The Politics of Group Weddings in Palestine

Abstract

Group Islamic weddings in the West Bank and Gaza began in the mid-1990s. They developed as a successful way to counter Israel’s policy of siege and impoverishment of Palestinian society through the economic benefits they offer and by introducing a spirit of collective joy. Yet they have become a site of conflict between the two main political rivals, Hamas and Fateh, and they also have implications for gender relations. Women are not passive observers of the conflict between the two parties and the new traditions and rituals these parties are inventing. Women are actively involved in creating more space for themselves by resisting certain Islamist initiatives, polygyny in particular. Even as they demonstrate resistance and agency, however, the political context in which Islamist and nationalist group weddings occur is unfavorable to women, as both forms lead to more segregated gender roles at their expense.

Researching Spaces of Violence Through Family

“…Unlike the first intifada, this was not only resistance to colonial violence, but also to the militarized anti-colonial violence practiced in response to the Israeli Occupation. Jad (2009) nevertheless notes that the rise of group weddings during the second intifada was a means through which the dominant Palestinian political parties in the Occupied Territories promoted factional politics. She also notes that group weddings (re)produced socially conservative beliefs and practices, particularly with regards to gender dynamics within families.…”

“…In the contexts of refuge studied by Kuttab (2004), changing family compositions did not transform gender relations within families. In the second intifada, some family practices that resisted violence (re)produced socially conservative beliefs and practices with regards to gender relations within families (Jad 2009). Palestinian families are thus potent forms of political resistance in each of these three contexts, but the relationship between family and violence differs in each instance.…”

The politics of pleasure: Promenading on the Corniche and beachgoing

“…Such "ethos of self-restraint" (Jean-Klein, 2001, page 96) has been a characteristic of Palestinian political mobilisation at least since the First Intifada (1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991). This ethos "combines subaltern, oppositional, and emancipatory impulses with hegemonic and, if not oppressive, in any event newly constraining, nation-building impulses" (Jean-Klein, 2001, page 91), and most often is characterised by a rejection of joyful celebrations (even weddings) as a sign of respect not only for those martyred in struggle, but more abstractly as a symbol of unconditional commitment to the cause itself (e.g., Jad, 2009;Johnson et al, 2009). …”

Displacing Palestine: Palestinian Householding in an Era of Asymmetrical War

“…Both weddings offer public displays in contrast to the house-bound weddings in the first intifada (see Johnson, Abu Nahleh, and Moors 2009). Both respond to the escalating costs of marriage: in Gaza—through collective marriage supported by a political movement (see Jad 2009)—and in Ramallah—by a lower middle-class family investing a significant portion of their household income in a single, spectacular event.…”