Social Organization of Western Civilization Marriage, Family Life, Gender Relations, Economic Activity, and Population Distributions. Essay Example

A civilization is a complex society, as distinguished from a simpler society. Throughout the course of life, many civilizations have grown and prospered through the use of their surroundings. Every society has a specific set of ideas and customs that make it unique. Civilizations have even more complicated cultures, including literature, art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs linked with the elite. Civilization is such in nature that it seeks to spread, to have more, to expand, and it has the means by which to do this. During this course, I have learned the effects of social organization on a civilization through differences in marriage, family life, economic activity, and population distribution During the first parts of early civilization gender roles played a major part in people lives. Gender roles would greatly be tied to the family life that has changed dramatically throughout history. Urban life also redefined the role and status of women, who in the Neolithic period had enjoyed roughly the same roles and status as men. In cities, women tended to exercise private authority over children and servants within the household, while men controlled the household and dealt with the wider world. Later Greek attitudes toward gender roles and sexuality were rigid. Women played no public role in the life of the community. From birth to death, every female citizen lived under the protection of a male guardian, either a close relative such as a father or brother, or a husband or son. Mature men took young boys as their lovers, helped to educate them, and inspired them by word and deed to grow into ideal warriors and citizens. Also teachers such as Sappho of Lesbos, who was also a wife and a mother, formed similar bonds with their pupils, even while preparing them for marriage. In the Athenian way it was done like this, “I give this woman for the procreation of legitimate children.” “I accept.” “And [I give a certain amount as] dowry.” “I am