CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF BEHAVIOR 



1451 



nal political authority, but among them- 

 selvcis they are extremely egalitarian and 

 even-handed. Shame is the major sanction, 

 and individuals shamed by adverse com- 

 ment may commit suicide. Talk is the major 

 pleasure, and continual conversation, jok- 

 ing, sexual punning, and story telling take 

 the jilace of art and intellectual activity of 

 any other sort. 



A timid, generous, friendly people, the 

 Lepchas have preserved the habits suitable 

 for survival in an earlier environment in a 

 way which ensures their eventual disappear- 

 ance in a present environment with which 

 they are quite unfitted to compete. They 

 are, however, somewhat protected by the 

 fact that the Maharajah of Sikkim has 

 made the mountainous area of Zongu a 

 Lepcha preserve in which only people of 

 pure Lepcha blood can own land. While this 

 law is enforced, a small group of perhaps 

 2000 can continue their way of life. 



IV. Psychologic Sex Gender antl 

 Sex Role Assignment 



All known human societies recognize the 

 anatomic and functional differences be- 

 tween males and females in intricate and 

 complex ways; through insistence on small 

 nuances of behavior in posture, stance, gait, 

 through language, ornamentation and dress, 

 division of labor, legal social status, reli- 

 gious role, etc. In all known societies sexual 

 dimorphism is treated as a major differenti- 

 ating factor of any human being, of the 

 same order as difference in age, the other 

 universal of the same kind. However, where 

 in contemorary America only two approved 

 sex roles are offered to children, in many 

 societies there are more. The commonest sex 

 careers may be classified as: 



1. Married female who will bear children 

 and care for her children. 



2. Married male who will Iieget and i^ro- 

 vide for his children. 



3. Adult male who will not marry or 

 beget children but who will exercise some 

 l^rescribed social function, involving various 

 forms of celibacy, sexual abstinence, renun- 

 ciation of procreation, specialized forms of 

 ceremonial sexual license, or exemption 

 from social restrictions placed on other men. 



4. Adult female who will neither marry 

 nor bear children and who will have a 



recognized status in a religious context or 

 in society (nuns, temple prostitutes, spin- 

 sters, etc.). 



5. Persons whose special, nonprocreative 

 ceremonial role is important, roles in which 

 various forms of transvestism and adoption 

 of the behavior of the opposite sex are ex- 

 pected, so that the external genital morphol- 

 ogy is either ignored or denied, e.g., shamans, 

 etc. 



6. Adult males who assume female roles, 

 including transvestism, where this adult 

 sexual career is open only to males. 



7. Adult females who assume male roles, 

 including transvestism, where this adult 

 sexual career is open only to females. 



8. Sexually mutilated persons, where the 

 mutilation may be congenital or socially 

 produced {e.g., eunuchs) and where the sex 

 behavior includes specific expectations of 

 nonmarriage, nonparenthood, relaxation of 

 taboos on ordinary relationships between 

 the sexes, etc. (eunuchs, choir boys, etc.). 



9. Prostitution, in which the adult indi- 

 vidual maintains herself (or less frequently 

 himself) economically by the exploitation 

 of sex relationships with extramarital part- 

 ners. 



10. Zoolagnia, a social role combined with 

 a sex preference for an animal (shepherd 

 and sheep). 



11. Age-determined sex roles, as where 

 homoerotic behavior is expected of adoles- 

 cents, or withdrawal from all sex relation- 

 ships expected from older heads of house- 

 holds, etc., or license is expected before 

 marriage and fidelity afterward, or chastity 

 before marriage and indulgence after mar- 

 riage, or where widows are expected neither 

 to remarry nor to engage in any further sex 

 relationships. 



Any or all of these adult roles may occur 

 in the same society, and the possibility of a 

 child's choosing or being thrust into any of 

 these roles will also be present wherever the 

 role is widely recognized, whether or not 

 the recognition is positively or negatively 

 weighted. Preparation for a life of celibacy 

 and religious devotion begins early in those 

 societies where the monastic life is a com- 

 mon choice ; among those American Indians 

 who recognized the berdache, or transves- 

 tite male, as a likely career, male children 

 were watched and tested from an early age 



