SIZE, ECONOMIC STRUCTURE, AUTHORITY RELATIONS AND THE CHILD’S POSITION IN THE RURAL AND URBAN FAMILY IN TURKEY
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When individuals come to the world, they take the first step of socialization with the family. Apart from its biological feature, the family is the first institution that prepares the individual for life in every material and spiritual sense. Changes in societies completely affect the family. In the process of transition from rural to urbanization with industrialization, radical changes have occurred in the family.
Features such as extended family, father’s authority, close kinship relations, adherence to traditions, determined division of labor, glorified boy, and girl accustomed to serving men can be listed in relation to rural life that exists with a patriarchal structure in Turkey. With industrialization, women and men began to work together, and characteristics such as nuclear family, equal husband-wife relationship, weakening kinship relations, and more free-raised children can be listed in urban life.
Considering these characteristics, rural and urban family size in Turkey, economic structure, authority relations and the position of the child can be examined under the headings.
Family Size
“According to the evolutionary sociology approach, the change of the family takes place by adapting to the progressive tendency of social change. Accordingly, families will transform from the traditional large and large rural structure to a small nuclear structure”.(Canatan,Yıldırım,2013:132)
“The transition from the traditional extended family to the nuclear family was born from social evolution and was inevitable”.(Yörükoğlu , 2000:48)
While the rural area consists of a crowded family where three generations live together, with urbanization, the family turns into a nuclear family, including mother, father and child. With urbanization, the family has shrunk and kinship relations have weakened. and the number of children is higher than the city due to the unconsciousness of birth control methods and the male-dominated role. Since having a boy has become a symbol of power, they have had children until they are a boy. Families have become aware of birth control methods. And with this, changing economic conditions have led the family to downsize.
Economic Structure
Turkish society and their families, who have been living on agriculture and animal husbandry for years, started to migrate to the city to benefit from the job opportunities provided by industrialization as the economic conditions became difficult. The population of the village decreased and the elderly remained behind in the village. As the elderly could not continue their production activities, production decreased in the rural areas. While there is an invisible unpaid domestic labor of women in rural areas, the diversity of job opportunities in the city has been a great advantage for women to contribute to the family economy. Life in the city is more expensive than in the village. Efforts to keep up with urban life have caused people to envy others and earning more and consuming more has turned into a symbol of prestige in the society. Even though the income increases, the high expenses (education, transportation, rent, eating, drinking, clothing, etc.) negatively affect the urban life economically.
“The rapidly melting rural area and the agricultural sector did not provide enough opportunities for the state’s policies to keep agriculture alive, develop and scientifically. When the attractiveness / pluses of the city, the repulsiveness / problems of the countryside were added, Turkey first met with urban poverty factually and then theoretically. The urban poor, who are being added every day, constantly enlarge the social aid pot. However, while the possible wealth of the city attracts rural people to the city, the social aid networks that provide livability in the city also connect the poor to the city in a sense.”(Kartal and Demirhan , 2014:137)
“Statistics on poverty in Turkey show that rural poverty is worse than urban poverty in terms of both scope and depth”.(Kartal and Demirhan ,2014:142)
Authority Relations
“In a traditional society, the family lived in a self-sufficient unit of business and production. The house and its surroundings were a settlement where production was made, processed, worked and had fun together. Except for the sale of the product, the family’s relationship with the outside world was limited. Children were educated there, they learned the father’s profession there. Family relations were tight, the distribution of roles and division of labor in the family were clearly defined. Dede was the only dominant person in the extended family who did not go out of his way and was afraid. He was a chief, a feudal lord, who managed not only the income and expenses of the family, but also charted their destinies. While social change broke up the large families in which three generations lived together, the father and grandfather also shook their authority. and no one from the old generation who could not leave their home migrated to the city. Therefore, relatives dispersed to all four regions; The ties between them loosened; on the other hand, the equality within the family increased, the children became more free”.(Yörükoğlu,2000:45-46)
“If a woman’s education level is higher than her husband’s in cities, if she contributes independently to the family outside the home, and if her husband’s social status increases, her authority within the family also increases. Although the authority in village families differs according to family types, it usually belongs to the man. In these families, the value and importance given to women and men also change. Usually, the father comes first, then the boy, and the woman is in the second place. In the patriarchal extended family, the authority in the extended family is the oldest male member of the family. and it is used by the oldest female member. In some extended family structures, older women have an influence on decision-making, while in nuclear families, women are given slightly more rights.”(Kabaklı Çimen ,2008:350-351)
In rural Turkish society, where patriarchal structure is effective, the man of the house has a say in every issue, while the woman is responsible for the service of the house. The final word on all decisions regarding the mother and children belongs to the man of the house. Together with women, as they gained their economic freedom, they came out of the man’s command and started to stand on their own feet. However, the rule of doing whatever the man said was shaken. Equal husband and wife relations developed. Women began to have a say in the family. More importance was given to the education and choices of children. The transformation into a democratic family, which takes joint decisions as children, has begun. And children, who have started to be brought up more freely, have the opportunity to make their own free choices as individuals under the supervision of their parents.
