FAMILY AND MARRIAGE IN SAUDI ARABIA AND UK

Family and marriage in Saudi Arabia and UK

Family and marriage in Saudi Arabia and UK

Family in Saudi Arabia (Living style and habits)

The family is the most important social institution in Saudi Arabia. For Saudis generally, the family is the primary basis of identity and status for the individual and the immediate focus of individual loyalty. Families form alignments with other families sharing common interests and life-styles, and individuals tend to socialize within the circle of these family alliances. Usually, a family business is open to participation by sons, uncles, and male cousins, and functions as the social welfare safety net for all members of the extended family(Aba, 2006).

Family structure was patrilineal, the boundaries of family membership being drawn around lines of descent through males. Relations with maternal relatives are important, but family identity is tied to the father, and children are considered to belong to him and not to the mother. At its narrowest, a family might therefore be defined as comprising a man, his children, and his children's children through patrilineal descent. Islamic laws of personal status remain in force in Saudi Arabia without modification, and the patrilineal character of the family is compatible with and supported by these Islamic family laws (Aba, 2006).

Families in Saudi Arabia, like families throughout the Middle East, tend to be patriarchal, the father in the family appearing as an authoritarian figure at the top of a hierarchy based on age and sex. Under girding the patriarchal family is cultural and religious values that permeat the society as a whole. A Family shares a sense of corporate identity, and the esteem of the family is measured by the individual's capacity to live up to socially prescribed ideals of honor (Aba, 2006).

Marriage in Saudi Arabia

Marriage is not a sacrament but a civil contract, which had to be signed by witnesses and which specified an amount of money (mehr) to be paid by the husband to the wife. It might further include an agreement for an additional amount to be paid in the event of divorce. The amount of the mehr averaged between 25,000 and 40,000 Saudi riyals in the early 1990s, although some couples rejected the mehr altogether, stipulating only a token amount to satisfy the legal requirement necessary to validate the marriage contract. The contract might also add other stipulations, such as assuring the wife the right of divorce if the husband should take a second wife (Aba, 2006). Divorce could usually only be instigated by the husband, and because by law children belonged to the father, who could take custody of them after a certain age (the age varied with the Islamic legal school, but was usually seven for boys and puberty for girls), legally a wife and mother could be detached from her children at the wish of her husband.

There are three main elements in an Arab marriage. First, the groom must discuss and agree the dowry with the bride's ...