The displacement of Iraqi Arabs has contributed to increasing ethnic intermarriages in Kurdistan

The increasing number of inter-ethnic marriages are happening for a number of reasons, not all of them savoury. Once upon a time it would have been frowned upon but, thanks to displacement caused by the security crisis, more Kurdish and Arab families are intermarrying in northern Iraq. Because marriage in Iraq and in Iraqi Kurdistan still tends to be a conservative tradition, where couples are arranged through families or matchmakers, and men have far more choice than women, it seems that it is usually Kurdish men marrying Arab women.