oarsmen

 noun

plural noun: oarsmen

1. a rower, especially as a member of a racing team.

conquered

 conquered

/ˈkäNGkərd/

Learn to pronounce

adjective

1. (of a place or people) having been overcome and taken control of by military force.

raid

raid

/rād/

verb

past tense: raided; past participle: raided

1. conduct a raid on.

vanquish

 

van·quish

/ˈvaNGkwiSH/

Learn to pronounce

verb

LITERARY

past tense: vanquished; past participle: vanquished

1. defeat thoroughly.

nomads

 nomads (nouns)

• a member of a people having no permanent abode, and who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.
• a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer.

7.1.1: Slavery Slavery

 7.1.1: Slavery Slavery, whose essential characteristic is that some individuals own other people, has been common throughout history. 

The Old Testament even lays out rules for how owners should treat their slaves. 

So does the Quran. The Romans had slaves, as did people in Africa, China, Greece, India, and Japan. In classical Greece and Rome, slaves did the work, freeing citizens to engage in politics and the arts. 

Slavery was most widespread in agricultural societies and least common among nomads, especially hunters and gatherers (Landtman 1938/1968; Rowthorn et al. 2011).

Let’s examine the causes and conditions of slavery. 

You probably will be surprised to learn how slavery has varied around the world. 

Causes of Slavery Contrary to popular assumption, slavery was usually based not on racism but on one of three other factors. 

The first was debt.

 In some societies, creditors would enslave people who could not pay their debts. 

The second was crime. 

Instead of being killed, a murderer or thief might be enslaved by the victim’s family as compensation for their loss. 

The third was war. 

When one group of people conquered another, they often enslaved some of the vanquished. 

Historian Gerda Lerner (1986) notes that women were the first people enslaved through warfare.

 When tribal men raided another group, they killed the men, raped the women, and then brought the women back as slaves. 

The women were valued for sexual purposes, for reproduction, and for their labor.

 Roughly 2,500 years ago, when Greece was but a collection of city-states, slavery was common. 

A city that became powerful and conquered another city would enslave some of the vanquished.

 Both slaves and slaveholders were Greek. 

Similarly, when Rome became the supreme power of the Mediterranean area about two thousand years ago, following the custom of the time, the Romans enslaved some of the Greeks they had conquered. More educated than their conquerors, some of these slaves served as tutors in Roman homes. Slavery, then, was a sign of debt, of crime, or of defeat in battle. It was not a sign that the slave was viewed as inherently inferior.  Conditions of Slavery The conditions of slavery have varied widely around the world. In some places, slavery was temporary. Slaves of the Israelites were set free in the year of jubilee, which occurred every fifty years. Roman slaves ordinarily had the right to buy themselves out of slavery. They knew what their purchase price was, and some were able to meet this price by striking a bargain with their owners and selling their services to others. In most instances, however, slavery was a lifelong condition. Some criminals, for example, became slaves when they were given life sentences as oarsmen on Roman warships. There they served until death, which often came quickly to those in this exhausting service. Slavery was not necessarily inheritable. In most places, the children of slaves were slaves themselves. But in some instances, the child of a slave who served a rich family might even be adopted by that family, becoming an heir who bore the family name along with the other sons or daughters of the household. In ancient Mexico, the children of slaves were always free (Landtman 1938/1968:271). Slaves were not necessarily powerless and poor. In almost all instances, slaves owned no property and had no power. Among some groups, however, slaves could accumulate property and even rise to high positions in the community. Occasionally, a slave might even become wealthy, loan money to the master, and, while still a slave, own slaves himself or herself (Landtman 1938/1968). This, however, was rare. Bonded Labor in the New World A gray area between slavery and contract labor is bonded labor, also called indentured service. People who wanted to start a new life in the American colonies but could not pay for their passage across the ocean would arrange for a ship captain to transport them on credit. When they arrived, wealthy colonists would pay the captain for the voyage, and these penniless people would become the colonists’ servants for a set number of years. During this period, these indentured servants were required by law to serve their masters. If they ran away, they became outlaws who were hunted down and forcibly returned. At the end of their period of indenture, they were free to work and to live where they chose (Main 1965; Handler and Reilly 2017).

vignette

 A vignette is a French loanword expressing a short and descriptive piece of writing that captures a brief period in time. Vignettes are more focused on vivid imagery and meaning rather than plot. Vignettes can be stand-alone, but they are more commonly part of a larger narrative, such as vignettes found in novels or collections of short stories.

