Madison Hill's List: Kurds - Family Structure, Marriage

• In many areas of the Middle East, a pattern of close family endogamy and preferential father's brother's daughter marriage has been assumed to be associated with a desire to maintain family property in the face of Koranic rules of inheritance. The apparently exceptionally high frequency of father's brohter's daughter marriage among the Kurdish tribes with lineage organization, and possibly among other groups with a similar organization, requires separate explanation. The thesis of this short discussion has been that such a pattern of father's brother's daughter marriage plays a prominent role in solidifying the minimal lineage as a corporate group in factional struggle. Marriages of this type thus serve to reinforce the political implications of the lineage system, not  , as in most African systems, relative to the relations between whole lineages, but here, on the contrary, relative to the first potential lines of fission and segmentation within the minimal lineage itself.
• Kurdish tribal organization is a segmentary lineage organization of very simple type. The largest kinship unit, the tira  , is a maximal lineage, divisible into segments according to the charter of patrilineal descent. The genealogical depth of the tira varies. For the sedentary Hamawands (location: Kirkuk Liwa, Iraq), the apical ancestor is nine generations temoved from the present adult generation; for the nomadic Wurds Shatri (location: centering in Suleimani Liwa, Iraq), twelve generations.
• The lineage organization has two main areas of relevance: land ownership, and defence and offence in war. Property rights to land and grazing area are held jointly by the tira as a whole; exclusive usufruct rights are vested in its localized segments, inhabiting compact villages with a population of 50 to 200 individuals. Within the village territory, men have traditional rights to certain fields. These rights are passed on from father to son, but are not inalienable, and land is freely redistributed by the village council when the need arises. If a segment becomes extinct, its territory passes as normal inheritance to the other segments of the lineage, according to the degrees of kinship (on any one level of segmentation, “brothers” exclude “cousins” from inheritance).
• Further, until successful pacification in 1932, the lineage was, and still is potentially, also a military unit, mobilized in toto if a segment were attacked, from without, and divided in opposition according to the segmentary charter when conflicts arose within the group. Conflicts relating to territorial rights were rife, both within, where they led to fission, and without, where they led to conquest or loss of territory.
• A man's rights to land are limited to the territory of the village segment of his lineage; a stranger or a person from another lineage segment is accepted into a village only as hired farm help (“sapani”) of degraded status. The territorial exclusiveness of lineage segments thus tends to be maintained to high degree, and there are kinship mechanisms for developing “attached” lineages with local territorial and political rights.
• This organizational form is associated with a strong emphasis on the father's brother's daughter as preferred spouse, and marked tendency to close family endogamy. The strength of emphasis is indicated by (1) expressed norms, (2) relative brideprice, and (3) actual statistical occurrence.
• Informants agree that paternal cousins have first rights to a girl, and where the father of a girl contemplates giving her in marriage to anyone else, the paternal cousin must first release her by renouncing his claim. Cases of violence resulting from breach of this obligation on the part of the father were collected in the field and have been recorded by others in the literature.
• Giving one's daughter to a brother's son is further considered thoughtful and proper: the father knows his daughter's spouse well, and will also be able to exert some control over his actions toward her after marriage; marriage should be between equals, and no one is closer in status and sentiments than a paternal cousin. Small children are pleasantly embarrassed when teased for being “in love” with their paternal cousin. The importance of endogamy in maintaining family property is also recognized, though the problem only arises with any degree of gravity where Koranic laws of inheritance, giving stipulated fractions of the estate to female descendants, are strictly followed, and this does not generally seem to be the case.
• It is an agreed privilege for paternal cousins, to less extent also other near kin, to receive the girl at a reduced brideprice. The normal brideprice for village girls ranges between [unknown]30-100. Paternal cousins generally pay only wedding expenses.
• In a patrilineal lineage system, a man can expect political support only from his agnatic relatives, those who by descent belong to his political sub-section; and the factions in the village tend to be alignments of the younger men of a small lineage segment around an older leader. These segments consist primarily of brothers, sons, and brothers' sons. The relation to the latter is most critical: it crosses the first potential line of cleavage between collateral branches. If a man alienates his nephews by refusing them their traditional rights, he loses their political support. If he, on the other hand, gives them his daughters in marriage, the ties are reinforced and lineage solidarity maintained. The girl's father creates an obligation on the part of his brother's son to give him political support by exempting him from paying the brideprice. No other son-in-law can, in the lineage system, fill this role as political supporter; consequently they must invariably pay brideprice. The transaction may thus be regarded as constituting a type of delayed exchange: the father receives political allegiance in his lifetime from his brother's son in return for the daughter which he gives him. In this way, the pattern of preferential father's brother's daughter marriage serves to reinforce the political implications of the lineage system.

