Oscar Lewis Culture Of Poverty

Oscar Lewis wrote “The Culture of Poverty” in 1966, and after published many people accepted and used in their articles widely. Lewis argued that poverty has behavioral and personal traits from four points of views. However, whole of Lewis argument are based on only five families who live in Mexico. However, his argument is quite generalized. Moreover, Judith Goode and Edwin Eames wrote an article, “An Anthropological Critique of the Culture of Poverty”, and they criticized Lewis’ argument. They point out that accepting Lewis’ argument widely makes people towards opposite of the standards for concern about the uses and lead to misuse of Anthropological studies. Lewis explained that the lack of relationship of community is one of the characteristics of the culture of poverty. He argued people who live in poor condition do not have effective participation and integration. Moreover, he

In poor family, the period of childhood is too short. He writes, “On the family level the major traits of the culture of poverty are the absence of childhood as a specially prolonged and protected stage in the life cycle, early initiation into sex, free unions or consensual marriages, a relatively high incidence of the abandonment of wives and children, a trend toward female- or mother- centered families and consequently a much greater knowledge of maternal relatives, a strong predisposition to authoritarianism, lack of privacy, verbal emphasis upon family solidarity which is only rarely achieved because of sibling rivalry, and competition for limited goods and maternal affection” (398). However, his point of view looks unfair. He looks down on the life of poor people and he feels that their life is unique. Moreover, Lewis describes that the characteristics of poor families based on family value in that part of passage. However, according to Goode and Eames, his generalized idea is lack of structural