7.1 Systems of Social Stratification

 Systems of Social Stratification 7.1 

Compare and contrast slavery (including bonded labor), caste, estate, and class systems of social stratification. 

Some of the world’s nations are wealthy, others poor, and some in between. 

This division of nations, as well as the layering of groups of people within a nation, is called social stratification. 

Social stratification is one of the most significant topics we will discuss in this book. 

As you saw in the opening vignette, social stratification profoundly affects our life chances—from our access to material possessions to the age at which we die. 

Social stratification also affects the way we think about life.

 Look at the photo of the Mulleta family in Ethiopia. 

If you were a parent of this family, you would expect hunger to be a part of life and would not expect all of your children to survive. 

You would also be illiterate and would assume that your children would be as well. In contrast, if you are an average U.S. parent, you expect your children not only to survive but also to be well fed, not only to be able to read but also to go to college. 

You can see that social stratification brings with it not just material things but also ideas of what we can expect out of life.

The Mulleta family of Ethiopia, described in the opening vignette, displaying all of their possessions.

 Credit: Shawn G. Henry 

Social stratification is a system in which groups of people are divided into layers according to their relative property, power, and prestige.

 It is important to emphasize that social stratification does not refer to individuals. 

It is a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges. 

It is also important to note that every society stratifies its members. 

Some societies have more inequality than others, but social stratification is universal. 

In addition, in every society of the world, gender is a basis for stratifying people. 

On the basis of their gender, people are either allowed or denied access to the good things offered by their society. 

Let’s consider four major systems of social stratification: slavery, caste, estate, and class.

dung

 dung

[dəNG]

NOUN

1. the excrement of animals; manure.

   synonyms:

   manure · muck · 

   [more]

VERB

1. drop or spread dung on (a piece of ground).
2. example cow dung 

Teff

 teff

NOUN

1. an African cereal which is cultivated almost exclusively in Ethiopia, used mainly to make flour.

7-: Global Stratification

 The Venetians Taking Riva sul Garda from the Milanese in 1440, ca. 1570, Jacopo Robusti, (fresco) Credit: DeAgostini/Superstock Let’s contrast two “average” families from around the world: For Getu Mulleta, 33, and his wife, Zenebu, 28, of rural Ethiopia, life is a constant struggle to avoid starvation. 

They and their seven children live in a 320-square-foot manure-plastered hut with no electricity, gas, or running water. 

They have a radio, but the battery is dead. 

The family farms teff, a grain, and survives on $130 a year. 

The Mulletas’ poverty is not due to a lack of hard work. 

Getu works about eighty hours a week, while Zenebu puts in even more hours.

 Housework for Zenebu includes fetching water, cleaning animal stables, and making fuel pellets out of cow dung for the open fire over which she cooks the family’s food.

 Like other Ethiopian women, she eats after the men.

 In Ethiopia, the average male can expect to live to age 48, the average female to 50. 

The Mulletas’ most valuable possession is their oxen. 

Their wishes for the future: more animals, better seed, and a second set of clothing. Springfield, Illinois, is home to the Kellys—Rick, 36, Patti, 34, Julie, 10, and Michael, 7. 

The Kellys live in a four-bedroom, 2½-bath, 2,687-square-foot ranch-style house with a fireplace, central heating and air conditioning, a basement, and a two-car garage. 

Their home is equipped with a refrigerator, freezer, washing machine, clothes dryer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, vacuum cleaner, food processor, microwave, and a convection stovetop and oven.

 They also own computers, cell phones, color televisions, several digital cameras, an iPod, an iPad, a printer-scanner-fax machine, blow dryers, a juicer, an espresso coffee maker, a pickup truck, and an SUV.

 Rick works forty hours a week as a cable splicer for a telephone company. Patti teaches school part-time. Together they make $66,632, plus benefits.

 The Kellys can choose from among dozens of superstocked supermarkets. They spend $5,765 for food they eat at home, and another $3,876 eating out, a total of 14 percent of their annual income. 

In the United States, the average life expectancy is 77 for males, 82 for females. 

On the Kellys’ wish list are a solar car with Internet connection, a phablet, an Ultra High-Definition bendable TV, a virtual-reality simulator, an in-ground heated swimming pool, a boat, a motor home, an ATV, and a lakeside cabin.

 (Menzel 1994; Statistical Abstract 2017:Tables 112, 714, 723, 995). 

Hearing from Students Global Stratification Play Hearing from StudentsGlobal Stratification