NORTH AMERICAN HMONG (USA)
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Scott (1986)[1][178] gives an account of Hmong courtship:
“The prospective partners were usually relatively young, the girl being around fourteen and the boy, around eighteen. The formal marriage procedure was initiated by the boy’s father and older married brothers, or, if they were not available, by other closely related male agnates, who would make a formal request in his behalf to the prospective bride’s parents. In most cases, the girl had already given the boy her consent during a clandestine courtship, which usually involved sexual relations. These liasons, if not openly condoned, were expected and even tacitly accepted as a means of ensuring happy marriages, as long as they were kept out of public view, and especially out of that of the girl’s parents and older brothers” ([p79-80]).
It also includes
songs: “Hmong learn to sing the songs by watching and imitating the other
Hmong who know them. The songs are related to courtship. One Hmong
interviewed said, “When a boy sings a song to a girl, she feels happy and
sings it back to him. When he hears her sing it back to him he is very happy.
He will again sing the song to the girl. They can sing the song all day long”
” (Ukapatayasakul, 1983)[2][179].
Word has it that the cultural transmission of these songs is eroding in
Donnelly (1994)[4][181]
has made a careful analysis of Hmong courtship in terra ignota,
“In Laos, getting married for the first time generally involved courting, choosing a mate, and an elopement (called catch-hand marriage) with the girl staying at the boy’s house for three days; or alternatively the boy making a formal request to the girl’s family, raising the bride wealth, contract negotiations” (p114).
After resettlement, adaptations were, in one way, practical:
“The new American environment clearly produces many stylistic changes in Hmong courtship. A boy can no longer softly play the mouth harp outside the house wall where a girl lies sleeping, because apartment walls are made of solid materials, not woven bamboo or unchinked boards. He cannot get her attention inconspicuously at night, nor can he slip into the house to wake her as before, because now the door is locked—so elopements no longer start from home as they traditionally did. Girls’ Hmong-style costumes (worn mainly now at New Year celebrations) may be bought or partly bought, so the quality of workmanship no longer necessarily expresses the diligence and skill of the girl. The youth’s automobile has become a vital tool of courtship”.
Other peculiarities are more structural:
“In
Schooling has an impact on traditional definitions of social maturity:
“Besides
a lack of direct observation, another problem is that the practices of Hmong
courtship are changing very rapidly, especially as young Hmong stay unmarried
long enough to enter college, and educated girls make plans for careers. Even
so, I can suggest one immediate structural change, following upon the
observation that while Hmong girls attended American schools, educated girls
quickly fell into disfavor as wives, since traditional parents wanted
obedient daughters-in-law and urged their sons to choose compliant girls
(often fitting their own preferences). This immediately widened the age gap
between males who often waited to finish community college before marrying
and girls who wed before finishing high school. Most Hmong girls in
Lynch (1996:p260)[6][183]:
“The
youthful focus of the New Year is primarily due to its importance as a
courtship arena. The New Year in
One reporter states
that Hmong parents blame the occurrence of early marriages on the American
ideals of freedom and independence; opportunities provided by schools for
young people to meet; sex education; television and peer example (
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Last revised: Sept 2004 |
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[1][178] Scott, G. M., Jr. (1986) Migrants without Mountains: The Politics of
Sociocultural Adjustment among the Lao Hmong Refugees in
[2][179] Ukapatayasakul, B. B. (1983) Hmong Refugee Economic Adjustment in a
[3][180] Weinstein-Shr, G. (1987) From Mountaintops to City Streets: An Ethnographic
Investigation of Literacy and Social Process among the Hmong of
[4][181] Donnelly, N. D. (1994) Changing Lives of Refugee Hmong Women.
[5][182] Rumbaut, R. G. & Weeks, J. R. (1986) Fertility and Adaptation: Indochinese Refugees in the United States, Int Migration Rev 20,2:428–65
[6][183] Lynch, A. (1996) Transmission and reconstruction of gender through dress: Hmong American New Year rituals, Clothing & Textiles Res J 14,4:257-66
[7][184] See Anderson, C. J. (1986) A Collection of Hmong Games. Master’s
paper,
[8][185] Lynch, A. (1995) Hmong American New Year rituals: generational bonds through dress [eHRAF] 111-20
[9][186] Hammond, R. (1988) Young Love: Teen Marriage Threatens the Progress of Minnesota’s Hmong, Twin Cities Reader, June 15–21
[10][187] Peterson, S. N. (1990) From the Heart and the Mind: Creating Paj
Ntaub in the Context of Community.