An important aspect of life in Thailand are the family bonds. Most of the Thai population is still living in the countryside. Most families there live in simple wooden houses; erected about 1 to 2 meters above the ground on piles, containing only one room, and several generations from the extended family are living under one roof. This only room serves as living room, bedroom, dining room or kitchen, often all at the same time. The few furnishings of the house are the seats and mats for sleeping, cabinets for storing clothes and valuables, and some household appliances

 

Usually not only parents and children, but often also the grandparents of the woman, so 3 generations are living in the same home. Even the brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts often live in the same house, or in a house built next to the hut of the parents. Where many people are living in confined spaces, the quest for harmony, but also for discipline and subordination is a more or less the central foundation of the social system.

 

When a family is living close together - in contrast to Western society – there is hardly any place for individual needs, isolation and silence. Usually the youngest daughter inherits the house of the parents. In return, she takes care of her parents when they get older and need help.

 

Values and social behavior of humans are primarily determined by what they learned and have experienced as a child. Thai children learn from birth, to adapt to the family hierarchy. The ranking is based on age, so that grandparents, parents and older siblings have a higher position. The younger family members are taught to respect and support the older generation. By tradition everyone in the family has its place in the hierarchy. I for example must speak from the older brother of my wife as "phi chai '(elder brother), although he is more than 10 years younger than I am. My wife, however, is the younger sister and so am I, despite my age, only the younger brother.           

 

Girls and boys are brought up differently in Thailand. Girls must be shy, polite and clean, in a traditionally defined feminine way to do so. Boys, however, have much more freedom to have fun, and to do what they like. If one see the behavior of teens in public, e.g. in public transports, there is a big difference between girls and boys. The shy girls talking together, while the boys without regard to other People are fooling and bawling around. That remains so even when they grow up. Thai men find nothing strange in regularly frequent prostitutes. It is for them very normal. On the other hand, it is seldom that a Thai woman cheats on her husband, and she will get the condemnation of her neighborhood, if it becomes known.

 

If someone from the family must be hospitalized, at least one, sometimes even several members of the family stay with him in the hospital, and if no extra bed is available, they will sleep on the floor in front or under his bed. Especially in the so-called 30-baht hospitals, in which all Thais for only 30 Baht are treated, it looks sometimes as in an asylum.

 

Children are already taught in school to respect their elders. Like the parents also teachers, religious and political leaders, often superiors at the employment, enjoy uncontested authority. A Thai child will not be encouraged to act independently, but to integrate and to bank on the family or the community, which will satisfy their needs. This relationship of dependence in which the child is educated, is the basis for the respect it pays later to everybody with a higher status than himself. It also creates the feeling of obligation to their parents in old age, to pay them back their charitableness

 

European men appreciate features such as faithfulness and loyalty of women to men, less for their family back in Thailand. The obligation of the children to care later for their parents is in a country where there is no social security and no pensions (at least not for the people in the village) is taken for granted, even if the children have gone abroad. As pensions and health care being unavailable, this is the only protection and support in their old age.

 

Often a Farang, married to a Thai woman, will this not understand. For his wife however, it is an inherent necessity to repay to the parents their welfare. It would be ungrateful to their parents, and she will lose her face her face in the village, if they if she not regularly sends money from the faraway Germany. But to the German husband, this need of his Thai wife, to give something from that what she now owns back to her family, is sometimes incomprehensible. The Farang, who marries a Thai woman and takes her to Germany, must be aware of what it means for the woman, to lose suddenly the security of her family. Therefore he should be anxious Therefore should be anxious to offer not only something financially, but also to provide a replacement for the security in the large family.

 

The strong attachment to the family, applies only to the family in which one is born, and also not necessarily to the relationship between spouses. The legal marriage is still predominantly the exception up country. Therefore the woman has no claim to maintenance against her husband and the father of her children, if the man leaves his wife and children and takes a new wife. Typical for Thai-Men is that they are very sociable and soft, but that hides a maximum of ruthlessness.

 

The rights that the man requires for himself, he will not concede to his wife. The Thai-Men are not renowned for marital fidelity, while their wives have to be faithful. But if somebody thinks, that all Asian women are gentle and submissive in marriage, this will soon prove to be an obvious error for each Farang married to a Thai woman. She is simply more patient and calm in her actions than her husband, but if she wants to achieve something, then she will show a lot of perseverance.

 

The hierarchical structure of the family is reflected in the Thai society. What they learned as a child, subordination and discipline are also demands basic in Thai Social Life. They will show this, when showing respect by addressing even to non-related persons as mother, father, older sister and younger brother's. In their national self-image they see all Thais as a single large family with the king as their father. The hierarchy of respect extends to Thai-Persons, but not normally to Farang, as they stay outside the Thai society.