The Child in the Arab Family

”Children are the wealth of the Arabs” proverbially describes the great joy that Arabs derive from their children. One particular story, with some variations, is often told to express the value of Arab children: A stranger visits a house where he sees no light, but many children. The same stranger visits a house with many lamps but no children. He then remarks: “The house with many children was lighted, but the house with lamps was dark.”
The Arab child is considered a gift from God, while the best marriage has traditionally been the one which produced the most children.Anticipated with delight and hope, not only by its parents, but also by its larger family, the expected child enters the total extended family as an enlargement of that family, not as an addition to it.
Though a son is greatly desired, especially as a first child, girls are pampered and cherished, particularly if preceded by boys. The prophet Muhammad reproached his followers for lamenting the birth of a daughter. This preference for boys is not unique to Arabs. In a 1974 survey, the Harvard Project on Socio-Cultural Aspects of Development found that few men in six developing nations listed girl children as first choice. Even in the United States, a large majority of parents, according to the Population Reference Bureau, would rather have boys than girls.
What form does the “family” take? Sociologists describe the traditional Arab family pattern as patrilineal, patrilocal, patriarchal, extended, familial, sometimes polygamous and endogamous.

Patrilineal, patrilocal and patriarchal refer to a traditionally male dominated society. Patrilineal considers every person as belonging to the father’s family; descent is traced through the male line; a person’s loyalty is directed to the father’s family. Patrilocal refers to the custom whereby a newly married couple resides in the house or compound of the husband’s father and family. Patriarchal describes a family system in which the father has authority over the family (at least outwardly).

Extended encompasses not only father, mother and minor children, but also grown sons and, if married, their wives and children.

Polygamous identifies the practice of a man taking more than one wife at a time, and, with regard to Arab cultural patterns, is an incorrect term. It has been a Muslim practice, but the terms “Arab” and “Muslim” are not synonymous. The rise of Islam actually reformed the practice as it existed in Arabia, and today polygamy is illegal in many Arab countries, representing no more than 5-8 percent of Arab marriages.

Endogamous describes a pattern of marriage preference within a narrow circle of relatives, traditionally between a man and his father’s brother’s daughter, often called “cousin-right.”

Familial stresses family interests and requires the individual to govern his actions with the family in mind. In this regard, Arab culture is correctly called a familial or kinship culture.

The extend to which endogamy, polygamy, or any of the other aforementioned practices are followed or ignored, is a function of traditionalism, area, urbanization, education and convenience.

The conjugal or nuclear family predominates in all but the rural areas of the Arab world. While extended in the sense that relatives live in close-proximity—the same compound, same neighborhood, same town—the family is no longer patrilocal in the sense that the extended family all lives under the same roof with the grandfather at its head.

Large city residences, which sometimes housed 30-40 persons at the turn of the century, now serve as schools or headquarters for institutes or as separate dwellings for nuclear families.

Despite the change, the nuclear family still exists within the framework of the extended family, whose interdependence in business and public life is just as strong as in domestic affairs and personal relationships.

Some traditional functions of the extended family are declining. Trade unions, social security, factory legislation, for example, represent the current presence of the state, formerly under family jurisdiction. As the state performs more functions, including education and the regulation of marriage, the traditional family influence will decline.

The Arab child, then, is at all times part of his nuclear family and his extended family circle, within which he receives security and self-fulfillment and offers his devotion and loyalty. Each member, according to his or her age and status, has a secure place with definite duties and obligations. The importance of this kinship can be seen in the custom of the child being addressed by members of the family, not by his name, but by the one which describes his relationship to the speaker. The child’s world quickly becomes peopled with kin of specific designation, each with a special set of mutual rights and obligations.