Self-Preservation - somewhat old adults preserve themselves by passing along possessions to younger family members.

Self-Preservation - somewhat old adults preserve themselves by passing along possessions to younger family members. Divestment rituals transfer possessions and their meanings from individual generation to the next (Curasi 1999; McCracken 1988; Price, Arnould, and Curasi 2000) Scholars also have examined to what extent non-elderly people facing death relate to their possessions. For example, Pavia's (1993) inquiry of HIV-infected informants showed that as the illness growthed loss of possessions was secondary to losse of work at jobss homes, health, and relationships. Echoing Furby's (1978) belief that bonding with possessions trunk s from the perceived control we have across them, Pavia found the worst part of possession los was the decreasing ability to have or withhold possessions, and consequent inability to maintain one's former self relationships (see also Stevenson and Kates 1999)