, in the words of Talcott Parsons, by ‘particularistic’ values as opposed to ‘universalistic’ values which characterize a modern society. The issue of whether kinship ties influence marital outcomes is important given the overwhelming influence of lineage or kinship ties in Africa. In Traditional Aboriginal society children are the responsibility of not only their biological parents but their entire extended family. The term ‘father’ and ‘son’, grand-father and grandson show the relation between two generations. 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