Patrilocal Co-Residential Units (PCUs) In Al-Barha: Dual Household Structure In A Provincial Town In Jordan

Abstract

The dominant household form in al-Barha, a lower-middle-class neighborhood in the Jordanian city oflrbid, is a cluster of nuclear families whose senior men are patrilineally related. Residents in such multi-family households - which typically include an old married couple, their unmarried children, and their married sons, sons’ wives, and sons’ children - describe their households as the products of an ideal norm ofpatrilocal residence after marriage. Hence we refer to them here as Patrilocal Co-residential Units (PCUs). But we argue that this household form is a response to socio-economic factors, not just an expression of patrilocal norms. Largely home-owners rather than renters, the residents of each house in this neighborhood try to keep their sons together, with the male household head providing a separate dwelling within the confines of his home for each of his married sons and their wives and children. This amounts to a housing subsidy for each married son, since he pays no regular rent. By pooling their resources, the separate nuclear families can maintain a higher standard of living than they could if they tried to live in completely independent dwellings. The desirability of this higher living standard reflects the emerging class formations in Jordan. Thus the norm of patrilocality is not so much an explanation of the persistance of PCUs as it is a rationalization or after-the-fact justification of it.