1. FAMILY IN THE CARIBBEAN Barrow, Christine. Reddock, Rhoda. Caribbean Sociology: Introductory Readings. Ian Randle Publishers Ltd. Jamaica (2001)

2. FACTORS SHAPING THE CARIBBEAN FAMILY 1. Culture – Herskovits (1964) and Frazier (1939) argued that the Africans brought with them cultural practices that they retained while enslaved on the plantation system. Polygamy is attributed to the family forms that exist in the Caribbean as well as for the male marginalization in the household. 2. Economics and Poverty – Lewis (1966) states that poverty impacts the poor on three levels: the individual, the family, and the community. He goes on to add that males tend to abandon their families when they fail to fulfil their expected male function of providing financial support. 3. Social Status – Clarke (1957) proposed that it was considered improper for a man to propose marriage unless he owned a house and was financially stable. Also that men enjoyed talking about sexual prowess and that it was a status factor to have fathered children with different women.

3. THE AFRO-CARIBBEAN FAMILY  Colonial social welfare workers were brought from England to deal with what were perceived to be ‘problems’ of family life in the Caribbean. This “social pathology” was at the request of Colonial Office.  They judged Caribbean families by their own middle class, Christian, nuclear family standards and found them to be ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘disorganized’.

4. FINDINGS OF SOCIAL PATHOLOGISTS 1. Family life was seem as loose and unstable, and relationships appeared to be casual. 2. Conjugal ties were seen as ‘promiscuous’ and ‘transitory’. 3. Children were illegitimate, effectively fatherless, “unschooled and subject to erratic but severe physical punishments at the hands of their parents”. 4. As a result, the social pathologists attributed a range of social ills (juvenile delinquency in particular) to the weak and malformed Caribbean family life.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS & SOLUTIONS?  The social pathologists mandated that the Caribbean family be reconstructed to conform to the nuclear ideal, with marriage and legitimate children.  Policies were implemented to attempt to alter the structure of lower-class African families. It was felt that this would improve and develop the ‘moral’ and ‘social well-being’ of Caribbean societies.  Case study: The island-wide marriage campaign in Jamaica.

6. RECEPTION OF THE REPORT  Social pathology was largely seen as ethnocentric – the Caribbean family was seen as a failure since it did not meet Western, Christian standards.  Data collection provided the basis for an assumed understanding of family forms in the Caribbean and misrepresented as extended family types were virtually ignored and only co-residential conjugal unions were acknowledged.

7. MATRIFOCALITY  R.T. Smith (1973) used the term ‘matrifocality’ to define the Afro-Caribbean family structure. He states that it characterizes a situation in which “it is women in their role as mothers who come to be the focus of relationships”.  Matrifocality increases as the mother moves from childbearing and rearing, to becoming dependent (especially economically) on her partner and the father(s) of her children. Later, as the children grow into adults and contribute money to her for household expenses, she becomes the centre of an economic and decision-making coalition with her children.

8. CRITICISMS OF MATRIFOCALITY  Smith was quick to point out that ‘matrifocality’ refers to mother-centeredness, not to female dominance or headship.  Caribbean feminists, however, point out that “these stereotypes and standard portrayals of women are distorted and misconceived. They present a pattern of submissiveness, a preoccupation with home, motherhood and domesticity and an economic security derived from dependence on a man which is highly unlikely in the circumstances of poverty, unemployment and economic uncertainty in which many Caribbean women live.” (Barrow 1988)

9. MY MOTHER NEVER FATHERED ME RETHINKING KINSHIP AND THE GOVERNING OF FAMILIES MINDIE LAZARUS-BLACK Barrow, Christine. Reddock, Rhoda. Caribbean Sociology: Introductory Readings. Ian Randle Publishers Ltd. Jamaica (2001)

10. Background  In the article, it was found that Antiguan slave marriages did not bestow a man’s name to his wife or children or protect inheritances. Rather, slaves engaged in a pattern on non-legal, serial partnerships. As a consequence, ‘family’ took a variety of forms.  Depending on the context, the time, and the conditions of labour, slave families and household composition might include stable units of men, women, and children, mother-child households with visiting partners and fathers, three-generational or sibling groups, and more rarely, families in which men participated as lovers and fathers in more than one household.  It was noted that by the end of the 18 th century, both legal and ‘outside’ families were part of life in each of the three ranks of Antiguan society (upper, middle and lower classes).

11. The Argument  Antigua’s talk about families and illegitimate children in Parliament was framed as a ‘social welfare’ problem.  Male irresponsibility was critical in law makers’ talk about kinship and what to do about it.  Lawmakers stressed that nuclear marriage was ideal and that other family forms are deviant and have less value.  One senator argued that child maintenance should be raised because ‘the reality’ of Antiguan life is that women father children.

12. The Counter-Argument  Mothering “is about washing, cooking, cleaning, marketing, sewing, ironing, working your day job, braiding hair, and minding the children or making sure that they are minded by someone else.”  Men may do some or even all of these everyday activities, however, most of the time, they ‘father’.  Fathering is commonly associated with “certain specific behaviours, such as paying for maintenance, school fees, and special items that are expensive like new shoes, a boy’s first suit, or a piece of jewellery to commemorate a girl’s confirmation.”  Moreover, ‘proper’ fathering is the ability of men to bestow ‘support’ at their own prerogative.

13. ‘Mothering’ vs. ‘Fathering’ 1. Women evaluate differently and accord higher status to what men bestow to households. 2. Gifts by men are highly valued and they elevate the status of he who gives.

