Blood is thicker than water- Kinship

Blood is thicker than water simply means that it is easier to trust someone that you have know your whole life than it is to tust someone who has only been around a short time. We vaule our family's opinion more than those outside of our circle. It seemed strange at first to look at how people in the middle east marry their realatives, but if we look back to the marriage chapter and the "love match" situation, we see that parents encourge certain marriages becasue they want the best for their children. They dont want them to feel alienated or to be abused physically or verablly. When you consider that the people in the Mid-East are thinking along the same lines, it kind of makes sense that they would want to marry someone they know. Most of the people in a particuilar clan, as mentioned in the article, are family members and have lived in the area their entire lives.

We can also look at history as an example to see that for many places, marriage within a family was common. It wasnt until the Roman Catholic church started to discourage these types of marriages that the pattern broke. And logically so. Inter family marriages cause many social problems outside the community. Also stated in the article, Iraq will take quite a long time to establish a stable political system because each clan thinks that they have come up with the best way to govern. This causes disputes between neighboring communities.

Because people are more loyal to their families and often will not marry outside of them, there is very little motiviation to cooperate peacefully with their neighboring communities. There are benefits to being loyal to family, but it is also evident that being close minded to opposing opinions and not making an effort outside of our loyalties can cause problems.