Women & Islamic Cultures Family, Law and Politics

An adult, especially female, speaker is likely to

add the possessive suffix manor am to extended

kin terms to emphasize positive qualities connected

with closeness (madare-man,“my mother”); with-

out the possessive,pisarand dukhtar are conde-

scending and belittling, stressing authority over

closeness.

In the political language of the Islamic Republic,

“brother” and “sister” appear in speeches, when

officials want to persuade, reprimand, or demand

something of people, and in titles for religious

organizations (for example, Sisters of Zaynab).

This use emphasizes equality and the obligations

346 kinship, idiomatic

Muslims have toward each other in the family of

believers.

Bibliography

F. Barth, Nomads of South Persia, New York 1961.

L. Beck, The Qashqa±i of Iran, New Haven, Conn. 1986.

D. Bradburd, Ambiguous relations, Washington, D.C.

1990.

E. Friedl, Children of Deh Koh, Syracuse, N.Y. 1997.

S. Guppy, The blindfold horse. Memories of a Persian

childhood, Boston 1986.

I. Pezeshkzad, My Uncle Napoleon, Washington, D.C.

1996.

B. Spooner, Kinship and marriage in Eastern Persia, in

Sociologus15 (1965), 22–31.

Erika Loeffler Friedl