14. Conclusion  The Antiguan mother does not ‘father’ her child because kinship and gender ideology and practice describes and values differently what ‘fathering’ entails, how it is accomplished, and to whom it is assigned.  While mothers are responsible for the everyday things and rearing practices that people take for granted, many Antiguan children have the experience of going to their father to get important necessities that their mothers cannot provide – books, school fees or new shoes.

15. CHANGES OVER TIME & SPACE IN THE EAST INDIAN FAMILY IN RURAL TRINIDAD JOSEPH NEVADOMSKY Barrow, Christine. Reddock, Rhoda. Caribbean Sociology: Introductory Readings. Ian Randle Publishers Ltd. Jamaica (2001

16. Background  The last great influx of immigrants began in 1845 with the importation of mainly Hindu indentured labourers from India. By 1917, approximately 140,000 Indians had been transported to Trinidad, where most of them remained.  Scholars who have carried out research among the East Indians in Trinidad have variously addressed the problem of acculturation in terms of agricultural settlements and farming practices, religious organization, ecological adaptation, community structure, regional cultural patterns, education, aspirations of youth, personality structure and values, politics, history, and drinking patterns, among other things. (Niehoff et al. 1969)  Niehoff calls ‘the two most important social institutions brought from India,’ namely, ‘the extended family and the caste system’.

17. The Case for Cultural Restraint  Niehoff showed that the caste system had been virtually wiped out in the indenture period, suggests that ‘the institutions of the Hindu family seem to have survived much better than that of caste’. The Indians seem to view marriage as the focal point in the affairs of the family and have retained much tradition in it.  Klass (1961), in his study of a predominantly Hindu village, pointed out that ‘traits and values deriving from India take precedence over those deriving from the non-Indian environment’. He singles out the family to illustrate the strength of cultural restraint.  Smith (1963), studied a Muslim West Indian community and concluded that the social organization of the Indian family is extremely resistive to the acculturative pressures.

18. The Case for Cultural Restraint (ctd.)  “East Indians have successfully transplanted this institution of Indian social life in its basic form from which they brought their homeland. The East Indian family in Trinidad is still characterized by their inferior or unequal status of women, parental selection of mates, rarity of divorce, sharing of property, and inter-relationships within the caste system.” (Malik, 1971)

19. Cultural Persistence and Social Change  It is suggested that the Indian family has not been able to maintain its integration as a traditional system in the face of social change.  Some have stressed the importance of rural isolation and ethnic identity as the major mechanisms for preserving East-Indian culture to some extent. Others have stressed the sheer tenacity of Indian institutions and values and their functional unity in the face of pressures for change.  Certain cultural traits were believed to constitute a set of critical core features – the ‘cultural focus’ – that is, they formed a layer of values, a sort of quintessence of the culture. Such values were through to derive from the pre-contact situation, reinforced from time to time by the influx of new migrants from the same pre-contact areas.

20. Cultural Persistence & Social Change (ctd.)  Because these values were at the heart of the culture, providing it with stability, validity and tone, they were thought to be especially resistant to acculturation.  Thus in spite of the massive deculturation effects of slavery, New World Negroes were presumed to have held on to such deeply internalized features of their Old World cultures such as religious beliefs, magic, folklore, myths and kinship patterns, while economic patterns, technology and various incidental values were thought most likely to disappear under external pressure.  Features of this theory are similar to the concept of ‘culture as an onion’, in which the outer (superficial) layers must be peeled away before the core of the onion (culture) can be reached and transformed.

21. Toco versus Amity – A Comparison  Both studies took into the consideration the survival of the antecedent culture with an unfortunate neglect of the Caribbean with its own tradition of slavery and indenture.  Both Herskovitses (1947) and Klass (1961) view culture as the total body of the transmitted heritage, one of its essential features being continuity through socialization.  Klass contends that Indian culture in Amity is a ‘remembered system’ having been perpetuated by ‘individual carriers of culture’ and capable of transmission through the generations.  Immigrants do not arrive tabula rasa ready for the total indoctrination into the host social system. But, through a sequence of generations, there will eventually be some erosion of many traditional conventions.

22. Toco versus Amity: Conclusions  Cultural transmission is not, then, a mere repetitive process forming each generation into automatons stamped with the image of the past.  In Smith’s view (1965), the core of culture is in its institutional system and cultural pluralism occurs when each cultural category adheres to its own unique system of compulsory institutions: family and kinship, religion, education, modes of agriculture and settlement, and so on.  Trinidad’s rural East Indians were described as a ‘cultural enclave’ or a ‘parallel socio-cultural system’ rather than a ‘subcultural’ category of the population.  As a result, the East Indian are argued to have resisted creolization.

23. The Indian Family in Guyana  Tend to be frugal.  Place a high value on land acquisition.  Structure their leisure activities around religious rituals.  Perceive education as a threat to cultural identity.  Feel threatened by a school system dominated by Negro teachers.  Object to a curriculum that provides role models unrelated to the traditional Indian patterns.

24. Indian Family in Trinidad  They regard education as a tool to undermine the solidarity of the traditional family because it taught children to be ashamed of their social origins.  They viewed their access to quality education as restricted as education was not a means for their social advancement.  They stuck closely to farming, a familiar occupation, and the security of land.  Seen as being a ‘retreatist adaptation’ because they felt unable to achieve their goals through methods normally prescribed by society.

25. Contemporary Family Patterns  Social mobility has led to the creation of new relations, values and aspirations.  The ideal household is the nuclear one.  The majority of marriages toady are based entirely on free personal choice.  There is greater individualism resulting from independent incomes and educational mobility.  The undisputed hierarchy of the traditional Indian family has been replaced by ambiguity and rebellion.  The trend in husband-wife roles is toward greater equality in decision- making.