Chapter 10: Social Customs and Lifestyles

I feel like this section was a kind of catch all for all the information that the author wanted to include but didn’t know where to put. That made for an interesting, if scattered, read. So, that will probably be reflected in this blog!
First, I found the section on origin myths to be very interesting. I do not know of any origin myths locally, but I am sure that there have been some, especially among the Native Americans. However, what I found intriguing about the names of these places is that sometimes places are named badly in order to not catch the attention of the evil eye. I read earlier in the book about parents naming their children in a similar way. They used the example of a place being called “Big Sand Dune” in order not to draw attention to itself. I still do not know what the evil eye is, but it must be a big deal to cause all of this!
I also liked learning about the concept of “big” and “little” men. Even more, I liked that there were sometimes called “cooked” and “raw” men. Patrons are the big people in a community and they act in a sort of patriarchal way, whereas the little men are subordinates that are expected to be loyal. I think the thing I related to this most is the idea of our government and how we are supposed to support their decisions and be loyal as they “watch over us” in a way. (at least that is somewhat the hope) I don’t know if that is how they look at it, but that is the first thing that came to my mind.
This chapter also mentions marriage again. Although they did talk about caste, I did not find that anything new was said. However, when discussing marriage, the author states that the “family that receives the bride is superior to the family that gives the bride.” I was confused by this because I couldn’t tell if it meant that the woman was valuable, and thus whoever had her was the superior one or if it meant that the husband’s family was always seen as superior to the wife’s family. Either way, I think this is an interesting point that can parallel American society because it seems to me that when a couple gets married it is the woman’s family, generally, who more often feels like they are losing their daughter as opposed to the man’s family feeling a loss of a son. This could have something to do with the fact that both societies (for the most part, the reading says that there are some exceptions in India) are based in descent through the father’s line.