The effects of the sectarian differences on the relation of married couples

The main subject of research is marriages between Alevis and Sunnis. The topic of the research is about the family structures of married couples, the impact on the family structure to intermarriage between Alevi and Sunni, how they live, the family?s reactions, religious orientation of couples and how they bring up their children in these mixed marriages. To find answers to these questions, in-depth interviews were conducted with people who married from other sects in Berlin and İstanbul. In-depth interviews were held - 60 interviews in all: 10 from Berlin and 50 from İstanbul.The reason some of the interviews were conducted in Berlin was to see whether people change their commitment to their religion and their sects and if they change their view about the people from the other sect and religion due to the process of migration. Therefore, questions were asked of Turkish people living in Berlin to understand when they decided to get married to a person from another sect, how their families reacted, whether they have any problems because of this issue in their family life and how they educate their children about religious issues.Three main results were reached upon the completion of my research. Firstly, there is a relation between intermarriages and cosmopolitan urban life because Alevis and Sunnis traditional structure is dissolved. Secondly, when women decide to get married to someone from another sect, they face so much more negative reactions from their families and environment than men do. When women learn that their partner is from another sect, even themselves react more negative to this than men. Another reason why families look at these marriages negatively is because of the patriarchal system. They think that with patriarchal system, the man?s tradition and the man?s religion will be center of marriage and belief of their daughter will be dissolved. Another result is not exact but negative attitudes of families tends to decrease. When a couple?s families don?t have negative attitudes as before and don?t object to their children?s marriage, these couples don?t have a lot of problems because of these differences.The introduction of the research contains concepts about institutions of marriage and family, facilities of mate selection and bans to marriages. In the second section, aspects about religion and sect and concepts of Alevi and Sunni were given. In addition it talks about differences between Alevis and Sunnis. Then in the third section the study discusses relations in the families and how these relations are affected by sect differences. In the fourth part field work was introduced. Also in this section, introducing field work, it talks about migration to Germany, movements of associations, and scripture class. Then in the fifth section, the findings from the in-depth interviews are analysed and interpreted. At the final section , results were examined.