Syria THE INDIVIDUAL, THE FAMILY, AND THE SEXES
A farming family from rural Muzayrib in southwestern Syria
Syrian life centers on the extended family. The individual's
loyalty to his family is nearly absolute and usually overrides
all other obligations. Except in the more sophisticated urban
circles, the individual's social standing depends on his family
background. Although status is changing within the emerging
middle class, ascribed rather than achieved status still
regulates the average Syrian's life. His honor and dignity are
tied to the good repute of his kin group and, especially, to that
of its women.
Gender is one of the most important determinants of social
status in Arab society. Although the traditional seclusion of
women is not strictly observed in most parts of the country,
social contact between the sexes is limited. Among Muslims, men
and women in effect constitute distinct social subgroups,
intersecting only in the home. A strict division of labor by sex
is observed in most social environments, with the exception of
certain circumscribed professional activities performed by
educated urban women. The roles of the sexes in family life
differ markedly, as do the social expectations. The differences
are expressed and fostered in child rearing, in ideology, and in
daily life.
Because of the cohesiveness of religious and ethnic groups,
they universally encourage endogamy, or the marriage of members
within the group. Lineages, or groups of families tracing descent
to a common ancestor, also strive for endogamy, although this is
in fact less common, despite its theoretical desirability. Viewed
as a practical bond between families, marriage often has
political and economic overtones even among the poor.
Descent is traced through men, or patrilineally, in all
groups. In addition, the individual household is based on blood
ties between men. Syrians ideally and sentimentally prefer the
three-generation household consisting of a senior couple; their
married sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren; and their
unmarried sons, daughters, and other miscellaneous patrilineal
relatives. The latter might include a widowed mother or widowed
or divorced sister of the household head or a widow of his
brother along with her children. At the death of the household
head, adult sons establish their own homes, each to repeat the
pattern.
This ideal is realized in no more than a quarter of the
households. Little reliable information is available about the
size of households, but authorities believe that they average
between five and seven persons and that city households are
slightly smaller than rural; among Christians the difference
between urban and rural household size is more marked than among
Muslims. The relatively large size of the typical household
probably results from a large number of children and the rarity
of single adults living alone; children live at home until
marriage, and the widowed tend to live with their children or
other relatives.
Syrians highly value family solidarity and, consequently,
obedience of children to the wishes of their parents. Being a
good family member includes automatic loyalty to kinsmen as well.
Syrians employed in modern bureaucratic positions, such as
government officials, therefore find impersonal impartiality
difficult because its conflicts with the deeply held value of
family solidarity.
Syrians have no similar ingrained feelings of loyalty toward
a job, an employer, a coworker, or even a friend. There is
widespread conviction that the only reliable people are one's
kinsmen. An officeholder tends to select his kinsmen as fellow
workers or subordinates because he feels a sense of
responsibility for them and trusts them. Commercial
establishments are largely family operations staffed by the
offspring and relatives of the owner. Cooperation among business
firms may be determined by the presence or absence of kinship
ties between the heads of firms. When two young men become very
close friends, they often enhance their relationship by accepting
one another as "brothers," thus placing each in a position of
special responsibility toward the other. There is no real basis
for a close relationship except ties of kinship.
Ideally one should marry within one's lineage. The son or
daughter of one's father brother, i.e., one's first cousin, is
considered the most appropriate mate. Particularly among the
beduin, such marriages occur frequently. In some communities, the
male cousin has a presumptive right to marry his female
patrilineal first cousin and may be paid by another suitor to
release her from this obligation. In towns, marriage between
cousins is common among both the wealthiest and the poorest
groups. In large metropolitan centers, however, the custom is
breaking down, especially among the middle class. Marriage
between first cousins is common among Sunnis, including Kurds and
Turkomans, although it is forbidden among Circassians. Christians
forbid marriage between first cousins. Nevertheless, those groups
that forbid marriage of cousins still value family endogamy and
encourage the marriage of more distant relatives.
Traditionally, in both Muslim and Christian marriages, the
groom or his family must pay a bride price or mahr to the
bride or her family. The bride price can be extremely high; it is
not unusual for a middle class family to demand of the groom the
equivalent of several years salary as the price of marriage to
their daughter. However, this payment is often specified in
prenuptial contracts to be payable only in the event of a divorce
or separation. Therefore, the bride price serves as an alimony
fund. The wealthy marry within their families not only to
preserve the presumed purity of their bloodlines but to keep the
bride price within the family, whereas the poor do so to avoid
bride-price payments.
