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The article focuses on a study concerning intermarriage between religious groups namely, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in the U.S. The findings are based to test the validity of the triple-melting- pot hypothesis in Catholics and assimilation between the three groups. The study found variations in rates of intermarriage from one section of the country and the principal. The factors determining the difference include the relative percentage of Catholics in the total population, the presence of cohesive ethnic sub-groups in the community, and the socio-economic class of the Catholic population. A much higher mixed marriage rate for Catholics was found than the formulators of the triple-melting-pot hypothesis believed.

A theory is proposed to account for cross-cultural variation in the customary birth practices of women and men. We suggest that tile restriction of women during childbirth and the husband's ritual involvement in birth are both strategies for asserting or defending paternity rights. When paternity rights are established by agreements based on property transfers and enforced by organized kin groups, women will be restricted to insure that nothing upsets the agreements. When such agreements cannot be made and enforced, paternity claims will be asserted by the husband's ritual involvement in the birth. These hypotheses were tested in a sample of 114 societies based on Murdock and White's Standard Cross-cultural Sample. The data confirm the hypotheses for the birth practices of' both sexes. We suggest that birth practices represent a special case of bargaining mechanisms iii societies without centralized authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an attempt to test the hypothesis which the economist, Gunnar Myrdal termed "the Negro rank order of discriminations." He states that his observations led him to believe that whites in the U.S. insisted on the retention of discriminatory practices against Negroes in a specific order according to the type of discrimination. He asserted that they insisted most on retaining the barriers against Negro men having access to white women for sexual intercourse or marriage. Myrdal further hypothesized that the Negro's rank order of discriminations is parallel but inverse to the white man's rank. The Negro, according to Myrdal, resents and resists economic discriminations most and discriminations in sex relations and intermarriage least. It was found that generally Negroes in Columbus, Ohio resent all discriminations moderately or very much. A second general finding is that the sensitivity of Negroes to discrimination can be quantified. On a basis of the findings of this study there are no significant differences between the sensitivity of male and female Negroes to discrimination.