Neo-Polygamous Activity among the Bedouin of the Negev, Israel: Dysfunction, Adaptation-Or Both?1

Polygynous marriage among the bedouin of the Negev Desert, Israel, has gone through a number of phases over the past century. While historically, this practice was relatively rare, limited to wealthier sheikhs and tribal leaders, it has increased since Israeli independence (1948) as economic opportunity and social pressures have fostered its expansion. Two key historic changes in the region are seen to have played a role in the growth of polygyny: the establishment of a forced bedouin sedentarization initiative beginning in 1965, and the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. These developments, along with the signing of a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994, opened opportunities for polygynous relationships with women from outside the Negev, as well. This paper documents the development of a more recent practice in which bedouin men are now seeking co-wives from outside of the Middle East altogether. This practice, I contend, contradicts State interests, and the desires to manage and "modernize" this community as originally designed by the resettlement initiative. Rather, such "neopolygynous" behavior well exemplifies bedouin communal efforts to negotiate their newly developing post-nomadic-and possibly, post-bedouin-identities within an ever-expanding "Third Space." [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]