There Is Nobody to Rely on: Cracks in the Intergenerational Contract Among the Elders in Arab Society in Israel

Intergenerational Contract

Population ageing, a rise in life expectancy, and a drop in birth rates are some of the demographic changes taking place in contemporary societies in recent decades. The ageing of the population has manifold ramifications in various spheres of life, including the growing dependency on health care and welfare services as well as on family members or external caregivers. However, the conditions of modern life, including economic and social changes such as the dissolution of the extended family, question the ability of family members, especially adult children, to continue supporting their parents in the long term. This is especially significant in societies where ageing parents are used to relying on their adult children as a major source of assistance and support, such as China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan (Croll, 2006; Silverstein, Cong, & Shuzhuo, 2006) and various Arab countries, such as Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (Abdelmoneium & Alharahsheh, 2016; Abdulrahim, Ajrouch, & Antonucci, 2015; Saxena, 2008). These societies rely on what Bengtson and Roberts (1991) have called a model of intergenerational solidarity. This model refers to the reciprocal relations between the family members, the degree of geographical and emotional proximity between the generations, the patterns of relations, and the modes of assistance and support. Over the years, researchers have referred to the model and particularly emphasized the ambivalence and multidimensionality of intergenerational relationships rather than the solidarity, focusing on the feelings of closeness or distance, the intimacy, the need to set boundaries, mixed feelings, and so on (Bengtson, Giarrusso, Mabry, & Silverstein, 2002; Connidis & McMullin, 2002; Lowenstein, 2007; Luescher & Pillemer, 1998).

In this study I will challenge the validity of the “intergenerational contract” in regulating the mutual relationship in the Palestinian Arab families, referring particularly to the structural ambivalence that characterizes the current intergenerational relationship. Palestinian Arab society, as mentioned above, is familistic, and respect for parents is one of its cornerstones. The family functions as the central economic and social unit in the life of the adult individual (Silverstein et al., 2013). Furthermore, intergenerational relations in Arab society are characterized by solidarity, geographic and emotional proximity, and mutual assistance and support. These characteristics are consistent with Bengtson and Roberts’s (1991) model, which conceptualizes intergenerational solidarity as a multidimensional phenomenon expressing behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and structural aspects of familial relations. On the basis of this solidarity, a sort of “intergenerational contract” of mutual assistance exists that is rooted in social norms and dispositions. According to this contract, parents support their young children and adult children are supposed to care for their ageing parents.

However, changes in Palestinian Arab society in Israel question the relevance and validity of this model of intergenerational solidarity. The intergenerational contract in Arab families must therefore be examined with reference to structural ambivalence, conflicts, and the possibility of mixed feelings, as suggested by researchers like Connidis and McMullin, (2002), Lowenstein, (2007), and Luescher and Pillemer (1998).

Over the past two decades there has been a rise in the number of studies dealing with intergenerational relations within Arab families. Their findings have indicated great complexity and contradictions. Some studies have reported that despite modernization, adult children still assist and support their parents, but they have also reported a decline in the ability and willingness of the younger generation to care for their ageing parents (Croll, 2006; Khalaila, 2009; Khalaila & Litwin, 2012). The entry of Arab women into the labor market has also heightened the need to find an alternative to caring for the elders in the home, such as resorting to formal welfare services and receiving assistance from the authorities (Halperin, 2013, 2016; Lowenstein & Katz, 2015). A similar trend can be seen in other Asian countries based on a similar familial structure, such as China and Taiwan, where families have begun to rely on formal systems of care for their elderly (Croll, 2006).

