Familles et rapports de genre au Maghreb
Évolutions ou révolutions?

Abstract

 This article takes a snapshot of the changes underway in the five countries making up the “Greater Maghreb”, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia. Economic and social transformations, migration, and progress in healthcare and education in these countries are at once the catalysts and consequences of major changes in the living standards of families. The phenomenon is calling into question the respective roles and positions of men and women and of young people and older people formed over the centuries by these societies. The image of today’s Maghreb family has almost nothing in common with the traditional cliché of a rigid, patriarchal, polygamous society in which women are married at puberty and large families are the rule. Radical changes are taking place, as shown by the demographic data over the last 50 years. The new aspirations of the part of the population more adapted to socio-demographic realities conflict with the social perceptions and norms of the traditional power holders. The older generations, and men in particular, are finding it hard to see the privileges conferred upon them by society called into question. Relations between generations and between men and women now have to be renegotiated.