Marriage in NISA essays

Marriage in NISA essays Marriage in Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman Marriage is something that is sacred in all cultures. Everyone gets married in some way or another. In American culture, a man marries one woman, and together, they eventually raise a family. In some places, marriages are arranged. There are other places where people marry their cousins and others where men marry more then one woman. All of these types of marriages are discussed in Anthropology: An Applied Perspective. Many different cultures have many different ways to go about marrying and having families. In Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, Nisa speaks of her many marriages and how they worked out and why they turned out that way. Nisa was married for the first time at a very young age. She had not even menstruated yet. That is the way that it is in her culture. A woman marries an older man when she is very young. Often, the girl is frightened to stay in their new home alone together right away, so a nurse comes and stays with them for a short period of time. Nisas marriage ceremony was very different from a marriage ceremony that we would have here in America. The women wear beads and decorations, like we do, but that is only part of the ceremony. A main part of the marriage is that the husbands family and the wifes family band together and make a marriage hut for the new couple. Here is where the two are supposed to live and sleep together. Very rarely does a young girl actually stay in the hut at night though. Nisa ran back to her parents hut everytime that her husband would fall asleep. Nisa also had many husbands. Which is normal in her culture. Polygamy is also normal. Men are aloud to marry more then one woman, but often it does not work out. Nisa was going to marry a man that had another wife, but it did not feel right to her so she did not do it. The !Kung people call their multiple wives, co-wives. In many instances, the first ...