Term
|
Definition
| various systems of social organization that societies have constructed on principles derived from the universal human experiences of mating, birth, and nurturance |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Kinship is related to biology just because that’s what usually happens |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Use of kinship terminology to refer to people outside the kin group (usually compadre/comadre, “Uncle” Joe, etc.) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Kinship is a selective interpretation of the common experiences of mating, birth, and nurturance |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| how to carry out the reproduction of legitimate group members |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| how to determine where group members should live after marriage |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| to establish links between generations |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| how to pass on social positions (succession) or material goods (inheritance) from a preceding to a succeeding generation. |
|
|
Term
| What are the 4 principal ares of kinship |
|
Definition
| marriage, residence, descent, succession/inheritance |
|
|
Term
| v. New reproductive technologies are currently challenging established kinship categories and processes: |
|
Definition
| in vitro fertilization, surrogate parenthood, sperm banks, etc |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| people linked by marriage |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| people linked by birth as “blood” relations |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| culturally specific ritual of incorporation |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| feeding, clothing, sheltering, and otherwise attending to the physical and emotional well-being of an individual for an extended period |
|
|
Term
| problems with bilateral descent |
|
Definition
i. Clear-cut membership in a particular social group must be determined
ii. Social action requires forming groups larger than families
iii. Conflicting claims to land and labor must be resolved
iv. A specific social order must be perpetuated over time |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| i. A person is just as related to their father’s side of the family as to their mother’s side |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| rare: A single set of people who claim membership in that group based on descent through both the father and the mother |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| European:A single set of people who find a common relationship through their relationship to a single person, known as “ego” |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| occurs in the majority of societies; The most significant kin relationships must be traced through a single line, either the mother’s or the father’s, but not through both |
|
|
Term
| patrilineal descent (agnatic descent) |
|
Definition
| traced through the father or through male kin |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| group of both men and women who are related through father-child links |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| group of men and women who are related through mother-child links |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
group made up of all the people who believe they can specify the parent-child links that connect each of them to each other
1. Lineage membership confers a corporate legal identity on each member (often egalitarian with other lineage members)
2. Lineage membership confers political status on each member
3. A lineage lasts as long as the members remember a common ancestor. Most lineages last around five generations; some Jewish and Arab lineages last much longer. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A descent group that cannot specify the precise links between members, or that traces descent from a mythical ancestor. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| special terms used to refer to kin |
|
|
Term
| six major patterns of kinship |
|
Definition
| 1) Hawaiian, (2) Eskimo, (3) Iroquois, (4) Crow, (5) Omaha, and (6) Sudanese, based on seven major criteria |
|
|
Term
| Seven major criteria of kinship terminology |
|
Definition
a. Generation: parent vs. child
b. Gender: male vs. female
c. Affinity: marriage
d. Collaterality: direct vs. indirect relation
e. Bifurcation: mother’s side vs. father’s side
f. Relative age: older vs. younger
g. Sex of linking relative
i. Parallel cousin: FBD, MSS
ii. Cross cousin: FSD, MBS |
|
|
Term
| Hawaiian pattern of kinship |
|
Definition
| bilateral; based on generation and gender. Each person of the same gender within the same generation is called by the same kin term. |
|
|
Term
| Eskimo pattern of kinship |
|
Definition
bilateral; : based on symmetry
1. Lineal core: nuclear family (husband, wife, children)
2. Collateral relatives: not associated with husband’s side or wife’s side |
|
|
Term
| unilinial and patrilineal patterns of kinship |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| unilinial and matrilineal |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| he close family is the smallest and closest segment, and will generally stand with each other. That family is also a part of a larger segment of more distant cousins and their families, who will stand with each other when attacked by outsiders. They are then part of larger segments with the same characteristics. Basically, brothers will fight against cousins, unless outsiders come, and then they will join together |
|
|
Term
| 5 elements of a prototype marriage |
|
Definition
| man and woman, status transformation, sexual access, children, relationships created between families |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Marriage varies widely from culture to culture and there are examples that contradict each of the above elements |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Governs which couples cannot marry due to being too closely related (“incest taboo”). Incest varies widely as well. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| “out-marriage”: the requirement or preference that some societies have that a person marry outside of the group—most basically, the incest taboo (“outside the family, lineage, or clan”) but also sometimes the requirement that a spouse must speak a different language. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| “in-marriage”: the requirement or preference that some societies have that a person marry another member of the group. Often related to religious or ethnic identity. |
