Susan H. Lees - Ethnographic Fieldwork in Israel

Susan Lees is shown engaged in an interview with a Bedouin elder [just to her right] in the "guest tent" of his encampment in the Negev desert, just south of Beersheva, Israel. The subject of the interview is a legal dispute under deliberation by the tribal elders, concerning the demands made by a husband whose wife was "abducted" by another man. The injured husband is demanding from his wife's relatives not only material compensation, but also that they return his unwilling wife to him. The elder in this tent is of the scornful opinion that the injured husband is behaving in an "unBedouin-like" manner by trying to force himself upon a woman who does not love him. The elder believes it would be far more dignified to give up on this marriage, and seek a new wife. He, himself, he explains, tried eight times before he found his true lifetime partner. This interview was part of a larger study Lees was conducting about Bedouin marriage.