Position of the Child
The symbol of the happiness of families in Turkish society is to have a child. Having a child is highly valued.
Prof.Dr., who carried out a comprehensive research on the child’s place and position in the family in 1980 under the name of the “Child’s Value” project. Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı, this study shows the value of the child in various socioeconomic families in Turkey.
In the study of the Value of the Child, in-depth interviews were conducted with 2300-odd married men and women in 42 cities, towns and villages of Turkey in the 1970s. The results were analyzed according to the level of development of the region and demographic characteristics of the respondent such as education, occupation, age, and gender. -It was found that the value attributed by the fathers and the expectations from the child show significant differences according to all these characteristics. We can say that the basic findings and relationships are largely valid today. The place of the child in family relations and values is an important indicator.”(Kağıtçıbaşı, 1993:31-32)
“In the Value of the Child research, the economic value of the child came to the fore in Turkey. In particular, as the development level of the region, family income, education and especially the education level of the woman increases, the mobility from rural to urban increases and finally the number of children in the family decreases, the overall economic value of the child becomes important. With the same developments, the psychological value of the child increases. That is, as the income level, education, and mobility from rural to urban increases and the number of children in the family decreases, the child’s function of providing love and complementing the family gains importance.”(Kağıtçıbaşı, 1993:34)
In rural areas, the boy is regarded as the continuation of the lineage. The father’s profession is taught. The boy is the authority of the house after the father. The girl is positioned to help the mother, housework and serve. With urbanization, the education, psychology and choices of the child have gained importance. Today, mothers and fathers direct their lives according to the future of their children, invest in their education, and most importantly, they have adopted the conscious parental role based on love and respect.
Conclusion
In the period from rural to urbanization in Turkey, the structure of the family has completely changed in terms of size, economic structure, authority relations and the position of the child. For example, the traditional extended family has turned into a nuclear family, the family that cultivates the land and makes a living in the house migrates to the city and has different jobs depending on industrialization. He started to work in groups. And this, with the woman’s economic freedom, ensured that instead of father’s authority, equal husband and wife and equal right to speak in the family. The position of the child came out of the background in the countryside and became the center of the family in the city.
Source
Canatan Kadir and Yıldırım Ergün, (2013), Family Sociology, İstanbul, Açılım Kitap Pınar Yayınları
Yörükoğlu Atalay, (2000), Family and Child in a Changing Society, Istanbul, Özgür publications
Kartal Nazım and Demirhan Yılmaz,(2014), On Rural Causes of Urban Poverty in Turkey and Solution Proposals,C.U. Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences,Volume 15,Number 2:135-154
Kagitcibasi Cigdem,(1993),Children in Social History / Symposium,Istanbul,History Foundation Yurt Publishing(1994)
Kabakli Çimen Latife,(2008),Women and Family in Turkish Customs,Istanbul,IQ Culture and Art Publishing