The Gender Contract

Patriarchal Arab society is characterized by male dominance and control and a clear division of gender roles (Khadr, 2011). Most women, including both the educated and those participating in the labor market, are economically dependent on and supported by their fathers, then their husbands, and finally their sons. Even unmarried women or women who do not have children are provided for, generally by close male kin such as uncles, nephews, or brothers (Olmsted, 2005). In accordance with the patriarchal contract, as it is termed by Kandiyoti (1988), girls marry at a young age and move in with their husbands, whose fathers are considered the heads of the families. There they must obey all the men as well as all the women older than themselves, especially their mothers-in-law. Men, however, become the main provider and are responsible for the income of their family. The relations between the spouses are thus not equal, and the control of resources is in the hands of the men (Al-Haj, 1989). The rigid patriarchal system obliges women to develop various strategies in order to operate within that structure, negotiating and engaging in “patriarchal bargaining” (Kandiyoti, 1988).

The feminist literature on women in minority groups such as Arabs in Israel has referred mainly to young, unmarried women or to Arab women in the labor market who are forced to contend with a work–family conflict in a traditional society (Herzog, 2004; Sa’ar, 2016). Other researchers have dealt with the relationship between older and younger women in the family (Presser & Sen, 2000), but older and ageing Arab women have been marginalized and accorded very little academic attention. The scant literature has, in addition, presented inconsistent findings. Some studies have reported that since these women are economically dependent on their family members, they are vulnerable and suffer from a double oppression of gender and age (Calasanti, 2004; Yount & Agree, 2004). In keeping with the patriarchal contract (Kandiyoti, 1988) and their own bargaining power, their position in the hierarchy remains low, and they are economically dependent on the money earned by their sons (Olmsted, 2005). Other researchers have argued that ageing women in patriarchal societies enjoy a higher status and greater access to resources than young women as their position improves with age (Kandiyoti, 1988; Khadr, 2011; Olmsted, 2005). Friedman and Pines (1992), for example, claimed that Arab women acquire power in the second half of their lives, enjoying various privileges and more autonomy. However, they restrict this argument to women of mainly the middle and upper classes. Lower class women do not, they found, experience any change in the balance of power despite their advanced age.

A gender contract is, according to Sa’ar (2009, 2016), a cultural script that dictates behavioral patterns toward men and women and the rights and duties of their social roles, shapes their power relations and access to resources, and preserves a particular social order. Women are expected to stay beside their ageing parents and care for them, in keeping with the gender contract that places men above them in the hierarchy. The gender contract, which marks the limits of men and women’s ability to act in the public and private spheres, changes over time, but it still shapes the labor market at the macro level and the division of roles in the family at the micro level (Giele, 2006).

The intergenerational contract and the gender contract serve this study as analytical tools and organizing metaphors. Using these two concepts, I examine the experience of ageing among both men and women in Arab families in Israel. To the best of my knowledge, the literature dealing with the gender contract has to date mostly referred to women of reproductive age and in the labor market (Sa’ar, 2009) and has not dealt with the elderly and, in particular, old women or with the intergenerational contract. The extensive literature dealing with the intergenerational contract in Arab society in Israel (Khalaila, 2009; Lowenstein & Katz, 2000, 2015) has also failed to examine the special place of Arab women as a group with unique attributes. My questions are not whether women are identical to or different from men in terms of their status in the age hierarchy but what their subjective experience is, how they operate within and interpret the gender contract, what meaning they ascribe to this stage in their lives, and what central narrative emerges from their stories.

Sample Description

Participants included 25 interviewees, 15 women and 10 men. All of them were Palestinians Arabs, of which 16 were Muslims, 7 Christians, and 2 women of the Ahmediyya community (Ahmediyya is an Islamic religious movement). Half of the participants (13) were rural from 4 different villages, and half of them (12) urban, from Haifa, a large mixed city, and from Akko, a medium-sized mixed city. The age range is 65 to 85 years. The men were all married except for two widowers, whereas most of the women were widows (9), except for four who were married and two who never married.

In terms of their economic status, the participants were asked what is their main source of income. The findings indicate that more than half (52%) rely on welfare allowances as the main source of income. They defined themselves as low and very low class as the welfare allowance sum is below the poverty line. Less than half (36%) defined as middle class and rely on their pension payments. Three defined themselves as upper class (class distribution is based on data on education, occupation, and sources of income).

