Title
Mainstream polygamy [electronic resource] : the non-marital child paradox In The West / Dominique Legros.
ISBN
9781461483076 electronic book
1461483077 electronic book
9781461483069
Published
New York : Springer, [2013?]
Copyright
©2014
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xi, 113 pages) : color illustrations.
Item Number
10.1007/978-1-4614-8307-6 doi
Call Number
HQ988
Dewey Decimal Classification
306.84/23
Summary
This volume explores the forms of knowledge generated by exoticizing the subject studied. It analyzes monogamy in Western cultures from a cultural distance. First, from the cultural perspective of a Kenyan writer who underlines the moral evils unwittingly generated by a system imposing universal monogamy and generating annual cohorts of illegitimate children. Then, the essay considers the case of France, which, starting in the 1970s, changed its laws regarding children born out of wedlock. Such children have now become legitimate. Unwittingly, this has allowed for polygyny or polyandry to become legal options for French males and females. The analysis is further extended to Western Europe, two Latin American nations and to the contemporary U.S.A. with its polyamory movement, where legal outcomes similar to those of France have occurred. The volume examines monogamy by using the epistemological approach that is typically used in the anthropological study of cultures other than one's own, showing how exotic and strange the system of monogamy can look, when observed from afar, from the eyes of many non-Westerners. It gives insight into planes of the human Western experience that would normally remain invisible. Students and teachers will delight in the close-to-home debates stimulated by this evocative thought-provoking essay.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed September 24, 2013).
Series
SpringerBriefs in anthropology. Springerbriefs in anthropology and ethics. 2195-0806
Chapter 1. In Praise of Exotopy
Chapter 2. Monogamy? Exoticizing a 3000 Year Old Pre-Christian Western Tradition
Chapter 3. Mistress, Concubine, Spouse, Lover or Paramour? The Need for a Cross-Culturally Valid Definition of Marriage
Chapter 4. Anthropologizing Traditional Marriage in France
Chapter 5. Legislating Polygyny and Polyandry in Mainstream France
Chapter 6. The Geographical Extent of Western Mainstream Polygamy: Europe, North America, and Latin America
Chapter 7. Constraints in Cultural Engineering, Exotopic Observation and Truth.