ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on marriages as indicator of migrants' social integration and attitudes towards marital and non-marital intergroup relationships as indicators of social distance. The proximity mechanism deals with structural determinants of intermarriage and intergroup contact. The relative size of an ethnic community is expected to shape individuals' opportunities to meet and mate with in-group members. The assortative mechanism refers to the homophily principle, which has been defined as a tendency for friendships to form between those who are alike in some designated respect'. In Islamic culture, but also others, family and gender-related values are intertwined with the concept of honour. Honour-related values have a long history and are culture bound. Evolutionary theories in the field of family sociology describe the development from extended to nuclear family systems. Modernization theories also link changes in family and value structures to economic wealth, but also to the growth of human capital, science, urbanization, the development of the welfare state and secularization.
