The cultural areas of the world have different marriage cultures, and marriage forms under the taboo are also different. Notwithstanding Social and cultural atmosphere in Korean society became quite open and free, many Koreans still feel uncomfortable ...
The cultural areas of the world have different marriage cultures, and marriage forms under the taboo are also different. Notwithstanding Social and cultural atmosphere in Korean society became quite open and free, many Koreans still feel uncomfortable marrying foreigners from other countries, such as Chinese, Southeast Asians, and other ethnic origin people. The Arab society is more conservative than ours, and conflicts between different religions, religious sects, and ethnic groups are relatively severe. Therefore, marriage between different religions, religious sects, and ethnic groups are usually refused and considered as a taboo. Since each Arab country is composed of different elements, its aspects vary slightly from country to country.
There is also a trend in the Arab world that try to select spouses freely regardless of the taboo. And yet, in many Arab societies, marriages between different groups are recognized as one of social problems that destroy social structure and values. However, even though it is a taboo, there must be people who are brave enough to challenge the taboo and through the observing how family and neighbors react, we can identify the social atmosphere of the region. Through it, we would know how a country that is composed of disparate elements could be integrated and achieve social stability as well.
The purpose of this research is to explore and analyze the degree of social integration of the Arab society by surveying the aspects of marriage between disparate groups country by country. The Research on this subject was conducted annually, as follows :
In the first year of the study, the research concentrated upon case analysis of intermarriage between Moroccan Arabs and Berbers. What is noteworthy is that unlike the general belief of outsiders, the Arabs and Berbers still have a strong reluctance to marry each other.
In the second year of the study, the research concentrated upon case analysis of intermarriage between Bahraini Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. Through the field survey, we found there is no severe reluctance to marry each other remarkably despite the religious sect conflict between Sunni and Shia that was revealed through the process of ‘Arab spring’.
In the third year of the study, the research concentrated upon social recognition of intermarriage between Egyptian Christians and Muslims. We conducted questionnaire survey of citizens of Cairo and secured more than 400 questionnaires. Through this process, the marriage between Christians and Muslims was found to have been nearly treated as a crime level in the Society.
In the field survey process, several difficult problems have arisen, because each of the countries surveyed was socially unstable after the Arab Spring. For example, in Morocco, the questionnaire survey was not allowed from the beginning, and in Bahrain, the security guards restrained us during questionnaire survey. In Egypt, however, giving interview to the subjects was impossible because most of them concealed their identity and were not exposed to outside.