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• Some villages correspond to lineages, others contain members of several lineages or of both tribal and nontribal groups; many are not organized along any kind of kinship tie. Villages often own communal pasture land, and, in some villages, private property may be sold only to fellow villagers.

• Kurdish kin groups are based on patrilineal descent. Several generations of one man's descendants through the male line constitute a lineage. Several such lineages compose a clan. It is assumed that all members of a clan are related through a common male ancestor, but outside groups may attach themselves to a powerful tribe and, after several generations, be incorporated as full members into a clan and tribe. A tribe consists of several clans.
• Kurdish kinship terminology does not distinguish between maternal and paternal grandparents. It does distinguish between father's and mother's brothers, and between their children. Father's sisters and mother's sisters, however, are categorized together, as are their children.

• Kurdish marriages are arranged between the families of the bride and groom. Ideally, a man will marry his father's brother's daughter, to whom he has "first rights." The majority of Kurdish marriages in the 1960s were reported to be between the children of two brothers. This lineage endogamy "keeps the family together" but also weakens the ties between lineages, thus increasing the likelihood of conflict. If marriage to father's brother's child is not possible, the next best choice is one of the other cousins.
• According to the Quran, a man may have up to four wives provided he can support them all and spends equal time with each; however, few men can afford even two wives. A childless marriage is the most common grounds for divorce or the taking of a second wife.
• A Kurdish household thus consists of a man, his wife (or wives), children, and eventually daughters-in-law and grandchildren. In the case of polygyny, each wife may have her own section of the house, which she runs independently.
• Tribal organization based on patrilineal descent is typical of Kurdish nomadic pastoralists. Pasturage is collectively held by the clan within the tribe's territory, and migrations are coordinated at the tribal level. Among the seminomads and in the sedentary villages, clans and lineages come into play only in response to conflict, often in the form of blood feuds; however, not all sedentary agriculturists are organized along kinship lines.

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• The next great event in the life of the young Kurd is his marriage. When he reaches about eighteen years of age, or earlier among the tribes, he takes a wife. Among the poorer people a girl of one family is exchanged for a girl of another family, and a double marriage takes place; or if one girl is too young, she is set aside as the desgiyran   or fiancée of the boy until old enough to be married (that is, about 14 years old in the case of women). So for a poor family the only expense incurred is three days of feasting and the   [Page [54c]]   price of cooking-pots, blankets and a carpet with which to set up the new household. The total cost of a poor man's wedding is between five and ten pounds sterling.

• Among the richer families a girl may be bought instead of exchanged. The price may be anything, depending on the beauty of the girl and the willingness of the family to part with her (that is, on their ability to argue well). The wedding feast of a rich agha   (chieftain) may involve feeding a thousand guests for a period of ten days.
• In the nomadic tribe, however, the situation is rather different. The women of the tribe do all the work while the men sit about talking and sleeping. By night they rarely sleep, as they sit around with their rifles ready to guard the box of money and valuables kept in the tent. Therefore the beauty of a young girl taken in marriage is a secondary consideration in determining her price. The nomad is rich in live-stock, if not in cash, and the cost of a girl may vary between   [Page 55]    ^{A    Photograph available in original document.}     [Page [56a]]    ^{A    Photograph available in original document.}     [Page [56b]]   about forty and one hundred pounds. Her value will depend on her utility--her physical strength for manual labour, and her ability to make carpets, rugs, clothes and other things.

• In addition to the husband, about 60, the family in this home consisted of two wives, 55 and 37, and eleven children. Of these five were sons: 26, 13, 8, 6 and about 6 months, and six daughters: my interpreter, 25, the others 23, 17, 16, 15 and 3. A 19 year old daughter was married and lived with her husband's family (joint or extended family household). Normally, then, 14 persons lived in the home.

