CHAPTER 7
FAMILY

Historically, kin and household ties have been the center of Turkish life, as much so among the elite as among the peasants. The elite of the Ottoman Empire were defined in terms of ancestral heritage, something which has remained a characteristic of the ruling elite to this day (see ch. 6, Social Structure). For the Turkish villagers, who comprise almost three-fourths of the total population, kinship relations are paramount in defining the proper rights and obligations of social behavior.

In villages where the government has not yet imposed its external, impersonal system of law, the orderliness and continuity of life depend on the priority and superiority of kin and household ties over any others. Even where the government has made an impact, these traditional kinship ties most often operate behind the scenes of the superficial governmental controls.

Kinship in Turkey is different in terms of both quantity and quality from notions of kinship in the West. The number of significantly defined kinship relations is much higher; one knows, for instance, the proper behavior to be exhibited toward one's paternal grandfather's sister's son's son. Also, the intensity and definitiveness of these relationships differ from those familiar in the West.

With increasing industrialization the Turkish family and kin groups are becoming less significant in the ordering of daily life, in both quantity and quality. Urban areas exhibit the greatest degree of change, while villages most often cling to traditional notions of the structure and function of kin relations.

Ecological factors such as the high birthrate and the reduction in the size of farm holdings have created economic pressures on the continued existence of the traditional Islamic extended family. These factors have combined with such things as the wider acceptance of Kemalist social reforms and the deeper penetration of national policies, especially those with legal implications pertaining to the family, to bring about gradual changes in family patterns.

Situations change faster than the values which give them

meaning; the result is individual and group conflict. Even in cities and towns the legal and social relationships prescribed by the new codes regularly are inoperative due to lack of support by an appropriate system of values. Urban residents retain a sense of belonging to a group of wider kin than the immediate family. This retention discourages the formation of groups which cut across blood lines, and the traditional mistrust of strangers and nonkinsmen inhibits cooperation between unacquainted or unrelated individuals.

All of these values and modes of behavior inhibit the rapid development of industrialization and modernization, which requires the acceptance of the priority of economic relationships over, or at least equal to, kinship relationships.

THE HOUSEHOLD

According to Turks the household is comprised of those who share "one purse, one pot, and one table," indicating that an economic unity is the most fundamental characteristic of a household. Only through membership in a household does an individual take part in the economic life of the village.

Household membership also provides the most definitive identification of individuals vis-à-vis the rest of the village. In another sense the village relies on the household to produce offspring with the basic characteristics that provide village continuity. Finally, authority and responsibility within the village are primarily household matters. A man is in charge of his wife, children, and their dependents, and responsible to his neighbors for their good behavior.

Ideally, a household consists of a man, his wife, his married sons and their wives and children, and his unmarried sons and daughters. Generally, only about 25 percent of village households are composed of two or more married couples and full families containing all of the individuals mentioned above are rare.

The numerical preponderance of simple households is not necessarily inconsistent with the acceptance of the three-generation joint household as the ideal. Even under stable demographic conditions, less than half of the households would meet the ideal. If a life expectancy of 60 years for men is assumed, and an average gap between father and son of 25 years, it is evident that an average household head would have to spend 15 years after his father died before his grandson would be born, and then he would experience 10 full years as head of a full joint household before his own death.

Even under ideal conditions, then, the proportion of full joint

families in a village at any one time would be relatively small. In fact achieving a full joint household is even more difficult under real conditions. Adult men often die prematurely, leaving unmarried children. The infant mortality rate is high, as is the rate of infertility and miscarriage among women. Innumerable conditions join forces to reduce the possibility of the formation of the ideal household unit.

In cities and towns the proportion of joint households is even less because of the nonagricultural economy and the greater prevalence of Western values pertaining to family life. In villages the traditional values of family organization have persisted even though the actual incidence of manifestations of these values have decreased.

Although land is individually owned, household members pool their resources and exploit them cooperatively. The main resources are land, animals, and able-bodied plowmen, and efficient production depends on a correct balance between them. Roughly 8 to 10 acres a year can be plowed by one man and one team of oxen, and for maximum production land, stock, and manpower must increase in equal proportion.

In short the household is practically the only organized economic unit in rural society, sharing production and consumption. It shares all resources belonging to members; it distributes and shares work according to sex, seniority, and convenience, and it distributes the total income among its members according to need and social position. Increasingly, modern farms are becoming primary economic units in terms of production, but this phenomenon is still restricted to certain areas such as coastal villages (see ch. 6, Social Structure).

