Traditional MENA Social Structure

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Traditional MENA Social Structure

• Social Ecology of
• Family Relations and Psychological Development

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Traditional MENA Social Org

• Tribal?
• Segmentary lineages?
• Social classes?
• Feudal?

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Traditional MENA Social Org

• Symbiosis
• Pastoralism
• Agriculture
• City-based crafts merchants
• rulers religious scholars

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Tribal Society?

• Self-governing groups
• Beyond reach of government
• Submit to government pay tax
• Nomadic pastoralists bedouin
• Herd camels, sheep, goats
• Have client groups of farmers craftsmen
• Transhumants
• Agriculturalists

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Bedouin camp -- Arabia
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Bedouin camp -- Iran
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Bedouin camp
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Bedouin camp
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Berber nomads, Morocco 1985
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Berber nomads, Morocco 1985
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Herding camp, Morocco, 1987
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Herding camp, Morocco, 1987
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Herding camp, Morocco 1986
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Herding camp, Morocco 1986
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Herding campMorocco1987
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Tribes in Arab-Muslim Societies

• Struggle between tribes and states
• Still in Pakistan Afghanistan
• Contrast of urban rural ways of life
• Ibn Khaldun civilization vs. solidarity
• Raiding and feuding
• Every man a warrior
• Culture celebrating heroic deeds
• Tribesmen migrated into cities

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Tribal Social Organization

• segmentary lineage system
• E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, 1930s
• Lineage group of families descended from common
  ancestor
• Patrilineage traced through male line
• Matrilineage traced through female line
• ? we have bilateral kindred system

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Segmentary Lineage System

• Nuclear families nested within extended
• Extended families nested within lineages
• genealogical links sometimes traceable
• Lineages nested within clans
• genealogical links not traceable
• Clans nested within tribe or tribal fractions

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Segmentary Lineage System

• Clan
• Lineage
• Extended family
• Nuclear family

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Evans-Pritchard Thesis
Shifting balance of feuding and fusing
segments ? Order and stability without
government
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Tamzrit 75 households7 lineages 4 clans
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Tamzrit
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Tamzrit
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Arab / MENA TribesSegmentarybut not really
segmentary!
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Michael Meeker Magritte on the Bedouins
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Segmentary Lineages

1. Mental map of social structure
2. Ideology -- often distorts real relationships
3. Map ideology sketches potential relationships
   people can build, and claims they can make on
   each other

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Segmentary Lineages

1. Model only approximated
2. Not all kinsmen included
3. Some / many non-kin included patron-client
   networks
4. Ties deliberately built across kin groups

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Segmentary Lineages

• 5. Model more likely actualized in absence of
  govt control
• If theres a crisis, youll see the lineages
  emerge.
• re-created by militia groups in chaos
  Lebanese, Algerian, Iraqi civil wars
  Afghanistan, Libya?
• can appear tribal

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Marriage Familyin traditional MENA societies
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Marriages Arranged

• Many pre-industrial societies arrange marriages
  (Especially agricultural Eurasia Europe, MENA,
  India, China)
• Marriage is relationship between families, not
  necessarily two young people in love
• Most lineage-based societies practice lineage /
  clan exogamy

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Marriage Rules Exogamy

• Levi-Strauss Men exchange circulate women
• ? Builds solidarity among lineages / clans
• Cross-cousin (MBD or FSD) preferred or required
  parallel cousin prohibited viewed as incest

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Kinship Diagrams
married
male
female
children
siblings
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Exogamous M.B.D. Marriage
B
M
ego
D
Cross-cousins
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Endogamous F.B.D. Marriage
?
B
?
F
?
ego
D
Parallel cousins
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Marriage Rules MENA

• Close marriage -- endogamous
• parallel cousin (FBD) preferred
• but not majority of marriages
• cross-cousin (MDB) O.K.
• 2nd or 3rd cousins O.K.
• Patrilineal families / households also look
  matrilineal from the inside

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Patriliny and Matriliny
?
B
?
F
?
ego
D
Parallel cousins
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Arranged Marriages

• Traditionally marriages arranged to create or
  cement relationships between families
• Girls (and boys) may be forced to marry strangers
  or people they dislike
• Men usually 5 10 years older
• Girls often 14 to 17

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Effects of Endogamy

• Weaker cross-kin segment bonds?
• Strengthens within-kin segment bonds
• ? greater fission feuding?
• Creates matrilineal kinship network within
  patrilineal
• ? strengthens hsld womens solidarity?

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Traditional Marriage Strategies

• Marry up in wealth status
• Marry close conserve property status
• Endogamous parallel cousin FBD preferred
• Children may prefer these
• Alliance marriages link distant families
• Result officially patrilineal, but matrifocal

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Traditional Marriage Strategies

• Father / patriarch may choose and has final say
• Mother acts as family agent scouts behind
  scenes
• May consult with son or daughter
• Kids may prefer cousins or kin they know
• High status wealthy families follow rules more
  closely

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What of romantic love?

• Recognized celebrated in tragic literature and
  folktales
• Seen as fickle, undependable
• Different from love that grows from years of
  marriage
• heart love vs. liver love

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Divorce

• Frequent in many areas
• Failure to have child within 2 years
• Mistreatment by husband or in-laws
• Women leave inheritance with brothers, in case
  shes divorced
• 2nd marriages less formal woman may have
  greater say

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Family / Kin groupPatronymic Association

• People of
• Descendents of
• House of
• ? big extended family
• ? little lineage

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Patronymic Association

• Basic unit of traditional social organization
• pastoralist camping group
• adjoining households in village
• neighborhood or alley in urban quarter
• Lineage-like, but
• Does NOT include many families members
• DOES include clients treated as if family
• Fuzzy, fluid, shifting boundaries

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Patronymic Association

• Kin terms, etiquettes, and feelings extended to
  non-kin patrons and clients
• Family-kin relationships not fixed by genealogy,
  but negotiated as if patron-client
  relationships
• Key to traditional MENA social org
• networks of face-to-face kin-based and kin-like
  patron-client relationships

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Patron-Client Relations

• Reciprocity system
• gift counter-gift shifting imbalance
  maintains mutual indebtedness
• Family / kin idiom etiquettes
• Patron like father or uncle -- dominates,
  protects may promote
• Client like son or nephew subordinates self,
  receives protection, maybe promotion

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Patron-Client Relations

• Exchanges of gifts favors
• Traditional reciprocity system?
• or
• Corruption?

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MENA Social Organization

• Segmentary but not lineages (Magrittes pipe
  !)
• Family-based but not just nuclear (or even
  extended) families patronymic association
• Strategy -- build strong entourage of kin
  clients
• Family gender age hierarchy extended to
  patron-client relations

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Traditional MENA Social Org

• Fuad Khuri
• tents rather than pyramids
• leader / entourage segments
• competition to be first among equals

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Modern Social Organization

• Bureaucracies
• Schools, companies, govt ministries
• Social classes
• Elite, populaire slum-dweller lifestyles
• State control
• Monarchies, military dictatorships, one-party
  presidencies
• Political parties movements
• Mukhabbarat -- secret police

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Modern Social Organization

• Nuclear Families
• Fewer children
• Gender equality
• Individual choice of
• Spouse
• Vocation
• Lifestyle
• Religiosity

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Modern social organization

• Modernity
• Underdevelopment
• ( H. Sharabi
• neo-patriarchy )
• Tradition

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Modern Social Organization

• Modernization
• Underdevelopment
• Cultural Dualities

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Landmarks in Marrakech
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Ramadan shopping in Alexandria at the Marilyn
Monroe boutique