In terms of health condition, a large proportion of the participants, especially the Muslims (80% of the Muslims), suffer from chronic health conditions. Although they function independently and do not need daily assistance, many of them suffer from various health problems like diabetes, obesity, or high blood pressure. Among men, about 75% smoke and suffer from various chronic lung diseases.

The Arab population in Israel is heterogeneous and includes several groups. However, despite the differences between Christians and Muslims in terms of economic status, level of education, participation in the labor market, fertility rates, and so on, I chose to relate to the Palestinian Arab society as a single entity, because familism is a central value in Arab society regardless of religion (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2002).

The identity of the Arabs in Israel is influenced by a number of components, national, regional, and religious. Therefore, Israeli Arabs have developed an identity that relates to the various components, an Israeli civil component and a Palestinian national component.

The Arabs in Israel maneuver between them. Some define themselves as Palestinian Arabs, some see themselves as Israeli-Palestinian Arabs, and others define themselves as Israeli Arabs (Al-Haj, 2005). In the present study, I have chosen to use the terms Arab society in Israel or Palestinian Arab society, despite the politicization inherent in these terms. All those interviewees are citizens of the State of Israel.

Data Collection

Data were collected by means of a semistructured in-depth interview. Interviewees were located by turning to organizations such as the National Insurance and seniors’ clubs, which directed me to potential interviewees. Sometimes interviews ended with a recommendation to meet another friend, so via the “snowball” method additional interviewees were located.

Most of the interviews (80%) were conducted in the participants’ homes, the rest in a room of the seniors’ club set aside for the purpose. Interviews lasted 1½ hours on average. They were conducted face-to-face, with no other family members present, so the participants could feel at ease and talk freely. All the interviews were recorded by consent and later transcribed.

Interviews were conducted sometimes in Arabic, with the help of a simultaneous translator, and sometimes in Hebrew when the participant felt comfortable with it. Language serves as a cultural code in structuring and organizing meanings in any social network of relations. When an interview is not conducted in the interviewee’s mother tongue, it requires conscious and more purposeful interpretation, as Lomsky-Feder and Rapoport (2007) claim. Moreover, an interview in another language may in fact help the participant not fall into fixed patterns and think more about what they say. This has an effect on the text and on the interpretative dimension in the analysis stage. I therefore asked the translator to check that my interpretation of things is not culturally biased.

The literature dealing with the asymmetrical power relations between the interviewer and participant emphasizes the power position of the interviewer who penetrates the privacy of the participant, and aware to the possibility of differences arising from a different location in a social class hierarchy (Bourdieu, 1996; Lomsky-Feder & Rapoport, 2007). Because I’m Jewish and occupied a higher social status, such asymmetry may have taken place in some of the interview, which may have made the participants feel uncomfortable. However, the suspicion that characterized the beginning of the interview disappeared later, and the participants felt comfortable talking and sharing their feelings. Some of the participants invited me to stay for dinner at the end of the interview and return to visit.

All of the citations below are given under pseudonyms, to protect the participants’ identities and privacy.

Data Analysis

Analyzing the findings of a phenomenological study is a process of arranging and structuring the body of knowledge collected, while decomposing the data into segments and pieces of information and reassembling them in a different order to elicit the meaning (Creswell, 2012). On the basis of the phenomenological approach, and as proposed by Giorgi (1997), the analysis of the interviews was performed in several stages. First, after transcribing the interviews and listening to the recordings several times, I read each interview separately in a holistic manner to identify initial categories. In the second stage, each interview was analyzed and divided into units of meaning to create clusters of information pertaining to the same phenomenon, to identify important themes and subthemes. In the third stage, I conducted a comparative analysis by reading all the interviews laterally according to the assembled categories, thereby constructing broader supercategories, that is, central themes. The organizing principle according to which the findings are presented below is based on those central themes.

