Our Mother-TempersThis book boldly states and deeply analyzes a commonplace observation about us all: our mothers play a powerful role in making us the kind of people we are. By the age of three, four, or five, virtually all children have learned to walk, talk, eat, sleep, control bodily functions, interact with other people, be male, or be female—insofar as these things are learned—from their mothers (or a mother surrogate who is female). Every mother has known and knows this. Most social analysts, according to the author, both know it and ignore it. If our mothers are asymmetrically influential in shaping our initial years, and our fathers usually in the background, what does it reveal about the social sources of human sex roles, including the universal precedence of males over females in all known societies? These are fundamental, normative, and often deeply emotional matters. Professor Levy seeks to consider them in a scientific spirit, clear the path for better understandings of the role of mothers, and inspire new research on early socialization. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Seed | 18 |
Peccator Forte | 24 |
The Family | 41 |
Solidarity | 61 |
Political Allocation | 93 |
Economic Allocation | 112 |
Integration and Expression | 124 |
Relationships | 132 |
Fathers | 177 |
Glossary | 189 |
| 233 | |
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Common terms and phrases
action affective and/or aspects asymmetry avoidant relationships axioms basic basis behavior certainly child childhood cial cognition concepts criteria distinction economic allocation egalitarian empirical exist families of procreation family context family head family members family of orientation family units father functionally diffuse hierarchical highly modernized Homo sapiens human hypotheses ideal and actual ideal patterns ideally speaking inculcated individuals infants and young initial learning initial socialization insofar institutionalized as predominantly intensity interaction interdependencies involved kinship known societies least matrilineal modernized societies mothers nantly neolocal nonfamily nonhierarchical nonmodernized contexts offspring older overwhelmingly particular particularistic pathetic fallacy patrilocal pleonasm political allocation predomi predominantly arational predominantly avoidant predominantly functionally predominantly rational predominantly universalistic present puristically biological regard rela relevant role differentiation scientific sense sexual sexual intercourse siblings social barring sociobiologists solidarities spects take precedence teleology thick description things tion tional tionship tive vary at random viduals young children