|
|
Term
| where to live upon marriage? |
|
Definition
| neolocal, bilocal, patrilocal, matrilocal, avunculocal |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Marriage partners set up an independent household |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Marriage partners can live with or near the parents of either partner |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| residence upon marriage with or near the husband’s father and his family |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| residence upon marriage with or near the wife’s mother and her family (usually matrilineal societies) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| residence upon marriage with or near the family of the husband’s mother’s brother (usually matrilineal societies that link men within a matrilineage) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| sexual dimorphism and the great apes, monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, polyandry |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Length of time that a groom must work for the family of the bride before he can marry the daughter. Example: Jacob from the Bible. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Symbolically important goods that must be paid by the groom’s family to the bride’s family prior to and during marriage. Not “brideprice”—the money is used to instantiate the relationship between families, often to legitimate births. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Money given by the family of the bride to her (and possibly to her husband) upon her marriage |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| “Marrying up”—a person (in male-dominated stratified societies, usually the bride) marries someone with higher social status, with the result that the children will also assume that higher status. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| When a wife dies young (without producing children), the husband’s family may ask the wife’s family for her sister to marry the widower, thus ensuring the alliance. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| When a husband dies young, the wife may be asked by the husband’s family, or she may request herself, to marry one of his brothers. Example: Boaz and Ruth from the Bible |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| nonconjugal family, conjugal family, coresidence |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A woman and her dependent children |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A husband, a wife, and their dependent children |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Whether or not the husband lives with the wife and children |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| neolocal, monogamous family |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| husband, cowives, children: wives relate to each other and to their husband, and the children relate to their full siblings and their half-siblings, as well as their mother’s cowives. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| generations: parents, married children, grandchildren (Example: Obamas plus Marian Robinson) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Two generations: a set of siblings and their spouses and children |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Previously divorced people bring their children into a new family; the brady bunch |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| families that are not the result of heterosexual marriage |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
social dissolution of a marriage
i. Bridewealth/dowry
ii. Children
iii. Benefits |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
No male-female mixing outside of family members
"By the time I arrived at the doorway, the women would have come to meet me, unless male guests were sitting out front. If men were there, I would greet them politely and hurry into the house. Just inside, out of sight of the men, I might find the women and girls..." |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
relationship through an exclusively male line in a patrilineal system.
i. Agnatic succession is the same as patrilineal succession.
ii. “Agnate”: blood relative on the father’s side
"The community in which I lived as the camp of the family of the Haj's great grandfather, which, strictly speaking, included only the 5 core households headed by the sons of two brothers" |
|
|
Term
| integration/separation (VS) |
|
Definition
wealth enables separation of Awlad Ali from the rest of Egyptian society. Poverty enforces integration.
-smuggling and mingling with non-familial contacts in cairo and alexandria |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Not shared; other Egyptian students had trouble understanding Bedouins’ Arabic; Abu-Lughod thus needs to be socialized into Bedouin language-and-culture |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| shared; Abu-Lughod makes herself appear more pious then she is in her life in America |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Abu-Lughod is “adopted” into the family—fictive kinship |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| agreement between people—shared knowledge. Technically, though, lying is an intersubjective act, since it involves an acknowledgement that the shared knowledge is not the same as the self’s knowledge. Abu-Lughod lies about her sexuality and identity, is treated accordingly (as though she were innocent and “not American”), and then comes to believe her own lie and change her own conception of who she is, such that she feels uncomfortable without her veil, and she mourns in public. As a result, she has undergone an intersubjective conversion of sorts. (p. 19) |
|
|
Term
| social invisibility of women |
|
Definition
"A conspiracy of silence separated men from the world of women"
-Because this is a sex-segregated society, women are able to pick up more about men by appearing invisibily than men are about women. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
: “nested” series of descent groups to which a person belongs, based of closeness and generation of relationship (p. 29).
