Family and social network : roles, norms, and external relationships in ordinary urban families / Elizabeth Bott ; preface by Max Gluckman.

  • Elizabeth Spillius
Date:
1971
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Family and social network : roles, norms, and external relationships in ordinary urban families / Elizabeth Bott ; preface by Max Gluckman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/408 (page XXII)
    FAMILY AND SOCIAL NETWORK doing much of the work, the wives of the rich were isolated almost in harem conditions, in general seeing only kin and ser¬ vants, while the men sought some recreation, such as music, dancing, and the discussion of philosophy and politics, in the company of other men with highly educated 'prostitutes'. A second set of interconnected problems arises from the study of the networks which surround the family. Several commentators have drawn attention to the importance of investigating the extent to which the networks of the spouses are separated or are interlocked (see Bott on 'Reconsiderations'). Turner, cited by me above, concluded that 'when the networks of husband and wife show considerable overlap, no distinctive pattern of role relation¬ ship is associated with them' (op. cit., at p. 6). В. Kapferer cites this fmding in an analysis of the networks and the relationships of two African couples in a mining town in Zambia, in terms of the separateness and the overlap of their networks. He restates the Bott hypothesis as follows: 'The conjugal role relationship between spouses varies according to the degree of density [close- or loose- knittedness], clustering in each network, and cross-linkage between the separate networks of the husband and wife and to the degree of cross-linkage between the two networks and the degree of investment [in terms of exchange theory] in these cross-linking relationships. The most important part of this hypothesis concerns the aspect of cross-linking between the husband and wife's networks and the extent of the investment in the cross-links. Thus there will be a tendency towards a joint role-relationship where there are both direct cross-links from the wife to individuals in the husband's network and vice versa, and where these cross-links tend to be high in investment or include individuals who are part of the spouses' intimate networks. The effects of cross-linkage and the extent of investment in these cross-links for the conjugal role relationship of the spouses will be modified by the degree of density, segmentation, and cross-linkage within the individual networks. If there is a high density, but low clustering within a network there will be an increased tendency towards a joint role relationship between the spouses provided there is cross-linkage xxiv