| come to the same village, whereas a woman married within her natal village will be able to maintain, to a much greater extent, the kinship ties of her childhood. Within the village, the pattern of these relationships will again vary with the physical distance between her natal and her conjugal household, and the existing relations between them. The women have no odalar, and systematic observation of the gossip-groups, the co-operation in domestic tasks, and the petty lendings and borrowings by which intimacy may be gauged is not easy. A woman’s social relations by no means follow those of her husband. Sisters and daughters and mothers constantly visit each other, and continue to help each other even when their menfolk are indifferent or even hostile. I have already mentioned on page the indifference of the men of FA and BK 1 to each other in contrast with the intimacy of their womenfolk. Neighbourhood plays an important part but, whereas for men neighbourhood and kinship overlap, for a woman, even if she herself is married to her father’s brother’s son, her neighbours will include women who have married in from other households and from other villages. The women, in fine weather, in the slack period of the say, when they are not busy indoors cooking, bring some portable work and gather in large groups. If the weather is severe they gather in smaller groups in the evler, sitting round the tandir, with their legs tucked under a great rug and their feet near the hidden fire. Kinship and household ties play a large part in the composition of these groups, and no less proudly than the men they will explain their kinship relationships. But the main fact in the formation of these groups is neighbourhood. Women address other women who are their equals or inferiors as “kiz” - girl. An older woman is usually addressed by her kinship term. Kinship terms and their use roughly correspond to those of the men. “Anne” - mother - is used only for a true mother, a step-mother or a mother-in-law. “”Amme” and “hala” - father’s sister and mother’s sister - are also used in similar extensions to those of “Emme” and “Dayi”. Since a woman is usually away from her natal home, and since she travels and visits much less than a man, contacts with her remoter kin are much less than a man’s, and there is less opportunity for detailed observation of uses. A woman is not thought to take on completely her husband’s kinship ties; in addressing his kin she used the affinal terms. (See appendix B). But these new relationship are of vital importance to her. Where she has left her natal village and her close kinsfolk, she is bound to seek new and secure personal |
| relationships among her affines and new neighbours, to replace those she has left behind her. The factors of proximity and day to day contact which, to say the least, are fundamental factors in creating the bonds between close blood kin in time will build up for her such a set of new relationships. At first her neighbours will all be strangers to her; some of them, like her, will be strangers also to the village. Among these neighbours, the wives of her husband’s kinsmen, and of his childhood playmates, she will make her lifelong intimate friendships. Where she has a kinswoman or a fellow villager among her neighbours, there will be a special bond of mutual sympathy and help. Even women who are fortunate enough to stay in their natal villages will form close and intimate ties with stranger wives of their husband’s kin and neighbours. But generally, it seems, blood kinship counts for more. Kinswomen will visit each other from one end of the village to the other. Medine, wife of Ahmet (VA 6) and sister of both Selahaddin (BA 5) and of Sefer’s (BA 4) wife, and also Mustafa’s (BA 1) daughter, who was gelin to Haci Ahmet (SA 2), were both frequently to be seen with their kinswomen in the Lower Quarter. Intimacy among women means much gossiping in groups, co-operation and petty borrowing back and forth. It would, for example, be impossible to cook a wedding feast, which consists of ten courses, on one tandir; for such needs neighbours and kinswomen lend a hand, each household cooking a different dish. To some extent on such festive occasions, even resources may be shared. In day to day life, the sudden special needs for a guest, or an unforeseen shortage in domestic supplies, is remedied by borrowing. Even my wife was brought into this scheme and very often the small quantities of sugar or coffee, or whatever it was, were duly returned. Bilal severely reprimanded his wife, Nazife, for borrowing from her when she knew she could not pay back. Normally a woman preferred to borrow from a kinswoman. Bilal’s wife and Cemal’s wife (VA 12) were sisters, and several times a small boy came to borrow a loaf or two of bread from Nazife while I was present - on one occasion it was refused. These two women were always about together, or in and out of each other’s houses. The ev door, like the oda door, is never closed. Neighbours and children go in and out without ceremony or even greetings. If anything, the women are more gregarious than the men. Several women asked during the winter how I could bear to be alone for such long periods, and later, whenever I left my wife alone in the village, she was visited by streams of neighbours, all expressing anxiety lest she should be lonely. Unless her duties force her to, no |
| women ever stays alone in her ev - if she has no visitors she goes forth in search of company. The complex set of intimate relations between the women are even less susceptible of analysis and generalisation than those among the men. Where physical distance alls, the closest kin ties are maintained by visiting, and mutual services. Otherwise, the women associate with their close neighbours, and the ties of blood kin that link particular people in these neighbourhood groups are accidental, the chance results of their marriage. |
| 2. | Inter-Village Kinship |
