Many of the catering and retail entrepreneurs were single women; and few of the men had conjugal relations which allowed them to enter into partnership with their wives, since the traditional role pattern is typically both patriarchal and segregated. … The fact that descent organization did not travel to the south meant that kinship ties were much more fluid and the authority of household heads was frequently weak. Here the contrast is with Asian minority communities whose tight cohesion provides patriarchs with external support to domestic hierarchy. … One significant exception consisted of a group of Christian entrepreneurs for whom marriage meant an egalitarian partnership with a wife conceived of as friend.

XREF: Contrasts with Asian minority communities' tight cohesion supporting patriarchal authority — a useful comparative frame for kinship and gender studies.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 2377