Visiting Patterns and Social Dynamics in a Lebanese Druze Village

A multiplicity of visiting patterns in 'Ain ad Dayr, a Lebanese Druze village, are carried out to serve many purposes: to initiate and develop courtships that may lead to marriage, to establish economic alliances among households, to maintain or shift lineage alliances in political contexts. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Anthropological quarterly 1974-01, Vol.47 (1), p.112-119
Main Author: Sweet, Louise E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alliances
Clans
Communities
Community life
Cultural identity
Etiquette
Families
Kin/Kinship
Lebanon/Lebanese
Social dynamics
Social interaction
Villages
Visitation
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Summary:A multiplicity of visiting patterns in 'Ain ad Dayr, a Lebanese Druze village, are carried out to serve many purposes: to initiate and develop courtships that may lead to marriage, to establish economic alliances among households, to maintain or shift lineage alliances in political contexts. The etiquette of visiting is explicit and the "ceremonials" of visiting vary in elaboration. The most elaborate seem to be those on the occasion of a funeral and the sequence of winter evening visits between lineages and allied families. However, it is the continuous movement of formally or informally structured visiting over all time dimensions which is striking. It highlights internal boundaries, but also it is apparently a most important process for the community and its components. This paper is an attempt to convey this continuous movement, rather than the usual static analysis.
ISSN:0003-5491
1534-1518
DOI:10.2307/3317029