• The limitations in the choice of spouse are found in the Coran  ^{81    Sure 4, verses 22, 23.  Go to end note page} . A man cannot marry his own mother (or other of this father's wives), his daughter or granddaughter, his mother's sister, his father's sister, his sister, his brother's daughter, his mother-in-law or step-daughter. But, in addition, a nonmarriageable relationship exists not only between blood relations and intermarried persons but also in respect of milk kinship, which is put on a par with blood relationship. As the law at the same time recommends that a spouse be sought within the family, marriage possibilities are cousins and second cousins, that is the descendants of uncles, aunts, grand uncles and grand aunts  ^{82    Juynroll 1910, 218 et seq. - Cf. Granqvist 1939. 65 et seq. - Cf. Lane 1944, 161 et seq.  Go to end note page} . Of these marriage possibilities the cousin on the father's side is preferable and then the cousin on the mother's side.
• It was stated that two families could exchange daughters. Both my interpreter and Sheikh Taifor's brother said that if the desired bride had an older brother, a bride for him is demanded from the bridegroom's family.
• In the humble village environment (Topzawa) I came across three examples of brides having been brought from Sulaimani as they gave prestige to the village. In the educated milieu, on the other hand, I met a strongly-expressed wish to be linked by marriage with good, prominent families.

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• The Kurdish brides either looked remarkably unaffected or else directly mournful.
• In reply to my question my interpreter told me that it is not the custom for brides to take any part in the preparations, and that out of regard for her future family no impression must be given of exploiting the working capacity of the young woman; in addition, the bride-to-be must not suggest, by paying too much attention to her appearance, that she is interested in being married.

• As has already been shown, the position in Southern Kurdistan is that in villages the man pays a certain sum in money or cattle as the bride price or bride wealth in addition to a dress for the bride, recelving in return nothing whatever from the bride's family.
• When we come to urban conditions the bridegroom. In my experience, is obliged to pay a bride price, the distribution of which has been explained above, corresponding to the girl's social position. However, the bridegroom and his relatives, plus the bride, recelve from the bride's family gifts costing about half as much as the amount paid out of the bride price.

• The husband has sole right to an immediate dissolution of the marriage by pronouncing al[unknown]   “I renounce thee” or, better: “I abandon all right over thee”. Until the expiration of the ‘idda  -period  ^{161    Sure 2, verse 228 - Sure 65, verse 4 (three months).  Go to end note page}  the wife cannot contract a new marriage, and during this term she is entitled to maintenance  ^{162    Sure 2, verse 241.  Go to end note page} . By [unknown]l[unknown] aq   a man can twice divorce himself from his wife but, should he regret his act, can without further   [Page 135]   ceremony make her his wife again within the above-mentioned period  ^{163    Sure 2, verse 229.  Go to end note page} .
• Should he have pronounced [unknown]aq   three times or have stated it thrice on the first occasion, the wife must contract a pro forma marriage with another man and must be renounced by this “straw husband” before the husband can take her back  ^{164    Sure 2, verse 230.  Go to end note page} . The Coran forbids the promise of abstinence, or if you will, a semi-divorce within marriage, that is to say, that the husband declares: “Let they back be to me as my mother's”,
• n this case the wife will not obtain the right to return to her family home with everything she brought into the marriage, plus what she may herself have earned and that part of the bride price (usually one third) that has been put aside for such a contingency, and with a view to facilitating a new marriage.

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• In the meantime the following categories of men were permitted access to the family house within the village aristocracy: Firstly, and naturally, the men of the family, the husband, brother-in-law,   [Page 169]   and sons. Secondly, distant relatives of the married couples. In addition the family's courtyard and three-walled central room were open to men who were subordinates of the sheikh, economically dependent on him, or of a status that could be compared with this.

• As already mentioned, the choice of a young man's married partner is practically always left to the women of his family, that is to say the mother or step-mother and sisters, whereafter the matter is laid before the father for approval.
• The young woman is thus selected by the women with whom she will have to live and work, as the young couple usually dwells in the bridegroom's home. She must beforehand feel highly-prized by the bride price paid out on the contraction of marriage, which is expended to a greater or lesser degree on the luxury with which she is to be surrounded.
• The basis for the joint family idea, with several generations housed within the the same building is a married life of a different nature, less organised than in our culture pattern. During the day the husband, even among the village aristocracy, has little opportunity of companionship with his wife, as the great boundary between the form of life of men and women compelled him to seek the society of other men, whilst on her side the woman enters the feminine half of the community.

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