i. Here, we will see that the lineage group to which one expresses one’s membership to belong varies, depends on context, and is accomplished through speech. |
|
|
Term
| division in poetry between dissimulation and honesty |
|
Definition
i. Reality demands a defensive, passive-aggressive, “joking” approach to expressing one’s true feelings
ii. Poetic discourse enables honesty, vulnerability, and the expression of attachment
p.32 |
|
|
Term
| central question of the book |
|
Definition
“The relationship between the Bedouin poetic discourse and the discourse of ordinary social life. ... The basic cultural notions the Awlad ‘Ali hold about society, social relations, and the individual—in short, the ideology of social life”
a. How is Bedouin poetic discourse related to the discourse of ordinary social life? Answering this question requires us to “understand the basic cultural notions the Awlad Ali hold about society, social relations, and the individual—in short, the ideology of social life.” Honor and modesty are studied relative to three organizing systems: |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1. Blood in the sense of ancestry of agnation “structures the Awlad ‘Ali vision of their social world, defines individual social identity and collective cultural identity, and shapes individual attitudes and sentiments towards others” (p. 32) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1. Honor and modesty is clearly tied to hierarchy and to social inequality |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1. Honor and modesty are also tied to power and status, but this is less clearly understood. The presence of social inequality is something that must be accounted for and explained locally. Modesty in particular is not well understood as a means to “rationalize social inequality” (p. 33) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Voluntary deference to those in the system who more closely embody its ideals. So the fact that a woman defers to a man is her acknowledgement that this man is more modest than she is. !!! |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Not emotion or affect because these terms can refer to everyday feelings, and Abu-Lughod wants to “signal the literary or conventional nature of these responses”—sentiment is limited and defined |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Part I of the book; shows the ideology of Bedouin social life: “The concepts the Bedouin use to make sense of their world and the dominant ideas that orient their actions and interactions.” |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Part II of the book; explores the fundamental contradiction between the non-virtuous sentiment of poetry and the virtue of everyday life. While everyday discourse shows a self that follows the “ideology of honor and modesty,” poetic discourse shows a self that is “vulnerable and weak, ... moved by deep feelings of love and longing. These are not at first glance the sentiments of proud and autonomous individuals, nor are they the sentiments of chaste individuals.” |
|
|
Term
| identity and those "other" people |
|
Definition
| : p. 44ff, Bedouin identity is seen as formed in contrast to non-Bedouins—Egyptians are not really Arabs, Egyptians have no modesty or honor, wear strange clothes, are nancy-boys, etc. The descriptions here about the “others” are less descriptions about “real others” than they are about “selves.” After taking a few anthropology classes, we revoke your license to blindly accept statements made about “those others who are not like us” as having very much to do with actual other people, if any at all. |
|
|
Term
| self definition of Awlad-Ali |
|
Definition
| self-definition not through subsistence but through social organization |
|
|
Term
| what is the way of life for the Bedouin |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| what is the tribal order based on |
|
Definition
1.Agnation (paternal relatives) and
2.A moral code tied to honor and modesty |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| blood of ancestry (agnatic) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
tribally based pastoral nomads ii. Self-definition: not “bedouin” but “arab”
1.Implication: “ordinary” Egyptians are not Arabs!
2. “The men are women and the women are men”: “ordinary” Egyptians are effeminate nancy boys!
