The purpose of this research is to examine the nature of Bedouin society. The plan of the research will be to set forth a working definition of Bedouin society, and then to discuss the meaning and justification of the claim that women exercise little power in the public realm in that society but considerable power in its private or domestic realm.
According to Sandra Mackey, Bedouin society is identified chiefly with the nomad subsistence existence, existing in a desert climate, outside the boundaries and conventions of nationalism and civilization as it is most commonly understood, but within the context of tribal and family loyalties (21, 23). There is, however, an identifiable social structure, predicated of "patrilineal families locked in steadfast fidelity and sacred obligation" (24) in relatively small social units. Mackey describes the Bedouin society as being historically bound by "the imperative of family," a consequence of the fact that the quality or indeed persistence of Bedouin life is determined by the degree and kind of commitment of the individual to the whole.
Pressures to conform, to uphold the collective good, and to live by the unwritten by universally recognized moral code of the group bound every member. The message was so effective because the reality was so stark--without the support and protection of the kin group, the individual would be lost (Mackey 24).
Inevitably, a society with these attributes would be insular, relative to other cultures. That is, subordination of individual to group concerns, interpenetrated with what could reasonably be called fierce mutual loyalties, emerges as a principal determinant of daily life. According to Mackey, the tiny percentage of Bedouin population vis-a-vis the rest of the Arab world does not mitigate the fact that attributes of the Bedouin culture penetrate Arab culture as a whole. One aspect of this is the persistence of Bedouin attitudes toward life as such (2...