At the beginning of each interview, participants were informed that it was solely for research purposes and promised that their anonymity would be diligently protected. They were also told they could stop the interview at any stage in its course or afterward, and if they should change their minds no use would be made of the recorded materials. This research was approved by the Collegiate Ethics Committee.

The Intergenerational Contract Is Not Reciprocal—There Is Nobody to Rely on

Traditionally, the Arab families were large and ramified, including many children and grandchildren usually living in the same house or village, which contributed to almost daily contact between the various family members. However, the changes Arab society has undergone led to the breakup of the extended families into nuclear families, with living arrangements changing accordingly.

Nonetheless, the feeling of family has not vanished. All of the rural and 80% of the urban participants report speaking with their children by telephone at least once a day. All of the rural participants see their children almost every day. “The sons I see almost every day and the daughters who live in the village I see twice a week at least,” says Daud. However, children frequently come to visit the parents not to help them but for some other purpose, for example, to eat at their home, to ask for financial assistance, or to ask them to watch the grandchildren, as Sarina attests, “They come to eat lunch, if there’s no food they don’t come . . . sometimes I take the grandchildren to buy clothes.” The family connections are maintained, and in many families ageing parents help their adult children in raising the grandchildren and other domestic tasks. I met grandmothers who help their daughters and daughters-in-law care for the grandchildren, tidy the house, shop, and cook, instead of the daughters and daughters-in-law caring for the grandmothers. Suha relates,

How much I help them, even with food, my daughter-in-law works from morning to evening and all the time I help her, cooking, she doesn’t cook at home, but there is always food, because I’ve cooked . . . I raised the granddaughters, sometimes she would bring the girls to me from seven in the morning till eight in the evening.

When children are asked to help their parents, it is usually something small. Jamila, for example, is aware that her children and grandchildren are busy and avoids asking them for help: “I only ask of them small things, I don’t want to bother them, to trouble them. Let them bring me things from the shop, carry bags for me, but no more than that.” Many of the participants noted that the only help they ask is in carrying wares from the market or grocery, or in cleaning the house. When it comes to more significant help, needed due to illness or an accident, they are aware that any help they get from a family member will be temporary, as Suha relates,

I was in hospital for three months because I fell ill with depression. They came to visit me, but you know what my son said to me? He, the one that I sacrifice and give so much for, he said to me: Enough, I’ve had it. He came to hospital and said to me, enough I’ve had it. That flashed a red light, because if after three months in hospital he tells me he’s had it, what is going to be in old age?

Similar expressions of disappointment at not having anyone to offer help are voiced by Fatma, a solitary widow who lives next door to one of her sisters: “I was sick with pneumonia, I lay in bed, my nephews, even a glass of water they didn’t bring me.” Furthermore, about 72%, 18 of the participants feel they cannot really rely on their adult children in time of need, not even on the daughters-in-law, because everyone takes care of their own nuclear family. Suha’s remarks are to a large degree representative:

Each is to himself and to his family, you can’t rely on them anymore, everyone’s rushing. Today the children are selfish, the children love themselves . . . I can’t rely on them . . . No, I can’t rely on them, on neither the boy nor the daughter-in-law. . . . My eldest son, for example, works in high tech in a very respectable firm, an American firm, and he has a good salary, but all the time he’s travelling abroad, so should I expect him when I’m old to care for me? I don’t think he’ll care for me. I can’t rely on them . . . No, I can’t rely on them . . . I can’t rely on them to help me. They work, and they are sons, not daughters who’ll help me. One day, two, three, alright, but for a long time, no, I can’t rely.

Suha, who describes helping her daughter-in-law and putting in long hours caring for her granddaughters, cannot rely on any of her three children to care for her when she’ll need them. The intergenerational contract, then, has become one-sided. Parents care for adult children and then grandchildren, not the other way around.