1. Early state response: control
2.Late state response: assimilation (Nasser’s Egypt: socialist, progressive, secular, development-oriented) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
1. Generosity: no room for opportunism
2. Courage: challenges, displays of fearlessness
3. Gender relations
a. Men: public intimacy is a sign of the man’s weakness
b. Women: immodesty: any acknowledgement of sexuality is a sign of weakness on the part of women |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
knowledge of ancestry enables an individual to assert a unique identity in relation to others
a. “The tribe a person chooses to identify with at any given moment depends largely on the rhetorical statement the speaker wishes to make about his or her relationship to the inquirer” |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| undifferentiated mass of citizenry |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| takes precedence (co-wife in same agnatic group as husband uses shared identity against unrelated co-wife) |
|
|
Term
| Problem of marriage in VS |
|
Definition
presents particular problems!
i. The nuclear family is a sign of weakness. Why?
ii. Thus, patrilateral parallel cousin marriage is preferred as a cultural ideal
1. Lower actual incidence is less important than its ideological preference
a. Interpretation? For you anthropologists out there?
2. Results?
a. Less emphasis on sexual satisfaction
b. Greater emphasis on loyalty, trust, closeness |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1. Still a blood relationship, so maternal kinship reveals a secondary tie to another patrilineage |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| 1. Fictive kinship is often created around familiarity: shared food and patron-client relationships |
|
|
Term
| Identification and sharing (VS) |
|
Definition
e. Identification and sharing
i. Blood indemnity: “feud”
1. Identification of an insult with the whole group
2. People become interchangeable members of groups: indexical relation of part to whole
a.Marriage is a group-group relationship
3.Reciprocity
4.Gifting |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| means of maintaining and repairing relations |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Modern housing's effect on women |
|
Definition
Diminished socialization between women because they now have no excuse to leave the house to do chores since they have all the conveniences they need in their home
Ex: well for water |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Stated goal and means of measuring relative status
i. Age: Primary distinction within tribes
ii. Patriarchy: Autonomy increases with dependents
iii. Gender: Women are always dependents (daughter, sister, or wife) |
|
|
Term
| Family model of hierarchy |
|
Definition
i. Replaces antagonism with complementary: Powerful have obligations and responsibilities to the weak
ii. Elder/younger brother
1. Saadi vs. Mrabit (Saadi: “high”; Mrabit: “bound”)
iii. Father/son (kinship terms)
1. Lineage elders and juniors
2. Patrons and clients (remnants of a kind of slavery or servitude)
a. Use of kinship terms implies reciprocal obligation and affection, protection and dependency |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
“derives neither from the use of force nor from ascribed position, but from moral worthiness”: In other words, the ability to command people and resources derives from the closeness with which one conforms to moral standards.
i. Authority is not guaranteed by age, wealth, genealogy, ancestry, or gender |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| ancestry/origin/nobility, primary metaphor for virtue or honor |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (sharaf): generosity, honesty, sincerity, loyalty to friends, keeping one’s word |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| (hurriyya): freedom from others and from self |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
1. Lineage: only Sa’adi are actual “sons of Ali” (Awlad Ali), Ali being the cousin of the prophet Muhammad
2. Nobility: presence of Sa’adi heritage explains any nobility among Mrabit
3. Freedom: warrior ethic
4. Power: ability/capability
a. Younger brother with 2-3-year-old daughter, in presence of older brother: “Can he kill you?” (assertiveness training!?)
5. Toughness: “cussedness”?
6. Assertiveness: Ability to rise to a challenge and reply to a provocation
7. Self-mastery
a. Physical stoicism: denial of pain
b. Emotional stoicism: refusal to weep |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
