The continuing practice of polygynous marriage on the part of the Bedouin of the Negev in Israel is generally seen as resistance to modernity for the sake of maintaining semi-nomadic ways of life. By this logic, the numerous anthropological studies that have shown that polygyny is more widespread among older generations (particularly among men of means) can be explained. In Israel, however, there is an added factor of modernity as enforced by the state and its alien Western values. Recent studies of the Bedouin in Israel have found that polygyny is on the increase among all age groups, regardless of their socio-economic status. This article addresses this seemingly surprising finding, discussing some of the main social and political motivations that underlie the growing prevalence of polygyny as exhibited by the Bedouin in Israel.
Aref Abu-Rabia, Salman Elbedour, and Sandra Scham
In Anthropology of the Middle East
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2008
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 20–37
Gauging inequality among pastoralists
A problem of comparison
Paul Spencer
Poverty is a relative concept that is most meaningful within the context of social inequality in a particular culture. Among pastoralists in east Africa, often with mixed economies and herds that tend to fluctuate erratically over time, the problem of assessing poverty and wealth can be resolved by examining profiles of polygyny to provide a comparable index of wealth. Several profiles are examined in relation to a mathematical model based on the binomial series, with an emphasis on its social rather than mathematical implications. These series are especially apt because they closely follow the distribution of wives in a substantial sample of African societies, and they reveal different types of balances between competition and conformity associated with age and with status. The purpose of this essay is to redefine the problem of poverty in terms of the social profiles of inequality, leading toward a comparative analysis between cultures.
Paul Clough
This article argues that the moral dimensions of the term 'culture' have been under-theorized in anthropology. The argument stems from a particular reading of the Western philosophy of ethics. Based in economic anthropology, I explore how an understanding of the moral imperative can illuminate differences in processes of accumulation. After a discussion of the concept of morality in philosophy and in recent anthropology, I go on to examine the principles of altruism and reciprocal utility in the light of theories of kinship and of rational choice. I then outline an argument concerning the general form of moral reasoning. According to this argument, kinship classifications function logically to synthesize variable distributions in different societies of two interconnected principles—altruism and reciprocal utility.
Couples in the Global Margins
Sexuality and Marriage between Egyptian Men and Western Women
Nadeem Karkabi
This article examines relations between older Western women and younger Egyptian men in South Sinai, Egypt. Eschewing the label 'female sex tourism', it analyses the practices that these couples adopt in order to legitimate their relationships and further refers to alternative modifications of urfi marriages and polygenic relations. The article argues that these partnerships, as practised in the Sinai periphery, have come into existence in an effort to overcome changes caused by globalisation in the original cultures of these men and women and present alternatives to the otherwise difficult choices that they face in their mainstream societies.
In Anthropology of the Middle East
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2011
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 79–97
The Meanings of the Move?
From “Predicaments of Mobility” to “Potentialities in Displacement”
Stephen C. Lubkemann
majority sought to retain their marital rights with both South African and Mozambican spouses, despite maintaining minimal (if any) contact with the latter, sometimes for well over a decade. This new strategy of “transnational polygyny” ( Lubkemann 2000a
Demotion as Value
Rank Infraction among the Ngadha in Flores, Indonesia
Olaf H. Smedal
. Friedericy states that the original ideal was status-level endogamy, but over time hypergamous marriages came to be accepted. In fact, the possibility of polygyny among the nobility required permitting such marriages. Even in the contemporay [ sic ] context
Trying on the Veil
Sexual Autonomy and the End of the French Republic in Michel Houellebecq’s Submission
Seth Armus
newly fashionable polygyny. With the dead France of the recent past retreating into memory (the new Islamic Sorbonne director calls it, evoking Emmanuel Todd, a zombie civilization awaiting a new soul) a dynamic future awaits. 38 The novel suggests that
In French Politics, Culture & Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 126–145
Kim Knibbe, Brenda Bartelink, Jelle Wiering, Karin B. Neutel, Marian Burchardt, and Joan Wallach Scott
which men are seen as responsible and disciplined heads of their family, faithful to their wives and taking care of their children. The Pentecostal ‘break with the past’ reshapes masculinity as rejecting practices of polygyny and multiple concurrent
