In this intriguing book, social psychologist Irwin Altman and anthropologist Joseph Ginat examine husband-wife and wife-wife relationships in contemporary Mormon polygamous families. They describe how husbands and wives in plural families cope with their complex lifestyle in various facets of everyday life, including courtship, weddings, honeymoons, adjustments to a new life, living arrangements, and the husband's rotation among his wives. Other important topics include budget and resource management, psychological attachments to homes, and the social-emotional relationships between family members. This pioneering, comprehensive analysis of life in modern day Mormon polygamous families uses first-hand interviews and observations to describe this unusual family lifestyle. It adds to our understanding of close relationships and complements knowledge on other modern relationship forms, such as single-parent families, blended families, and cohabiting partners.
This paper re‐examines the puberty rites controversy associated with the work of John Whiting. Whiting explains the cross‐cultural association between severe male puberty rites and low salience of father in the early socialization process by means of the intervening variable of ambivalence in sex (gender) identity in the growing male. The authors of this paper investigated this intervening variable directly in a polygynous community in the United States. Their findings did not support the Whiting hypothesis. Furthermore, a review of the recent literature on the subject also did not support this hypothesis. Finally, a discussion of cognitive theory as it applies to the problem of male identity suggests alternative ways of viewing this issue.
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