Another issue that arose in the interviews was solitude. Among 19 participants (76%), especially the widowed women, changes in the family structure have stirred up a fear of isolation. In almost all the interviews with women, I heard them say “I’m afraid to be alone.” Men are also worried about solitude in old age, as Yassin attests, “I lack nothing, but I’m sort of worried about solitude, I can’t rely on anyone, I can’t rely on my children to help me.” Farid, who was a hospital senior physician, says similarly: “Ageing doesn’t scare me, but I’m scared of being left alone at home.” The fear of solitude is at the social level too, with friends dwindling in number, as Hasan reports: “I don’t have many friends, at my age many people are already dead.” Um Muhamad’s story is representative of many that I heard,

I live alone since my husband died. . . . At first I moved in with them [the children] for two months, until the government rented me a home. Nobody wants me today. My son’s wife, she doesn’t want her mother-in-law with her. No woman wants her mother-in-law with her, I have six children and every two weeks I moved in with another child. They behaved nicely because they knew it was temporary and that I would go and not stay with them long. I know that’s the reason. An old person alone in his home is difficult. And if he has money then they only want his money, and come to him for the money. If he hasn’t got money, they stop coming to visit him.

The fear of solitude and the knowledge that there’s nobody to rely on, mainly as regard the women, especially when they become widowed, as will be discussed below, reveals a confused discourse laden with internal contradictions regarding the acceptance of ageing. On one hand, most of them (92%, 23 participants) hold a religious conception of the process of ageing. This helps in accepting the old age as a natural stage in life, because that is God’s will, as I was told in many interviews: “This is Allah’s will,” “However God wills it, all is from above.” On the other hand, despite the belief that everything is in God’s hands, they hope not to reach old age at all and prefer that Allah will take them before they reach that stage, as Lara says, “May God take me before I’m old, for what to grow old? It’s not good to grow old, till 80 is enough.” Sophie speaks similarly: “Every day I pray five times a day, I ask, take me while I’m still walking on my feet.”

Remarks Sophie made later in the interview express a discourse laden with contradictions: On one hand, she is sure her children won’t let her move to an assisted-living facility, on the other, neither can she rely on them nor does she want to be a burden on them. She therefore asks and prays not to reach a state in which she has grown old and lost her independence. This confused discourse contains disparate and contradictory voices, interwoven and inseparable, joining together to create a narrative that is laden with contradictions and dualities regarding the experience of ageing.

The Intergenerational Contract Prevents Moving to a Nursing Home—My Children Will Disagree

In light of the difficulty relying on the adult children to care for the old person, and the fact that many women today work outside the home, I asked the participants about the possibility of moving to an assisted-living facility or nursing homes. I asked whether they knew anyone who had moved into such a home, and what they thought of other people who’d sent their parents to one. Although the age of participants ranges from 65 to 85 years, the issue of moving to a nursing home is relevant, because many of them suffer from chronic health conditions and poor health. For example, Umm Ziad, who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, said she needed help with activities of daily living.

The issue of moving to an assisted-living facility caused discontent, and the answers given raised internal dilemmas and contradictions. Almost 70% (19 participants) do not rely on their adult children to care for them nor do they want to be a burden on them. One participant reported that when he fell and broke his leg, it was very difficult for his daughters to move him around the house, wash him, and dress him. But later in the interview he expressed firm opposition to moving to a nursing home. Four participants even said that they prefer to die rather than move to one. For example, Ali compared moving to a nursing facility to being expelled from home and the disaster that befell the Palestinian people:

I would prefer to die before that day arrives, and not move to a facility. If they build an assisted-living facility here, you can declare the death of Arab society . . . Taking a person out of their home to a facility is like the expulsion in ‘48, like the Nakba.

Contrarily, there were some (about 40%) who said they would be willing to move to nursing facility but claimed their adult children would not allow them to leave the home. I heard the statement, “We want to go to a facility, but the children won’t let us,” in nine interviews. In other words, even when they raise the possibility, they qualify it with the claim that their children won’t let it happen. Sophie, for example, says,

Let’s say in another ten years, no-one knows what will be, what will happen. I prefer to be with the old people in a hostel, because today it’s hard to be a burden on the children, they’ve got work. But in my home it’s unacceptable to my sons and daughters, no, no, no, not acceptable at all.

