Although kin marriage is widely practiced in the MENA, the rationales that are thought to
motivate kin marriage have not been widely tested. We test three rationales for kin unions
among ever-married women using the Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia Labor Market Surveys. The
first rationale for kin unions is to consolidate family property and avoid its fragmentation
through the marriage of relatives. We find that the first rationale is supported only by the
Tunisian data, where women whose parents worked in a family firm were more likely to marry
relatives in some models. A second rationale is to reduce the financial outlays made on
marriage. We find that kin unions involved lower matrimonial expenditures and more
expenditures by the groom’s side in Egypt alone, thus partially confirming the second rationale.
A third rationale motivating kin marriage is the belief that brides who marry relatives will enjoy
advantages vis-a-vis their husbands and in-laws. Here, we find that Egyptian and Tunisian
women in kin unions had less decision-making influence, contrary to our expectations, whereas
Jordanian women in kin unions had more decision-making influence.