Procreation and Its Implications for Gender, Marriage, and Family in European Rural Ethnography

Abstract

Based upon ethnographic accounts of European rural communities and my own fieldwork in the south of Spain, this article underscores the importance of a model of procreation for a comprehensive understanding of gender classification systems, and womanhood analyzed as ideal types, as well as definitions of marriage, bachelorhood, spinsterhood, and the family [Europe, model of procreation, gender, marriage, family] Inroduction My aim is to explore the implications of the concept of procreation for gender, marriage and the family in the ethnographic context of several rural societies, primarily in southern Europe.1 I will argue that unless explicit reference is made to procreation as a cultural domain and a core concept which shapes a range of other related issues such as gender classification systems and notions of manhood and womanhood, research on these issues will not advance. Thinking of procreation as a cultural domain rather than as a universal, biological one compels us to be conscious of the importance of particular models of procreation. Delaney (1991) has made an outstanding contribution to the knowledge of a particular model called monogenetic, according to the villagers' understanding of the man's and woman's roles, respectively, in procreation through the basic metaphors: the seed and the soil/field. Although my approach owes a great deal to Delaney's, some basic differences should be taken into account. While her book was the outcome of fieldwork in a Turkish village, my article consists of an analysis and revision of the ethnographic literature mostly published before Delaney's book. She portrayed a particular model of procreation, whereas I aim to show that by using the concept of procreation, more of the connections between sometimes seemingly unrelated issues about gender and other aspects become clear, and their cultural logic better understood. During the early 1970s through the 1980s deep social changes have affected southern European societies, and local and national ideas about procreation, gender, marriage, bachelorhood, and spinsterhood are thus more open to question than in the past. My aim is less to outline the contours of these broader changes than to demonstrate that by ignoring the concept of procreation and privileging the realm of sexuality, the ethnographic texts considered here have been unable to provide an adequate interpretation of many crucial aspects of gender classification systems, marriage, and the family in European rural societies. To support my argument, I begin by outlining my own conceptualization of the relationships between procreation and gender. I then turn to a critical rereading of the existing ethnographic literature and make apparent a cultural logic of procreation that, while embedded in this literature, was never made explicit. Procreation and Gender: Manhood What defines a man,2 not in opposition to the animal realm, but in relation to other human beings in European rural societies?3 In many of the contexts to which I shall refer, a person becomes a man when he is married and fulfills his social role in the creation and continuation of life. It is his procreative capacity, and not just his affinal status, that defines a man and marks him in relation to other human beings. To understand this position, one cannot imagine marriage merely as a phase within the life cycle, nor solely as a formal, ceremonial occasion. Being married is not merely a provisional phase, but a permanent and basic element of the definition of being a man, which involves his procreative capacity and is consolidated through the actual act of procreation. The following equivalence takes place: getting married is equivalent to procreating, and procreating is equivalent to getting married. The notions of marriage, procreation, and what it means to be a man are interdependent. The definition of being a man is based on something fundamental: the creation of life and also the assumption of responsibility for contributing to the maintenance of this life. …