Family Organization and Women's Power in Urban Saudi Arabian Society

Abstract

Several recent ethnographic studies have corrected the traditional western view of sex-role relationships in Middle Eastern societies which had ascribed to women a powerless and subjugated position vis-à-vis their male relatives. This paper briefly discusses the reasons for the emergence and the tenacity of this view and then describes the power relations between men and women of elite families within the organization of domestic groups in the Saudi Arabian city of Jiddah. The data show that women have always exercised significant control over the decisions of their male agnates relating to the arrangement of marriages. Given the particular social, political, and economic role of marriage in Arabian society, this control, in turn, has had consequences beyond the realm of domestic relations. Among the families studied, their frequent and prolonged residence abroad and the education of their daughters in foreign schools have strengthened the informal power of the women and initiated their emancipation from the jural tutelage of their agnates and husbands.