ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the importance of love and takes up both the troubling and satisfying aspects of relationships to explore marriage and intimate partnerships, family life, sexuality and relationships with peers. It argues that male subjectivity is formed through and within love, dependency and intimacy. Relationships provide reassurance, consolation, joy and love but relationships also challenge, trouble and are full of anxiety, risk, shame and humiliation, anger and jealousy to name a few negative emotions. For Egyptian and Islamic societies a prevalent and deeply held belief is that the family is the foundation of society. It is the role of the parents to provide a good Muslim home and to ensure that their children are raised within the Islamic faith. The overarching discourse and belief system within Islam is that men and women are different but complementary to one another. In Egypt social expectations and social rules demand that parents give themselves over to their children.
