"While societies which have built upon the traditions of hyper-masculinity have conceived of adulthood as the ultimate in the human life-cycle because of its productive possibilities, many of the older cultures of the world, left out of the experience of the industrial and technological revolutions, refuse to see childhood as merely a preparation for, or an inferior version of, adulthood. Nor do they see old age as a decline from full manhood or womanhood. On the contrary, each stage of life in these cultures is seen as valuable and meaningful in itself. No stage is required to derive its legitimacy from some other stage of life, nor need it be evaluated in terms of categories entirely alien to it."