Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
Paul Stirling
CHAPTER SIX
HOUSEHOLD AND FAMILY STRUCTURE
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When people who have had little or nothing to do with each other beforehand are pitchforked into extreme intimacy within a single household, such contingent factors as personality, the relative standing of natal and marital households, and the degree of difference of custom of the two households are bound to affect the development of relationships. On the other hand, every girl knows that this is her inevitable fate and is well drilled in respect for her mother-in-law. The body of domestic customs and skills within village society is highly uniform, so that she is bound to find a great deal that is familiar. She has no alternative to submission except the scandal and disgrace associated with divorce, and then to repeat her experience elsewhere under less favourable circumstances. If she stays on she has hopes of a son, who will immediately improve her position in her marital home, and eventually make it possible for her to be mistress in her own household. Her mother-in-law also wants a grandson, and has no wish to endanger the son's marriage, which has usually been a costly investment, nor to strain her son's relationship to herself. On both sides, therefore, the system provides rewards for success, and penalties for failure. Both sides know what is expected of them. If most daughters-in-law find it possible to co-operate with their mothers-in-law under these circumstances, it is not after all surprising. Tensions exist, but they should not be overt; and normally, they are not.
Co- Wives. In some of the rare cases of polygamy, co-wives live under one roof. The villagers did not have a common term for co-wives, but they had, and used frequently, a term for a second wife, a word which carried decidedly derogatory overtones,kuma. Only two men in Sakaltutan actually had two wives of approximately the same age co-resident with them. In one case their co-operation in caring for an old and ailing husband was apparently exemplary. The other two were said to quarrel, and certainly their husband, who in any case was away from the village a great deal as a skilled plumber, kept away from his house, living mostly in the patrimonial guest room which he shared with his brothers. In both the other cases of bigamy in Sakaltutan, one wife was much older than her husband, and the other much younger. The elder in each case was in effect discarded, and relations were accordingly bad.
People pity a woman whose husband takes another wife. Yet
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