Gender Role Definition and Identity: The Centrality of Primordial Values

In the preceding papers in this series some of the relationships between family structures and relations, violence, gender relations, and gender identity were explored. In the entire exercise it was difficult to escape the overriding influence of the economic and material question. Variations in behaviour, attitudes and approaches could almost always be explained in terms of the extent to which respondents were caught up in the seemingly unending struggle for economic survival. The decay of the family structures, and the accompanying fluidity in and volatility of what should be social support institutions was described.