The Importance of Reputation

Reputation, or how others view you, is universally important. It affects how we, as humans, live, think, and act. In Arab culture, this is especially true. In traditional tribal society, business and alliances were dictated by a family’s reputation. In modern day, clan structure still determines a lot of social ideals and norms, such as the importance of family, loyalty, hospitality, and the concept of familial (or, by extension, clan) honor. In modern day, reputations of clans are represented through ‘wasta’, a word from Arabic which means, basically, one’s connections. In Jordan, one has ‘wasta’ if they know someone with political or social power, who could, in theory, do a favor for them in the future. Basically, “you don’t get anywhere on talent alone. You have to know a guy, who knows a guy and so on.”

Also, tribal structures are generally patriarchal, with men dominating social, economic and political life. For a very long time, women were viewed as a commodity, to be traded into other families through marriage, from which point they are no longer a part of each family. This meant that women could only contribute to their family’s honor through domestic roles. In the past, if women were not ‘kept in line’ in a sense by their male family members, it undermined the central authority of a clan, which signaled weakness to its competitors.

Women, however, in breaking out of traditional roles, can become sources of shame to their families. In this area people do not forgive, nor do they ‘forget’. Mistakes from youth can follow a young woman for the rest of her life, preventing her from future opportunities, such as having a career, or even getting married. As one interviewee put it, “[Reputation] can follow you like a black cloud for the rest of your life—if you do something wrong.” As in other patriarchal societies, women are more harshly judged than men by their families, and therefore must walk a moral tightrope, even in their youth when they are surrounded by temptations. Combine the importance of reputation and stern judgment of women with large, extended families sometimes spanning country borders, and a wide-spread café culture, in which men smoke and gossip in coffeehouses, and it seems that almost nothing could be kept a secret, which means that women are in constant danger of having their reputations, and subsequently, their futures ruined.

In modern urban society, however, social norms are rapidly changing. Actions that used to be considered taboo for women—having careers, going uncovered, going to parties and cafes in public, and getting an education (to name a few)—are now common.