MIGRATION, FAMILY, AND HOUSEHOLD IN HIGHLAND YEMEN - THE IMPACT OF SOCIOECONOMIC AND POLITICAL-CHANGE AND CULTURAL IDEALS ON DOMESTIC ORGANIZATION

As elsewhere in the Middle East, the Yemeni family is described as pat rilineal, virilocal, and extended. This gloss is often inaccurate, but in the central highlands of the (former) Yemen Arab Repulic, this fam ily type represents both the cultural ideal and the social norm. Drawi ng on data from ten rural communities, this paper examines the converg ence of family form and household composition. Recognizing that intern al dynamics are probably central to household unity or division, five activities identified by Wilk and Netting (co-residence, production, t ransmission of property, reproduction, and distribution of resources) are discussed.