The Life and Words of a Kung Woman

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that in both Kung! and Western society, the mother-child bond is considered to be the primary bond between parent and child. The writer points out that fathers play a role in child rearing, but the mother-child bond is the most intense. The writer notes that unlike the conventional, nuclear parental division of authority and discipline in the West, Kung! women have the authority. The writer explains that the father coming home from work dispensing discipline is not the figure of reverence and/or fear as in the West. In Kung! society it is the mother. The writer discusses that this division of disciplinary labor is accepted, there is neither patriarchy nor an attempt for mother and father to have equal authority upon the child.

From the Paper:

"In both Western and Kung! culture there is some anxiety attached to the correct time to sever the close bond between mother and child upon weaning and to give the child the status of a formal, autonomous member of the tribe. But unlike Western mothers who must work outside the home, Kung! mothers have little motivation or resources to find other ways of providing nutrition for their children other than breast-feeding. There seems to be little anxiety about nurturing a child correctly, perhaps because rather than the multiplicity of models of motherhood that Western women are subject to, Kung! society is far more mono-cultural. Because it is not thought appropriate or healthy for a pregnant mother to nurse a child, the justification for weaning is usually biological rather than sociological, as Western women may be apt to wonder about harming the child's socialization. Kung! mothers wean their children much later, usually around the age of three, and as late as age five, if they are expecting no other children."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Shostak, Marjorie. Nissa: The Life and Words of a Kung! Woman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

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