In Antwort auf:

---

Caribbean patterns of family and gender relations

My example will of course be the interethnic relations between Cubans and Swiss. To show the starting point of their negotiation process, I shall have to point out some habitual dispositions of Cuban emigrants.

These will be limited here to such aspects as can be interpreted as adaptations to the current gender and family structure in Cuba's predominantly black underclass. I would like to enlarge the geographic scope by claiming that such family patterns are features not only of the social strata most affected by poverty in Cuba, but also of the Afro-Caribbean population on other Caribbean islands. Some official figures on divorce rates, the percentage of single mothers, etc., recently published in Cuba, can underpin this hypothesis.4

This is to say, I am not taking into account the peculiarities of the Cuban social structure that were generated by the revolution and are, to some extent, effective to this day.

Family and gender relations among the poorer layers of Afro-Caribbean society are since Raymond T. Smith characterised by the term of matrifocal family system.5 This system comprises the following elements: the decisive solidarities with reciprocal obligations are those between mother and children on the one hand, and among brothers and sisters on the other. By contrast, the links between husband and wife, as well as between father and children, are more likely to be of secondary importance. The cornerstone of the kinship system is therefore the matrifocal family consisting of an elder woman, her daughters and some, if not all, sons. Mother and children together form a stable decision-making coalition (Smith 1973).

Relationships between the sexes on the other hand are unstable and subject to frequent changes. As a rule, they last for as long as there is mutual liking and erotic attraction, or as long as immediate economic interests are served. In scientific literature, this is called the principle of serial monogamy. One of the consequences of this arrangement is that men rotate, so to speak, between stable matrifocal units.

From the women's point of view, the multiplication of marriage-like relationships represents a sort of risk aversion strategy,6 since the chances of one man making sufficient and lasting contributions to the support of the family are very low in view of the high unemployment rates and the irregular job opportunities in the informal sector.7

The rate of women earning an income is correspondingly high in all Caribbean societies, including Cuba (cf. the figures in Momsen 1993:12).8

What dispositions regarding gender relations correspond to such a family structure?

What patterns of thinking and acting are developed in adjustment to the given facts of this social structure?

Three points are of special interest in this context. First of all, there is a woman's far-reaching independence of her husband and her father, as well as her self-confidence, especially in the case of mature women with a certain number of children, in her role as focal figure of a matrifocal unit. Second, according to the volatile relationship structure and the principle of serial monogamy, a lot of attention is paid to sexual matters. Insofar as men are felt to have less binding obligations towards wife and children, they are, correspondingly, more focused on as lovers (Sutton and Makiesky-Barrow 1977; Orozco 1993:644f.). And nevertheless, as a third point, two different yardsticks are applied when it comes to questions of fidelity.

As an obligation, it applies far more stringently for women than for men, whose extra-marital affairs are more easily tolerated and, at least in the eyes of men themselves, count as special evidence of virility (Gussler 1980:199; Sutton and Makiesky-Barrow 1977:312f.; Orozco 1993, chapter 19).9

---

@ Serafina

kannst Du Dich in der Beschreibung wiederfinden?

In Antwort auf:

---

@Rafael_70
Warum fragst du, was du schon weisst?
Salu2, Serafina

---

@ Serafina

In Antwort auf:

---

Wer kennt Andreas Wimmer nicht?!
Salu2, Serafina

---