| The village forms a very definite social unit, with common ownership of, and interest in, a given area of land, common residence and a common political organisation. Within these limits, kinship differentiates personal relationships, providing special links between people all over the village, and forming a complex web. But this differentiation only serves to give special emphasis to already existing intimacy. From childhood up a man knows, as friends or as enemies, his contemporaries in the village; though he may live at one end of it, he will be continually coming and going to all parts of it, he will see daily most of its inhabitants, he will hear about their affairs and know the details of their family and personal history. There are no strangers within the village. But a kinsman in another village is not a peak above a generally high level, but an oasis in a desert of strangers. Instead, in that village, of being a complete stranger, dependent upon the form of hospitality of the muhtar, there will be one household where one has an intimate tie, where one can go and be genuinely looked for, where one does not feel ashamed to accept hospitality. The difference between various types of kinship outside the village are subordinate to this factor, and differ in degree of intimacy rather than specific quality. That is to say, inter-village agnatic kinship is more like other types of inter-village kinship that it is like kinship ties within the village. For men, in fact, inter-village agnatic kinship is rare. four men with living brothers in Sakaltutan had moved away to other villages, one of them only temporarily to solve the housing problem. In all these four cases there was constant visiting. Men are readily able to visit each other, both because their work is readily left for a day or two, unlike a woman’s, and because they can travel alone without danger. Zubeyr (SI 4), had a carpenter brother in Mimarsinan, a village near Kayseri, and another in Harsa, a richer agricultural village about four hours east of Sakaltutan. Both of these visited, to my knowledge, several times during my stay, and Zubeyr also visited them. Mustafa, the carpenter brother, came to help with the harvest and took a share of his brothers’ land which is still undivided. |
| Kinsmen in different villages frequently visit each other. Very often there is some special occasion such as a death or a wedding. When the three Hacis returned from Mecca their kinsmen from villages far and near were among the first of many visitors who came to pay them homage. No kinsmen would allow such an occasion to pass. At every wedding, kinsmen from neighbouring villages are invited, and at a death also, close kinsmen hurry to the burial, or, if too late, console the bereaved. News that his daughter’s father-in-law was at death’s door sent old Osman (PB 2) hurrying to Kb village, where he attended the death and burial of the man and stayed all day with the mourners. Sometimes the occasion of a visit may be business. Once when we were setting off for a village over two hours away in search of a bride, we met on the outskirts of Sakaltutan a man of the village whose wife was from the village to which we were going. He immediately joined the party, partly in order to have company on a visit to his affines, partly in case he might help persuade the girl’s father, by their good offices, to let us have the girl we were seeking. Matrilateral kinsmen may provide economic help. Bilal, once, when in need of a charm, which would otherwise have been too expensive for him, and once, when in need of food just before the harvest, with no money to buy it, went to matrilateral kinsmen in other villages for help. I also came across cases of substantial loans between kinsmen from different villages. These would have the advantage that one’s neighbours need not know about them. Even remoter degrees of kin can be relied upon to provide hospitality if one is in need. One night, owing to deep snow, Bilal and I arrived exhausted in Ac village, and there was no question of going on. Bilal accordingly took me to VA 10’s sister’s husband’s house, or rather oda, who fed us and put us up for the night. Any villager is almost bound to have some sort of relation in every village near his own. In this context bacanak - wife’s sister’s husband - is of great importance. Although migration from village to village is rare, such migration as one does find follows invariably matrilateral kinship lines. No one in fact could go and live in a village without some link to give him entry. In the majority of cases of which I had information, the village is the emigrant’s mother’s village, in every case it is his wife’s village. Equally, if a man goes to live temporarily in another village, it is to his wife’s village that he goes. For example, in two cases of men opening shops for the winter season in other villages than their own, they went to their wife’s village. Between men, with few exceptions, inter-village kinship must be kinship through a woman. But for women who marry away from their natal village, |
| or for the mothers and sisters of such women, the most intimate kinship ties will cross village boundaries. A young girl marrying into a strange village is, they say, a stranger for one year. During this period she is not allowed to visit her home, but her family may visit her. Her feelings are very much with her home. Her first return, usually for a fortnight or a month, is marked with festivities among her own womenfolk, and her new departure with fresh tears. As years go by, she gradually acclimatises to her conjugal village and this means a weakening of her ties to her natal village. But the connection never dies. If she is in trouble or sickness her kinsfolk will come to her, or, if she wishes, she can take refuge at home. Ali Osman feared lest his wife’s sister’s husband divorced her, since, in that case, his wife’s sister, having no brothers, would have to come to him, her father’s brother’s son, for her keep. In spite of being decidedly unwell himself Bilal visited his sister, some four hours away, because he heard that she was ill, yet she had been married for many years and had grown children. The need to be with or to have one’s own natal kin with one, when ill, is commonly felt - I heard of several cases of geliner going home because they were ill, and it is often said in such cases that the illness is due to affinal neglect. Affinal and matrilateral ties between women living in different villages are weak. Once the ceremonies of betrothal and the wedding are over, unless the villages are very close, opportunities for casual visiting are not frequent. No woman can go any distance without the escort of a close male kinsman. But her again, on special occasions, they do visit each other. At weddings the bride is fetched by seven or eight women of the boy’s side. These “yengeler”, as they are called, almost invariably include two or three kinswomen from other villages. Kinsfolk in different villages maintain their relationship with each other by their spontaneous interest in each other’s doings and welfare and by visiting each other when they can. But it is not only their affection for each other which maintains the link. The day to day contact and petty help which is the stuff of kinship within the village is replaced by a less intimate but equally important mutual dependence for services and liaison in an otherwise strange environment. The villagers are constantly moving about on business or pleasure in other villages. Equally they love to receive and entertain visitors themselves. All this movement and visiting between villages follows the lines of inter-village kinship, the obligations and affections of which are ostensibly one of its main motives. Without these kinship links, essential contacts for such matters as marriage, the sale and exchange of animals, the obtaining of charms, would be impossible. |