Similarly, Um Omar describes her children’s opposition to any such move, although ostensibly she herself would agree to it: “My children say, God forbid. They don’t want me to go in there. My son tells me, there’s no way you’ll go there, I’ll come and I’ll help you.”

Nonetheless, despite the feeling that there’s nobody to rely on, the expectation is there that the intergenerational contract, which is based on reciprocity, will be fulfilled and that the adult children will understand that it is their duty. Omar, who was a school principal before retiring, says, “The children must understand that they have to help us, without our even asking. They must understand that by themselves and give to us. That’s their job.” Ali also says, “All my life I took care of the children, I raised eleven sons and daughters so that on this day, when I’m old, I would find them beside me. It’s their religious and moral duty.”

Caring for ageing parents derives from the conception of honor, which includes appreciation, tolerance, preserving the family’s unity, and taking responsibility for care and assistance to the elders. Sending an old person to a facility is perceived as dishonorable, as Um Muhamad told me,

It’s not fitting to put the old person in a facility, it shows that there is no honor, no compassion, no pity, and no love for the old person. The old person feels he is no longer respected and no-one pities him.

Arab society is still a collectivist one, in which shame plays an important role. One of the participants explains, “My children are ashamed to put me in a nursing home, you understand, they’re afraid of what people will say about them.”

The Young Generation Is Reshaping the Intergenerational Contract—Responsibility Goes to the Foreign Worker

Globalization and modernization have exposed Arab society to new technology such as smartphones, computers, Facebook, WhatsApp, and so on. These all have an appreciable impact on the old person’s standing, as Lara explains, “Today the children see all sorts of things on television and they become smarter than the old person. Once the old person was the smartest, now the children are smarter.”

In the past the old person was considered knowledgeable, and his or her life experience earned him or her status and appreciation. With the advent of technology, the older adult who cannot use Facebook or WhatsApp has lost his or her standing. Omer told me, “They have their opinions, they also understand and know, they are educated; I sometimes start thinking about these things and I know that all of life is changing, you have to accept the change.”

In addition to modernization and technology, globalization processes are reshaping the intergenerational contract. Foreign workers can now be brought in to help care for the old within their homes, allowing the son or daughter-in-law to desist from that role, as Daoud relates, “We have a foreign worker at home, the boys pay her each month and she does everything. When the girls come to visit, they are guests. Also, the boys and the boys’ wives, they’re all guests.” When there is no-one to care for ageing family members, and no possibility of putting them in a facility due to shame and fear of what relatives and neighbors might say, the only available option, on condition that the financial situation is reasonable, is to bring in a foreign worker to assume the role of sons and daughters, as Amin describes,

My mother, she’s 87, we brought her a foreign worker. We are six children and we lack for nothing from an economic aspect, but it’s hard to care for her, so we brought her a foreign worker, and we only visit her and all the responsibility of care is on the foreign worker. She gave her entire life for the children and now no-one can care for her. All are working.

Many participants mentioned other families in their neighborhood who had brought in foreign workers. Jamila, for example, says, “My neighbor has a foreign worker from Sri Lanka, and they also brought a foreign worker. It’s easier this way.” Renee also views foreign workers as a convenient solution: “It’s a very good solution, the foreign workers, she gets a salary and the family is supportive and thus the old person stays at home.” In this way family members do not abandon their commitment in the framework of the intergenerational contract: They are still responsible for caring for the old, although someone else actually does the work for pay. Sophie also thinks that when children cannot fulfill their side of the contract and care for the old by themselves as required, they should pay for another person’s help:

If the children can’t be with their mother at night, then it’s preferable that they bring her someone to sleep with her. It’s unacceptable to me that an old woman will sleep alone. My neighbor, she has a big house and she’s alone because her children don’t live beside her. It’s not right, if the children can’t then there are other ways, you could bring a foreign worker, you could bring someone only to sleep at her place and pay her and in the morning she’ll go.

