PATRILOCAL CO-RESIDENTIAL UNITS (PCUS) IN AL-BARHA - DUAL HOUSEHOLD STRUCTURE IN A PROVINCIAL TOWN IN JORDAN

The dominant household form in al-Barha, a lower-middle-class neighbor hood in the Jordanian city of Irbid is a cluster of nuclear families w hose senior men are patrilineally related. Residents in such multi-fam ily households - which typically include an old married couple, their unmarried children, and their married sons, sons' wives, and sons' chi ldren - describe their households as the products of an ideal norm of patrilocal residence after marriage. Hence we refer to them here as Pa trilocal Go-residential Units (PCUs). But we argue that this household form is a response to socio-economic factors, not just an expression of patrilocal norms. Largely home-owners rather than renters, the resi dents of each house in this neighborhood try to keep their sons togeth er, with the male household head providing a separate dwelling within the confines of his home for each of his married sons and their wives and children. This amounts to a housing subsidy for each married son, since he pays no regular rent. By pooling their resources, the separat e nuclear families can maintain a higher standard of living than they could if they tried to live in completely independent dwellings. The d esirability of this higher living standard reflects the emerging class formations in Jordan. Thus the norm of patrilocality is not so much a n explanation of the persistance of PCUs as it is a rationalization or after-the-fact justification of it.