Family Structure and Interactions

From my limited observations in Tunisia, I’ve found the concept of family to be very broad. Rather than a nuclear family, everyone out to distant cousins is brought in under the umbrella term of family. Often times, several generations will live in the same house or on the same street. In the Azouz family, Mrs Azouz’s mother lives a two minute walk away, Mr Azouz’s mother and sister live five minutes away by car, and a large assortment of cousins and other relations live within a taxi ride of Romana. This much of our family seems to be fairly typical of a Tunisian family. The power structure appears to be anything but typical. From this week’s reading, I would think that Mr Azouz would rule over his family, his sister (who, as far as I can tell, isn’t married), and his nephews and nieces. Instead, everyone is independent from one another. In fact, if I were to pick out the true ruler of the Azouz family, I’d have to choose Mrs Azouz. She owns and runs a business which brings in the majority of the family income. Mr Azouz is one of her employees part-time and also runs his own business. The interaction between Mr and Mrs Azouz and their daughter, Amall, are typical of any teenager interacting with her parents in America. She tries to get more freedom and they try to keep her from having too much freedom. She helps in the kitchen periodically and cleans up once in a while. This is even less than my responsibilities at my parent’s house in America. She doesn’t have to feed any livestock or take care of a farm!

The power structure of the family reminds me a bit of my own family. My father is the soul income source but my mom decides how the money will be spent and what the family will do. Our family is much more nuclear than the Azouz family. Our closest relations are about an hour away by car and I’ve only met them once in my life. I think they’re third or fourth cousins on my dad’s side. My closest direct relations live in central California, almost 14 hours away by car. That’s equivalent to the time it takes to drive from Tunis to the southern most point in Tunisia. My other close relatives live in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Belgium, Australia, and Germany. The Azouzes have a few relatives that have made it to America and have two out of their three kids in France at the moment, but the majority of their family remains around Tunis, Sousse, and Sfax.

If the younger generation to which Amal and her cousins belong get their way, the Tunisian family will become much more nuclear. Amal wants to go to Canada to study and Japan to live. Osama, one of her cousins, wants to go to America. Mohammed, another cousin, wants to go to France to continue his education and to work. Everyone is trying to escape Tunisia for the supposed better life abroad. Amal reports that about four out of five of her friends want to leave Tunisia for good. Everyone wants to go to France or America to study.

The older generation, consisting of Mr and Mrs Azouz, show no interest in leaving Tunisia. They are happy here and wish to stay here until they die. Their cards have been dealt and even if they aren’t happy with their hands, they are resigned to play with them.

Comparing this to my peers from my high school and university, most of them don’t want anything to do with people from outside the United States, let alone study or live abroad. They are happy in their sedentary states. Most of them don’t live anywhere near their families outside of their moms and dads. The ones that do hardly ever visit their grandparents or cousins. It’s very strange to think of the differences between Tunisia and America. I think that the Tunisian family I’ve experienced is about what I’d like my family to be like. We’ll see what happens though. Most of these things are outside of my control. Then again, I could always marry into a family just for the family!