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endogamy,
another characteristic of the Palestinian extended family. A man's
first duty in choosing a wife is to his patrilateral parallel first
cousin (or, more accurately, it is the duty of the family to reserve
their daughters for these cousins). In the majority of cases where
polygyny is an issue, the man marries his cousin first, and when he
has no children by her he mar-ties another woman (Tale 6). Only in
one case (Tale 30) is sexual pleasure presented (and even there
through symbol) as a motivation for polygyny. In all the tales where
polygyny occurs, the men love their first wives and are loath to part
with them, and the first wives are always vindicated against the
others.
    Endogamy
(Tales 6, 16, 21, 25) may be seen as a necessary adjunct of the
social system defined by the patriarchal extended family because it
combines the two major poles of relationship in the society - descent
(hasab) and affinality (nasab) - under one roof. It serves the
purposes of the family well because it guarantees husbands for the
daughters and wives for the sons. Presumably, it forms the ideal
marriage because it exercises a positive pull toward family harmony.
When a man marries his first cousin, he is not bringing a stranger
(cf. Tale 6) into the house; she will therefore, it is thought, share
her husband's economic interest. Because both derive their identity
from the same patrilineal source, it will not be easy for him to
divorce her. Even when they are not related by blood, husbands and
wives address each other as "cousin" (ibin ammi and bint
ammi, or "son of my father's brother" and "daughter of
my father's brother") and each other's parents as ammi (uncle)
and mart ammi (uncle's wife).
    Occasionally,
however, endogamy is disruptive of family unity. When, for example,
one of two brothers living together in the same family has a son, and
the other a daughter, these offspring are expected to marry. But if
for some reason either set of parents obstructs the marriage,
conflict is bound to ensue. If they do not marry, then something is
considered to be wrong with one of them (Tale 21). In this respect,
as with polygyny, the tales provide a critique of the culture,
because they do not automatically reflect the prevailing view that
first-cousin marriage is best. In Tale 21 a young man passes over
seven of his first cousins, all of whom prove nasty and vindictive
when he marries a "stranger." And in Tale 25 two sets of
marriages are compared, one in which a maligned wife is actually
faithful to her husband, the other in which three cousins in a row,
though protesting their faithfulness, turn out to be licentious and
unfaithful to their shared husband.
    The
two issues discussed thus far, polygyny and endogamy, are
fundamentally related to the third feature of the Palestinian
extended family, patrilocality. A woman may marry outside her family,
but her in-laws will always consider her a stranger because she does
not belong to the patrilineal network of relationships that define
social identity for them: she is not one of them. Thus, given a
choice, a woman will always prefer to stay as close to her paternal
family as possible (we shall see why in our discussion of
brother/sister relationships below). For unlike endogamy, which does
not require but merely favors first-cousin marriage, patrilocality
leaves the newlyweds no choice: the bride must move into the
household of her husband. This requirement, as can be immediately
perceived, has major implications for our understanding of women and
their behavior in the tales. At no time in her life is a woman
considered to live in her own space. When she is single, she lives in
the household of her father; after marriage, in that of her husband.
In the tales patrilocality is taken for granted and is not questioned
like polygyny, although in one fantasy (Tale 44) the husband, who has
just married the king's daughter, lives with her in a palace given to
them by her father.
    Not
only in kinship and