self-control
1. Related to masculine maturation (men are made?)
2. Male life cycle:
a. Childhood (birth to age 12-15): no responsibility
b. Age of majority (12-15 to 40): fasting and praying, responsibility for blood debts (feuding)
c. Age of wisdom (40-60): self-mastery, knowledge of right and wrong
d. Old age: (60+): continuation of maturity, or senility |
|
|
Term
| failure to demonstrate agl |
|
Definition
causes one to lose the respect of the community (particularly inability to control sexual desire)
1. Example: Rashid: broke social mores to pursue second wife
a. Sent female cousin
b. Personally called on brother-in-law
c. Sent elder brother to bargain for her
d. Refused to divorce her
e. Women’s words:
i. “idiot” for chasing a woman who doesn’t want him
ii. “idiot” for wanting back a woman with poor judgment
iii. “idiot” for being happy when she returned
f. Problem? “Relinquished control over his feelings, which allowed himself to be controlled by another person” (p. 97) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a. Respect, paid to powerful by powerless, must be won. Asserting power too forcefully invites rebellion
b. Tyranny is never tolerated for long
c. Younger brothers can split from overbearing elder brothers
d. Women can leave abusive husbands |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
The Honor of the Weak
a. Respect must be earned through the moral worthiness of the person in authority; therefore, the “free consent of dependents is essential to the superior’s legitimacy”—if consent is coerced, it becomes worthless. “Voluntary deference is therefore the honorable mode of dependency” (p. 104) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
i. Propriety
ii. Awlad Ali: double meaning
iii. Gendered
iv. Cultural, not natural |
|
|
Term
| emotion vs. code in hashama definition |
|
Definition
1. Feelings of shame that come about in the presence of more power people
a. Emotion: Involuntary
2. Acts of deference that arise from these feelings
a. Code: Voluntary deference |
|
|
Term
| cultural nature of hashama |
|
Definition
not natural
1. Tahashsham: to give voluntary deference
2. Children must be taught to tahashsham, as well as appropriate contexts in which to tahashsham |
|
|
Term
| gendered nature of hashama (boys vs. girls) |
|
Definition
1. Lack of hasham is a moral deficiency but more so for girls
a. Girls: Less indulgence, such that they do not become willful
b. Boys: Less discipline, such that they do not become fearful (but they don’t smoke around their fathers) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
willfulness is also valuable for women. The goal is to learn the appropriate expression of willfulness, alongside other virtues:
a. Energetic, strong, generous, honest, etc. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Hashama is not something that is always present, but that is induced in the presence of someone “from” whom the person decides to tahashsham |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
i. Honor: masculine (autonomy)
ii. Modesty: feminine (dependency)
iii. Thus, because hierarchy is expressed in the language of moral worth, “men’s precedence is due to their moral superiority” (p. 119) |
|
|
Term
| women's moral inferiority |
|
Definition
stems from reproduction
a. Menstruation
b. Sexuality: “the greatest threat to the social system and to the authority of those preferred by this system” |
|
|
Term
| social value of girls vs. boys |
|
Definition
a. Sons are valuable, daughters worthless
i. Men favor sons because of patrilineal descent and inheritance (investment in daughters is not rewarded over the long term)
ii. Women favor sons because a son is a woman’s social security (daughters will leave) |
|
|
Term
| cousin marriage as solution to social value of women |
|
Definition
1. Enables a return on the investment in a girl’s education
2. Enables mothers to continue to be involved in their daughters’ lives |
|
|
Term
| “Natural” Bases of Female Moral Inferiority |
|
Definition
Women are associated with fertility
a. Women’s sexuality contributes the most to their moral inferiority
Women are associated with social disorder |
|
|
Term
| moral inferiority through fetility |
|
Definition
i. Moral inferiority naturalized through the deceit of Eve
ii. Association of women with fertility and rain
iii. Men are linked to death (associate at funerals), while women are linked to life (associate at births)
iv. These associations are reinforced through narratives from the Quran (Adam and Eve) and from fables |
|
|
Term
| Women are inferior through their tie to social disorder |
|
Definition
i. Piety is possible only through purity
1. Menstruating women cannot pray. Salat: Prayer five times a day is a one of the “five pillars of Islam”
2. As a result, fertile women tend to be associated with ritual impurity and social disorder |
|
|
Term
| Women’s sexuality contributes the most to their moral inferiority |
|
Definition
i. Women’s sexuality reveals a lack of independence and self-mastery, since children create dependency
1. Childbirth: Not only is a woman’s mobility reduced because of the infant, but she is less likely to divorce her husband because of his custody over her children