Therefore, marriage is customarily arranged. Among the
members of the small urban, Westernized community, a man and
woman participate in the decisionmaking and usually can veto the
family's choice; but, with rare exceptions, marriage is a
familial as well as a personal matter. In rural areas, marriage
remains a family matter, too important to be left to the whims
and desires of the youthful participants. The preferred marriage
is an endogamous one. Althouth, until recently, marriages were
arranged for practical, i.e., non-romantic, reasons there is a
sizable folklore concerning passionate love affairs and
elopements, but such actions rarely occur.
Endogamous marriage and high bride prices serve as deterrents
to divorce, counterbalancing the relative ease of divorce
authorized in Islamic law and tradition. According to sharia, a
man may summarily divorce his wife simply by pronouncing the
talaka, or repudiation, three times, although it is far
more difficult for a wife to divorce her husband. Currently in
Syria, a sharia court adjudicates divorce. Incompatibility is
cited most often as justification.
Seven percent of marriages end in divorce, according to
Syrian statistics from 1984. The rate varied from a high of 16
percent in urban Damascus to a low of 2 percent in rural Al
Hasakah.
If a woman marries within her own lineage, she has the
security of living among her people, and the demands upon her
loyalty are simple and direct. If she marries into a different
lineage, she is among comparative strangers and may also be torn
between loyalty to her husband's family and lineage and loyalty
to her paternal kinsmen, particularly if trouble should develop
between the two. As a wife, she is expected to support her
husband and his family, but as a daughter--still dependent on the
moral support of her father and brothers--she may feel compelled
to advocate their interest. Her father's household always remains
open to her and, in case of a dispute with her husband, she may
return to her father's house.
Except in the small, urban, Westernized segment of society,
the spheres of men and women tend to be strictly separated, and
little friendship or companionship exists between the sexes.
People seek friendship, amusement, and entertainment with their
own sex, and contact between the two sexes takes place primarily
within the home.
Women are viewed as weaker than men in mind, body, and spirit
and therefore in need of male protection, particularly protection
from nonrelated men. The honor of men depends largely on that of
their women, and especially on that of their sisters;
consequently, the conduct of women is expected to be circumspect,
modest, and decorous, with their virtue above reproach. Veiling
is rarely practiced in villages or tribes, but in towns and
cities keeping one's women secluded and veiled was traditionally
considered a sign of elevated status. In the mid-1980s, the
practice of wearing the veil was quite rare among young women in
cities; however, the wearing of the hijab (a scarf
covering the hair) was much more common. Wearing the hijab
was sometimes more a symbol of Islamic affiliation than a token
of modesty, and the garment underwent a revival in the 1980s as a
subtle protest against the secular Baath regime. For this reason,
the government discouraged the wearing of such Islamic apparel.
The traditional code invests men as members of family groups
with a highly valuable but easily damaged honor (ird). The
slightest implication of unavenged impropriety on the part of the
women in his family or of male infractions of the code of honesty
and hospitality could irreparably destroy the honor of a family.
In particular, female virginity before marriage and sexual
fidelity afterward are essential to the maintenance of honor. In
the case of a discovered transgression, the men of a family were
traditionally bound to kill the offending woman, although in
modern times she is more likely to be banished to a town or city
where she is not known.
There is no evidence that urbanization per se has lessened
the importance of the concept of honor to the Syrian. The fact
that town life is still concentrated in the face-to-face context
of the quarter ensures the survival of the traditional notion of
honor as personal repute in the community. Some authorities have
suggested, however, that although urbanization in itself does not
threaten the concept, increased modern secular education will
probably do so.
In common with most traditional societies, traditional Arab
society tended--and to an unknown extent continues--to put a
different and higher value on sons than on daughters. The birth
of a boy is an occasion for great celebration, whereas that of a
girl is not necessarily so observed. Failure to produce sons may
be used as grounds for divorcing a wife or taking a second.
Barren women, therefore, are often desperately eager to bear sons
and frequently patronize quack healers and medicine men and
women.
Data as of April 1987
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