Ordinarily friendship is confined to this tribal relationship, and marriage is usually restricted to its limits. As an Arabic proverb expresses it, “I am against my cousin, but my cousin and I are against the world.” People outside this tribal family are strangers and possible foes.[53] If, contrary to what they expect of outsiders, we should show ourselves kindly disposed to them by continual helpful acts, very likely they might set up a hypothetical relationship between themselves and us, at least in conversation, in order to gloss over the anomaly. ----- ----- Closer yet is the relationship within the immediate family. As long as the size of the family permits, it occupies the one house, or extensions of it, but if it is prosperous and growing, new households are set up and by such a process the tribe develops. Where friendship is practically confined to the family and tribe the importance of family membership and numerous family connections will be appreciated.[54] The larger and more influential one’s family, the more secure are its fortunes.[55] And influence depends on the number of the men. A Moslem was killed and it was several months before his slayers were detected and brought to punishment. The family of the deceased was large and worked together to ferret out the secret. A smaller family might never have been able to accomplish the object. Outsiders or the government would have made no such persistent effort.[56] ----- ----- Marriages in the country are usually with some kindred family.[57] Marrying outside one’s tribe is comparatively rare. Marriage is the one important subject among parents of boys and girls. Girls are sometimes married as early as seven years. They are betrothed at much tenderer ages. A mother brought a little child in arms to one of the village day-schools and urged its acceptance, doubtless to have relief from the care of it for a part of the day. The child was a girl, and the teacher of the girls’ school refused to take her, exclaiming, “Why, she’s a mere baby. We cannot teach her to read now.” The mother argued and finally said, “If you don’t take her now she will be betrothed soon.” The introduction of school privileges into the country, for girls as well as for boys, has resulted, in many cases, in lengthening the childhood of those who otherwise would have been betrothed and married early in life. Parents are generally unwilling to allow a younger daughter to be married before an elder daughter.[58] ----- -----