Executive Summary

Despite the furious pace of change and modernization that has occurred in Saudi Arabia over the last half century, the traditional extended family - parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and grand and great grand parents still form the basic unit of the society. Within the extended family, traditional respect for age, gender roles of men outside the home as providers and women in the dominant role inside the home are changing but still intact. The influence of the extended family thus carries over into social life, business and politics. Socially, the Saudis still tend to socialize, marry, and conduct business together.

A major reason for the resilience of the traditional extended family structure is the extraordinary strength of traditional Islamic social, economic and political values. Although behavioral patterns have changed with mind-numbing speed, these basic values are deeply held and are not likely to change rapidly over time.

The Role of the Extended Family in Saudi Arabia

Many years ago, a friend of mine walking down the sidewalk of a small Georgia town with his father met a small boy whom his father hailed, "Howdy, son; how are your folks?" Surprised, Ed asked, "Did you know that little boy?" "No," his father replied, "but everybody's got folks."

What could be called a truism in small town America is a fact in Saudi Arabia. Virtually every Saudi citizen is a member of an extended family, including siblings, parents and grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The extended family is the single most important unit of Saudi society, playing a pivotal role not only in Saudi social life, but economic and political life as well. Even personal self-identity posits a collective self. Each family member shares a collective ancestry, a collective respect for elders, and a collective obligation and responsibility for the welfare of the other family members. It is to the extended family, not to the government, that a person first goes to seek help.

The Extended Family in Saudi Society

Raphael Patai, writing in the 1960s, stated that in every place where Westernization had not yet made appreciable inroads, the Middle Eastern family was patrilocal, patrilineal and patriarchal, meaning that they generally lived in close proximity, computed lineage by the male line, and were guided by family elders. The key question today is how much has Westernization modified the traditional role of the extended Saudi family.

Saudi Arabia is currently experiencing social change at an unprecedented rate, driven by oil wealth and the government's commitment to modernization. In the past fifty years, the Kingdom has spent billions of dollars on social, physical and economic infrastructure, including modern education, transportation, communications, health care and sanitation.

As a result, demographics have changed dramatically. Modern health care has helped create a population explosion of an estimated 3.5 percent a year. Saudi Arabia's population increased from about 2 to 4 million in the 1960s to about 16 million by the end of the century. Urbanization has changed the face of the country. In the 1960s, the population lived predominantly in small towns and villages. Jiddah, then the largest city, had a population of about 250,000, and Riyadh had about 200,000. Today, the great majority of Saudis live in urban areas; Riyadh now numbers over 3.5 million, and Jiddah over 3 million.

The information revolution has also had an impact on society, finally eradicating the physical isolation that has historically shrouded most of Arabia. Personal computers are now commonplace, and even small children can now be seen (and heard!) walking with their elders in modern shopping centers jabbering away on mobile telephones. News from around the globe is instantly available, and Saudis living and studying abroad are in daily communication with home. It is no longer possible to control information, not only about what is happening in Saudi Arabia, but about events impacting on the Kingdom from around the world.

One of the most obvious results of the population explosion and rapid modernization over the last fifty years is the creation of sequential generation gaps. If you were to interview a representative sample of children, young people, young adults, middle-aged people, and the elderly, you would probably get five very different views of Saudi behavioral tastes and mores.

Despite rapid modernization and adoption of many superficial aspects of Western pop culture, the extended family has been remarkably resilient to Westernization. With the move to the cities, members of Saudi extended families still tend to live in close proximity to each other whenever possible, and when not, they do a great deal of socializing with other members. In addition, many families retain homes in their hometowns as well as where they work.

A major reason for the resilience of the traditional extended family structure however, is the extraordinary strength of traditional Islamic social, economic and political values. Although behavioral patterns have changed with mind-numbing speed, these basic values are deeply held and are not likely to change rapidly over time. Moreover, Saudi Arabia never experienced the cultural assault of direct Western colonial rule and still retains an essentially closed society. Saudis generally prefer to socialize with, to do business with, and in general to communicate with their "own kind" than with outsiders.

The Extended Family Dynamics

Three characteristics of extended family dynamics particularly stand out: gender roles, the role of elders, and the decision-making process:

The Role of Family Elders: It has already been noted that Saudi Arabia has a patriarchical society, maintaining a respect for age and seniority that has all but disappeared in Western society. The wisdom and authority of elders is seldom challenged, and younger men and women must wait their turn, often until their sixties or older, before they are accorded the role of family patriarchs and matriarchs.

This is not to say that there are no signs of change. The population explosion has dramatically lowered the median age, which is now 15 years old. At the same time, life expectancy has risen with modern health care, and elders are not relinquishing their leadership roles as soon as they once did. These trends have helped create a generation of young people who are increasingly frustrated in seeking to create meaningful lives of their own. Indeed, the most onerous authority figure for a young wife can often be her mother-in-law or her husband's grandmother, not her husband who, in matters dealing with the home, is as much under his own matriarchal domination as is his wife. Nevertheless, although young people find domination by their elders increasingly frustrating, it is still a dominant characteristic in family dynamics.

Gender Roles: Traditional gender roles in Saudi society share a number of common characteristics with other traditional societies, the most notable of which is that men's roles are outside the home as family providers, protectors, and managers, and women's roles are in the home. Men are predominant outside the home -- in business and public affairs and business, and women are to a large degree predominant within the home, particularly in parental decisions. Increasingly, however, the lines of distinction are being blurred. For example, as the population explosion has greatly reduced the per capita income, many young wives are finding employment outside the home, and husbands are assuming duties in the home unthinkable a generation ago.

Marriage customs are also changing. Many women are waiting longer before marrying, and although most marriages are still "arranged," most young people are now personally acquainted with their intended spouses. Young couples today can meet surreptitiously, often with the help of siblings, communicate by cellular phone, and then if mutually agreeable, ask their mothers to arrange the marriage. By tradition, however, married women do not assume their husband's surname, and if they are divorcees or widowed, may be reunited with their own families.

Frustration is increasing among Saudi women at social restrictions on mobility outside the home, such as wearing a veil and not being allowed to drive an automobile. A growing number of younger women in particular echo Western critics' views that such practices are demeaning and confirm an inferior status of women in Saudi society. In order fully to understand such practices and the frustration they engender, however, it is necessary to view them from the context of Saudi cultural norms and values, not Western norms and values. From a Western perspective, women should be liberated from such practices because they prevent them from achieving individual self-fulfillment. From a Saudi perspective, however, self-fulfillment is a far more collective concept, rooted in family identity. Ironically, however, the extended family, as the basic structural unit in the traditional society, is the source of these traditional practices; and it is inconceivable that a Saudi woman would seek to liberate herself from the institution, i.e. the extended family, that forms the backdrop for her own self-identity. From a Saudi perspective, therefore, those who seek change, do not seek to alter the traditional society, but rather to rid themselves of practices they find onerous.

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