The Gender Contract Places Women at Home—Why Do Women Have to Work?

In patriarchal Arab society, gender has a central role in determining hierarchy and division of labor, and the gender contract, as Sa’ar (2016) writes, dictates to women and men their obligations and rights. Accordingly, the main role of women is in the household and in caring for family members, and the role of men is to provide. Women are not supposed to work outside their home. Working outside home instead of caring for the ageing parents is perceived as behavior that violates the gender contract, as Ahmed clarifies,

Sometimes I ask myself why women need to work at all? I proposed to the girls that live with me, the unmarried ones, that they go on pension and thus will be able to help and care for me. But they didn’t agree.

From Ahmed’s point of view, the girls who refused to leave their jobs and stay with their old father at home are not doing their part in the gender contract.

The gender contract in the Arab society is so rigid that in two villages I visited there were no day centers for women but only for men. The women have no meeting place except for visiting at friends’ homes. The gender contract makes it hard for women to escape its bounds, change the social definitions and conventions, and forge a new social order. A woman like Juliana, who attended school for only 1 year because her father did not think she needed any education, has few possibilities and little power to change anything, and can only submit to the rules of the game in keeping with the customary contract:

I only studied in grade one and in grade two Father took me out of school. He thought that learning isn’t for girls. I can’t read or write and it’s very painful to me. I can’t forgive my father for it, till the day I die I won’t forgive him. Never in my life have I worked outside the house. I’m a housewife since the day I was born. Even as a girl I was a housewife and helped around the house.

From this aspect, Suha’s is an exceptional voice in describing how she decided “to return to life and to enjoy life” after she was widowed and decided to take an organized tour abroad even though it is highly irregular in her society.

From the men’s viewpoint, the clear and gendered division of roles has its advantages and drawbacks. On one hand, everything in the house is done by the woman, but on the other, this enables her to control the household space, as attested to by Ibrahim, a recently widowed: “When my wife was alive she would do everything. Now I’m alone. But I don’t want to get married again now, I don’t want a woman to tell me where are you going, what are you doing?” It appears that her control of the household ultimately restricted him, so in considering whether to remarry, he is afraid that the freedom he now enjoys in his widowhood will be taken from him.

Nonetheless, this is the exceptional view, as all of the other widowed men had remarried within a year of being widowed, as Saaid, for example, describes,

My first wife died three years ago and within ninety days I remarried. I don’t like being a burden on the children, I have a good wife, thank the Lord, she cares for me, respects me, does everything for me. . . . The children only come to visit me and go.

The opposite is hardly ever the case: There are many more widows than widowers, as men usually remarry but women remain alone. The problem of loneliness is therefore much more severe and widespread among older women, as I was told by all the widows: “I live alone since my husband died.”

According to the intergenerational contract and the gender contract, the women are expected to take care of the older parents, because this is their duty under the unwritten contract. Despite the unfairness of this arrangement, it is still the expectation of aging parents as Amin describes,

In our society, the responsibility is on the girls, only the girls. Only the daughter helps, sometimes also the daughters-in-law. But nonetheless the daughter doesn’t get anything from the inheritance. It’s not like in Jewish society that it’s divided equally. I want to give to my daughter because she helps me, but according to tradition the daughter doesn’t get [anything].

Um Muhamad also describes this in similar way:

In the Arab sector the woman must care for her husband, wash his feet, do everything for him. Pray on behalf of her husband. That’s how we grew up, how we were raised, so when we grew up we knew that you have to do it. But the lads don’t care for their wives that way.

The women who work outside their home and do not comply with their part in the gender contract are therefore part of the processes that crakes the intergenerational contract. Men on the other hand are interested in preserving the contract that serves their interests and perpetuates their dominance.