ABSTRACT
Adaptation to a technological economy has led to changes in the social, political and economic structures of Arab society in general and Arab society within Israel in particular. For the hamlets, representation in the Regional Council has brought an even closer contact with Jewish farmers whose pattern of life is very different from their own. The hamlets possess special characteristics resulting from the separation from the parent village and their consequent functioning within a larger society. They had to learn how to negotiate with a bureaucracy of different character and to adjust to other norms and mores in their wider environment. Fakhouri describes the type of villager he studied as "an urbanite by day and ruralite during the evening hours". Hamlet residents can be defined as farmers even when they are gainfully employed outside their villages and temporarily live in urban centers. In Arab rural society, woman's conduct is a criterion of her agnate's honor.
