Tongan Gender Roles

In Tonga, gender affects the way in which people communicate with respect to social status. Tongans are very respectful and kind to others. Communication between people is demanded to be equal and fair to each participant of the conversation, as said earlier. With a monarchial society, the social and political status of individuals is very important to Tongans and their culture. The society itself is complex. With a collectivistic society, the family and groups are imperative to life and existence. An individual is usually only seen as one of a larger group. Family is major factor in communication.

In the family unit, the father is above his wife in rank but below his sister. The oldest sister is a very important and powerful individual in the family. Older siblings have more
It is customary that the male must ask for the daughters hand in marriage from the father. Some of the islands today still practice the ancient traditions of Tongan society. This ancient practice which was practised by all of the islands is that the male would bargain for the wife by offering the father a price to show the value of the daughter. This can be observed from the movie Johnny Lingo. This 1969 film follows the journey of a Tongan boy named Johnny Lingo. He goes to one of the islands to bargain for a wife, Mahanna. The women of the island begin to boast about how many cows they had been offered from their husbands. The women say that Mahanna would be lucky enough to get one cow. Johnny goes to Mahanna's father and asks the price for his daughter. Moki, Mahanna's father, says three cows. But Johnny then says that three is not enough and offers an obscene amount of eight cows. This film accurately shows that Tongan's used to and sometimes do now to show their respect for the fathers of the house. This practice shows how gender affects the communication between families and the process for