WORLD OF SCIENCE
Understanding world cultures
DR. T. V. PADMA
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Mead's work sparked debates and created a lot of controversy.
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In 1934, Mead began to teach at Columbia University. A year later, Mead and Fortune divorced. Mead married Gregory Bateson, another anthropologist, in 1936. This was her third marriage. Mead and Bateson worked together in Bali and New Guinea. In her autobiography, Mead described this as the happiest time of her life. In 1939, after returning to America, the couple had a daughter. Mead cut back on her fieldwork, but did not give up her career when she became a mother. She believed that women could have a family and a career. She did not consider herself to be a feminist but her views led others to consider her a pioneer of modern feminism.
Her work
Mead founded the Institute for Intercultural Studies at the museum in 1944. She also served on many committees for the National Research Council, The National Institute of Mental Health, and the World Federation for Mental Health. She and Bateson began to grow apart, and their marriage ended in 1950.Mead did not classify any of her marriages as "failed"; rather, she felt that each had run its course and had its own successes.
In 1953, Mead made her final major field trip, to document the changes that had come about in the Manus people, as a result of World War II. In 1961, Mead wrote a monthly column in a women's magazine Redbook. She wrote the column until her death in 1978. In the column, she expressed her views on family, urbanisation, women's rights, morality, and other social issues.
After Mead's death, the controversy over her work reached a high pitch. Some people blamed her for the development of permissive sexual mores in American society. Academics debated the objectivity of her work. What was undeniable was that she made a major contribution resulting in a significant increase in our understanding of other cultures.
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