The household is also the primary social unit. Individuals are identified primarily by the household to which they belong. Socialization takes place primarily within the household; children learn the roles that they will perform as children, adolescents, and adults. When an occasion prescribes formal visiting, households are usually the visiting and visited units. Thus households are the basic social units through which individuals interact with the village at large.

Within the household the contrast between males and females is emphasized in every way possible. This distinction is especially clear in the division of labor. Men do the heavy field work, control major household resources, make all major decisions, conduct all relations with the outside world, and defend the household and its honor. Women carry out all domestic tasks, do light work in the fields and, at least outwardly, submit to the will of their men.

The mutual separateness and dependence of men and women

is one factor that holds the household together. Neither men nor women can live outside a household because of the strict division of labor. Since most of the women in the household are related only through marriage to the rest of the members they are bound to each other by their relationships to men. It is the husband-son who bridges the gap between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and the brothers that bind the wives together. Conversely, one of the main factors that unites the male core of a household is the shared duty to safeguard the honor of the women.

Age, or generation, is also a primary consideration in the structural division of the household. For both males and females, generational seniority confers authority and prestige. Girls are expected to be deferential to older women, to wait upon them, and to listen until asked to speak. Likewise, boys and young men defer to and obey older males. But generational distinctions do not override those based on sex. Brothers do not ever group themselves with their sisters against their parents, nor husbands with their wives against their children. Thus, even though mothers command their small children, male and female, adult sons command their mothers.

The possible paired relationships within a joint household are very large. But the more common and important ones are husbandwife, father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, brother-brother, sister-sister, brother-sister, brothers' wives, and female-male in-laws. The first eight can be present in all households, joint or simple while the latter two are peculiar to household with more than one married couple.

Husband-Wife

A woman is outwardly required to submit to the will of her husband, but she is an indispensable part of the household. Much household activity is outside of the concern of husbands and this guarantees a wife autonomy to manage these affairs. The wife, like all women, accepts her overall inferiority as part of the world order, but her immersion in her own affairs greatly mitigates this sense of inferiority. Beneath the outward submissiveness is a realization and understanding of the indispensability of her own household activities.

A household is based on the relationship of a husband and wife for the procreation of children. Marriage is a well-defined and heavily sanctioned status which serves to perpetuate the household and the village.

Husbands wield all of the legitimate authority, while wives exercise constrained influence over decisions. If a husband is unreasonable, the only real recourse for his wife is to return

to her parents or other close relatives. In cases where a wife seems to dominate her husband, or exercise inordinate influence on him, he is certain to lose his respect and honor in the eyes of his neighbors.

Companionship is not valued in the relationship between a man and his wife. A man must never show affection for his wife in front of anyone else, and it is assumed that there are few common grounds for conversation between man and wife. The relationship is confined primarily to economic cooperation and sexual intimacy. Such a relationship does not preclude affection, but the only permitted public manifestations of it are economic cooperation and the procreation of children.

This allows for a viable household to be established and maintained around almost any suitable couple that can achieve a minimal level of cooperation in the face of misfortune and misunderstandings. A successful marriage is not measured in the context of personal relations; the main criterion of success is the existence of healthy sons.

Father-Child

A father's authority over his sons is absolute; sons are expected to obey their father, and they most often do. Apart from formal education, fathers are almost alone in the role of educating their sons in socially acceptable behavior, and in essential farming skills. Sons begin to help their fathers from around the age of 8, and by the age of 12 they are expected to know how to handle a plow.

As a son reaches middle age and his father becomes too old for heavy work, control of household affairs may pass to the son. But formal respect and acknowledgement of the father's authority is never lessened and he remains the nominal household head. Even in old age, a father almost always arranges and finances his son's marriages, and he continues to give advice which is expected to be followed.

Sons generally inherit their father's land. When asked about inheritance of land, villagers will generally draw a quadrangle in the dust and divide it by lines down the middle, insisting that land is divided equally between the sons. In reality, no single consistent body of rules governs inheritance. The Turkish Civil Code, the Serat, and custom are all followed, but inconsistently and unpredictably. Which rules are followed and how they are applied depends on the state of family affairs, especially the relations and interests of the close kin involved.

A girl lives in her parents' home for the first 13 to 17 years of her life. Thus, her relationship with her father is not only