ii. Women’s sexuality reveals a lack of agl—the presence of agl is equivalent to the lack of sexual desire |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| symbolize fertility (sexually active) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
sexual shame
i. (White: purity, religion, masculinity) |
|
|
Term
| attributes of an ideal woman |
|
Definition
| Masculine, pious, respectful, and chaste |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
i.Challenges the hierarchical relationship between elder and junior Bedouin tribesmen
ii. Undermines the exclusive authority of these older men by giving a younger man a domain of authority of his own |
|
|
Term
| modesty and denial of sexual attraction |
|
Definition
a. The modesty code minimizes the threat sexuality poses to the social system by tying virtue or moral standing to its denial” (p. 152)
i. Denial of sexuality contributes to honor; acknowledgment of sexuality reduces honor
ii. A modest woman proves her modesty by
1. Admitting no interest in men
2. Not trying to attract men through behavior or dress
3. Covering up any indication of romantic or sexual attachment, even in marriage |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Vigorous denial of any sexual desire at all
1. Men must also deny sexual desire, but since they are naturally less overpowered by sex, they are less pressed to deny it
a. For men, only sexual desire that leads to dependency must be denied
2. Women are naturally sexual, so they have much stronger pressure to deny their sexuality |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Tahashsham is only a public code; the expression of modesty is not necessary among one’s peers. (Bedouin women are capable of being bawdy and forthright about sex among their friends) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a. Veiling is voluntary: Women must be free to choose to veil, because only through their free choice can they claim the authenticity of their modesty
b. Veiling is situational:
i. Veiling is done to express shame over sexuality, in the presence of older, married kinsmen and strangers
ii. Veiling is not done to prevent seduction; a woman does not veil in the presence of her husband’s dependents or a man of lower status than her husband. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The genre most associated with the sentiments of personal life |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a. Strong reactions to recorded poetry
b. Improvised, conversational (freestyle?)
c. Context is crucial: Poems make sense because of pragmatic concerns: the women listening knew the poet and knew of her life
i. “Who said it?”: speaker matters more than message (p. 177) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| set of statements, verbal and nonverbal, bound by rules and characterized by regularities, that both constructs and is patterned by social and personal reality (p. 186). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| a. Marriages for love are very rare in this context of arranged marriage, and love that begins outside of marriage is already doomed, because “if a woman marries for love she is especially vulnerable to her husband.” In other words, marriage for love results in weakness, vulnerability, and a lack of independence. However, these fated and doomed loves are the source of life-long regret and longing, and much poetry. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| and his marriage to Fayga. It was not clear why Fayga was acting the way she was until people heard her poems, and then they realized that she was really and truly in love with someone else, and it wasn’t an act to manipulate Rashid in his position of weakness. |
|
|
Term
| marriage; divorce, and polygyny |
|
Definition
a. Higher wealth results in higher rates of polygyny
b. Mabruka: through poetry, Mabruka is able to express her feeling of loss and betrayal that Rashid has fallen in love with Fayga |
|
|
Term
| Why do Bedouin violate their own honor code in their poetry? |
|
Definition
b. Hasham = distance, formality; poetry = closeness, familiarity, intimacy
c. Marriage violates the honor code and threatens the social fabric of the tribe. Gender segregation makes potential marriage partners distant from each other. However, marriage produces intimacy between very formal and distant partners. As a result, poetry is needed to reconcile the marriage relationship and form a bridge for male-female sexual relationships in general.
d. Public/private split is not “impression management” (Goffman)—there is no deception intended; rather, the behavior is moral and acceptable.
e. Public/private split is not evidence of somehow the “truth” of spontaneous, authentic feelings. Poetic discourse is even more conventional and formulaic than public discourse.
f. In fact, because of the ambiguity and universality in poetry, poetic discourse operates within a protective “veil” of interpretation. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| bridging social distance, protecting poet from criticism, casting relief on social life |
|
|
