Family Change in Bahrain: Perceptions and Practices

Abstract

This thesis captures the perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of Bahrainis in relation to family matters, specifically, dating, marriage, parenthood, and family life. In doing so, it contributes to bridging the empirical gap on family change in Bahrain, as well as the theoretical lacuna, as it interprets the findings in conversation with the Second Demographic Transition theory. The findings are drawn from in-depth interviews with 28 Bahraini women and men, predominantly well-educated, employed, urban, middle and upper-middle class, and both Sunni and Shi’a. This thesis reveals the low importance these individuals attach to marriage as a personal life endeavour, contrasting with the societal importance placed on marriage in Bahraini society, which contextualises negative perceptions towards female and male singlehood and social pressures towards marriage. It also unveils the widespread aspirations of younger women and men to establish dating practices prior to marriage, highlighting the role of social media and public spaces in facilitating these ambitions. In terms of partner criteria, it discloses preferences for Muslim, either from Sunni or Shi’a background, well-educated or well-cultured, and salaried partners, while exposing the increasing importance ascribed to love as the main reason to enter a marital union. Through the individualisation of marriage decisions, this thesis evidences the lack of involvement of the extended family as well as the more participatory (although limited) role of parents in partner and marital choices. Concerning parenthood, it reveals the concurrence of desires for motherhood and fatherhood with views of parenthood as a non-essential vital event, the latter contrasting with the fundamental role ascribed to parenthood in Bahraini society. It also depicts the declining importance of having large families, the latent societal preference for having sons, and the extensive support for the use of contraceptive methods. Furthermore, it details the perceived socially adequate number of children as three, which overwhelmingly coincides with the participants’ ideal family size. With reference to family life, it presents domestic and childcare responsibilities as preferably shared, but in coexistence with an underlying trend to view the man as the main breadwinner and the woman as the primary homemaker. Finally, it describes the childcare support network of Bahraini families as generally formed by the maternal grandmother and female domestic workers; the latter’s involvement in childcare being commonly viewed with ambivalence.