Life Values and Attitudes towards Family Life in Interfaith Arab - Orthodox Families Elena Chebotareva Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education

Rationale The proportion of inter-ethnic marriages is growing. Religious differences are recognized as a major barrier for interethnic marriages. The most acute contradictions in values arise between Muslims and Christians. There are many evidences of happy interfaith marriages. There are conflicting descriptions of the mechanisms of iner-cultural marriages in the researches: mostly people, already culturally assimilated, or having certain values (universalism, tolerance) marry foreigners; in inter-ethnic marriages a mutual acculturation goes on, taking constructive or destructive forms.

Aims of the study: To reveal the specifics of life and family values at interfaith families where spouses comes from most distant cultures. To explore: life values of spouses; attitudes to family life; expectations and claims for taking responsibility for family roles.

Participants 85 mixed Arab-Christian families(men 70% Palestinian, women - 90% Russian + Byelorushian, Ukranian), living in Russia; 45 monocultural Slavic families 25 monocultural Arab families, living in Russia.

Tecniques The Schwartz Value Survey; Volkova Questionnaire "Marital Role Expectations and Responsibilities»; Test of Attitudes to Family Life (Alyoshina, Gozman, Dubovskaya); Marital Satisfaction Test (Stolin, Romanova, Butenko); Mann-Whitney U- test

Marital Satisfaction in International and Mono-national Families Arab mono (men and women) – are in category of “quiet happy”. Russian monocultural families are in category “ more happy than unhappy” Interfaith families are in the category “transitional” (betwing unhappy and happy). So, spouses in interfaith families are mostly not satisfied with their marriage, they are less happy than mono-cultural families, living in their native countries or in foreign cultural surrounding. Men in these families are more satisfied with their marriages than women.

Main difficulties in interfaith marriages (n=170) Culture – 11,8% Religion – 2,97% Financial – 10,9% Attitudes to family life – 7,65% Language – 8,23% Communication breakdown – 2,94%

A quick view at the differences Normative values are close at men and women in different cultures. Individual values are more different Women from interfaith families (Russian) have more constant value system. May be because of living in their native culture. Men from interfaith families (Arabs) respond that their everyday behavior diver from their normative values. Their value structure is more controversial itself.

Specifics of Men from Interfaith Families Values Men’s value structure is more controversial itself. They have peaks and values in different zones If to compare normative and ind. Values, it can be assumed that in marriage with Russian women Arab men behave less conformal, less oriented to power and achievements, more concerned about the welfare of their loved ones, than their normative attitudes assume. Arab men from monocultural families do also differ at normative and personal levels (because intercult surrounding), but they do not converge with Russian men values. And here the peak at Self-direction is interesting (external adaptation). Russian men’s values are more stable and don’t differ so much at individual and normative levels. (Because of leaving in native culture) Men from interfaith families in comparison with monocultural families are more oriented to stimulation, less – to universal well-being and more – to benevolence of close people. They also much less oriented to self direction

Specifics of Women from Interfaith Families Values the Russian woman married to Arab men are more focused on Stimulation, Hedonism, Power and Achivement, less oriented to Traditions and Universalism, and more oriented to self-Direction. At Arab women from Interfaith families we can see big changes from normative to ind. Values toward bigger importance of security, self-direction and benevolence of close people (alike arab men from the same grope). So, Russian women, being marriage to arab men, don’t assume values “Typical arab wife”, We can see some typical values of spouses from interfaith families. Traditions and security are less important for them, but they are strongly focused on stimulation, hedonism. So they are more open to changes and self-development.

Men’s Attitudes to Family Life Significant differences betwing Arab men from interfaith and monocultural families where revealed in understanding od children role and joint activity. For Arabs married to Russian women children are more important for family life and they more appreciate joint activity with their spouses. And we can see numerous significant differences of Russian men in comparison with both types of Arab men. The most significant difference is the focus on romantic love. Also Russian men less ready to speak about sex, more sure that sex is not so important for family life, they are more thrifty and more ready to except not traditional role of women if their families. So, here we can see some cultural differences, that are not a topic of this presentation, but they can help us to explain other results.

Women’s Attitudes to Family Life P = 0,04 There we can see a lot of differences at high level of stst. Significance betwing Russian women married Arab and Russian men. So Russian women from monocultural families have in general more positive image of people, they are more oriented at children and joint activity with their spouses, have more negative attitude to divorce, more focused at traditional romantic love, more thrifty and more shy about sex. In general, we can say that they prefer more traditional style of family life. May be women, who are going to marry a foreigner, are looking for another style of family life.

Family Roles Importance The main difference betwing Arabian men from inter- and monocultural families is the importance of sex for happy marriage. For Russian men from monocultural families visual appeal is more important that for Arab men from both types of families. In female grope we haven’t found any significant differences in understanding of family role importance. So, spouses in interfaith families mostly don’t have any specifics in the hierarchy of family roles.

Family Role Expectations and Responsibilities of Men Men from Interfaith families are more likely to take responsibility for houshold and parenting, than men married to Arab women. They also a bit more (not stst. Sign) ready to play their role in creating spiritual intimacy and expect more social activity from their wifes. All these difference show some movement of traditional Arab men’s roles toward modern European ones.

Family Role Expectations and Responsibilities of Women Interesting that Russian women married Arabs expect from them stronger involvement in household, than Russian women from their Russian husbands. But they also themselves are more ready to take responsibility for this role. Maybe both spouses &&& Russian woman in interfaith families are less involve in the role of organizer of spiritual life of their couples, empowering their spouses with it. May be these two spheres are perceived as not a forte of Russian men. Here we don’t have statistically significant differences. But

Conclusions The spouses in interfaith families are less satisfied with their marriages, than spouses from mono- cultural families. Values of people in interfaith families differ from values their culture and from culture of their spouses. In such families people have some special values: traditions and security are less important for them, they are more open to changes and self-development. People are looking in interfaith families those patterns of relations and interactions that can compensate some limitations of their own culture

Thank you! Thank you! Your questions? Your questions? Elena Chebotareva, chebotarevy@yandex.ru