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Structure of Culture

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Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Cultural Patterns 
  3. Cultural Traits and Cultural Complex 
  4. Cultural Symbols
  5. Cultural Ethos 
  6. Cultural Areas 
  7. Major Components of Culture

Introduction

Interconnected parts of elements make up culture. The structure of a culture is its internal organization. Culture is essentially an abstraction that was inspired by the study of human behavior. In terms of traits and patterns, human behavior is organized and ordered. Similar to this, every culture has a guiding principle or way of life that permeates every facet of it. We'll look at patterns, traits, symbols, and ethos in the section that follows to see how culture is organized.

Cultural Patterns

A cultural pattern is an organized pattern of behavior. It represents a style of conduct that all members of a particular community or group share. A man is expected to raise his hat when he approaches a woman on the street, for instance, in western culture. Cultural patterns like this exist. In Indian culture, people touch their parents', elders', and teachers' feet as a sign of respect. Another illustration of a cultural pattern is this.

Ideal cultural patterns and actual behavioral patterns are two different kinds of cultural patterns. Ideal cultural norms specify how members of a society ought to act in specific circumstances. But people occasionally behave differently from the ideal patterns that their society has established. Actual behavioral patterns describe how individuals actually act in specific circumstances.

In a particular culture, a cultural pattern typically combines two or more components. The plough, the animals used to draw the plough, the domestication of these animals, the grains of rice or wheat to be sown, and the fertilization with dung are all components of the plough agriculture pattern, which has its roots in Western Asia.

The concept of human inequality, the classification of people and groups into high and low, the link between ritual purity and pollution, birth and occupation, food and touch, and the practice of untouchability were all aspects of the untouchability tradition that India long ago abolished.

Cultural Traits and Cultural Complex

A cultural trait, like a bow and arrow, is the smallest observable component of a culture. Primogeniture, a system where the eldest son succeeds the father after his death and is common in most of India and other nations, is an illustration of a cultural trait.

However, a cultural complex is an amalgam of characteristics. The jajmani system, which was common in many rural areas of India, serves as an example of a complex cultural system. A complex network of social, cultural, and economic ties, such as those between a family engaged in food production and an artisanal family, is referred to as the jajmani system. For instance, a farming family might have their agricultural equipment built and repaired by the former as part of the crop's harvest. The jajmani system, which stood for a reciprocity of relationship, served as a cultural complex as a result. Recently, though, even in our rural societies, this cultural complex has all but vanished.

Cultural Symbols

A certain meaning and significance are attached to certain things and objects by every culture. Therefore, physical objects, colors, shapes, and gestures take on special significance for the people who belong to a particular culture. They stand for icons of culture.

An example of a national symbol is a flag. Some Indian women wear bindiya or bottu on their foreheads as a traditional sign of their marital status. Her hair parting is also symbolically indicated by the use of sindoor, or vermilion. Indicative of the same is the sacred thread that Hindu men in India wear. It serves as a metaphor for their status as dwija, or double-born. An Indian's forehead will have vertical or horizontal marks made with colored powder or ash that represent his or her caste and sect. The Nagas of Assam hold that the forehead is the special location of the soul, which must be protected from the negative influence of outsiders. One method for doing this is to apply a tiny piece of wormwood leaf paste to the forehead. This cultural icon is thought to be effective at fending off negative forces.

Cultural Ethos

Two distinct but linked aspects make up a culture. The first is known as eidos, or the outward manifestation of a culture, and the second is known as ethos, or a people's worldview, or how they see the world and how man fits into it. The eidos includes a culture's institutions, customs, habits, rituals, and behavioral patterns. A culture's overall quality, or the set of beliefs and principles that permeate and rule the entire culture, is referred to as its ethos.

Dharma, a concept that refers to moral obligation or proper conduct, serves as a metaphor for the ethos of Indian culture. It is frequently referred to in Indian philosophical thought as "the Foundation of the Universe.". The four life stages of student, householder, forest dweller, and ascetic (varnashrama dharma) are where the idea of dharma is expressed. There is a specific set of responsibilities and duties that go along with each of these phases.

Cultural Areas

A cultural area is a geographic area with comparable cultural characteristics. The vast regions of the Pacific, including Australia, Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Indonesia, are referred to as cultural areas because each one of them is distinguished by a concentration of unique cultural traits and features.

The current state boundaries in India, which were established based on languages, typically delineate cultural regions. For instance, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Assam, and Tamil Nadu can be distinguished from one another not only based on their respective languages but also on specific cultural traits and characteristics. In general, the north-eastern region can be thought of as a cultural region. Similar to how the Dravidian south differs from northern India in terms of temple architecture, kinship systems, and language, the Dravidian south can be broadly regarded as a cultural region. However, it is important to remember that a vast cultural area also has internal variations.

Major Components of Culture

Because all of a culture's components are interconnected and dependent on one another, it is a structural unity. To analyze and understand culture, it is possible to identify its main facets or divisions.

The following units can be used to analytically separate the major, universal components of culture:
  • i) Technology : it refers to the system of tools, implements and artifacts, made and used by a people to meet their basic needs. 
  • ii) Economic organisation : it includes the techniques which are employed by a people in organising the production and distribution of goods and services. 
  • iii) Social organisation : it refers to the framework of social and inter-personal relations. 
  • iv) Political organisation : it refers to the ways and methods of controlling conflict, and deals with the maintenance of the social order. 
  • v) Ideology : it includes a guiding set of beliefs, values and ideals. 
  • vi) Arts : that is the forms which ensure the fulfilment of human beings’ aesthetic urges. 
  • vii) Language : it is the medium through which all the above operate.

Further Reading

  1. Beals, Ralph L. and Harry Loijer, 1956. An Intorduction to Anthropology, Macmillan : New York. 
  2. Herskovits, Melville J. 1969. Cultural Anthropology, Oxford and IBH : Delhi. 
  3. Honigmann, J,G, 1959. The World of Man, Harper and Brother : New York.
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