Being a Girl in a Polygamous Family Implications and Challenges
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Being a Girl in a Polygamous Family Implications and Challenges Nuzha Allassad Alhuzail1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Polygamous marriages are widespread and accepted among Israel’s Bedouin-Arabs. Yet despite polygamy’s many effects on family members, there is almost no research on the experience of adolescents in these families and the effects of the second marriage on their relationship with the father. The current study is a pioneering effort to shed light on the feelings of severe injury among adolescent girls whose fathers have taken a second wife. Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted in 2016 and 2018 with participants ages 18–22, and the data underwent a qualitative thematic analysis. The findings shed light on parent–child relations in the context of marriage, separation, and family reconstitution. They highlight situations of family conflict that generate stress for family members. Three coping patterns of the adolescent girls are identified, offering a glimpse of how a generation of young women in patriarchal traditional societies may begin to challenge longstanding and widely accepted practices and ideas regarding the family. Interventions are proposed at the macro, mezzo, and micro levels. Keywords Bedouin-Arab · Polygamy · Adolescent girls · Parent–child relations · Traditional society This article explores the traumatic experiences of BedouinArab adolescent girls in Israel whose fathers have taken a second wife. Polygamy, particularly widespread among Israel’s Bedouin-Arabs, is prevalent in various cultural, geographic, and religious groups, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as in some immigrant communities in Europe. In Arab countries, it has been estimated, polygamy accounts for 2–9% of all marriages (Khasawneh, Hijazi, & Salman, 2011). Existing research focuses primarily upon the influence of polygamy on the mental health and well-being of those who experience this form of family structure. However, the voices of adult women and especially those of children in such families are virtually absent (Al-Krenawi, Slonim-Nevo, & Graham, 2006). The findings of the current study highlight situations of family conflict in which fairness and ethicality in attachment relationships may be severely tested. However, the findings also offer a glimpse of how a generation of young women in patriarchal traditional societies may begin to challenge longstanding and widely accepted practices and ideas
* Nuzha Allassad Alhuzail [email protected] 1
School of Social Work, Sapir Academic College, Mobile Post Hof Ashkelon, Israel
about family life that are associated with severe functional difficulties.
The Bedouin‑Arab Population of Israel’s Negev and Polygamy Bedouin-Arabs are the indigenous inhabitants of Israel’s Negev region, numbering 250,000 (Allassad Alhuzail, 2013). They are a subgroup of the Arab minority in Israel, with unique cultural, historical, social, and political characteristics (Meir, 1997). The average socioe
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