Almost no research has been done on the impact of physical handicaps on family relationships in the Arab world. Fieldwork carried out in the north Jordanian town of Kufrinja sheds light on coping strategies adopted by parents of handicapped children. It shows that the task of care-giving falls on the child's mother to the exclusion of other family members, and that the care-giving role is so closely linked to the mother that when she dies the handicapped child often can find no substitute. Cross-cultural comparison suggests that this is not a culture-specific pattern; on the contrary, the Arab family seems in this regard quite similar to American and English families. Another finding is that the presence of a handicap in a child disrupts the marriage strategies of the child's family. Fear that the handicap is hereditary makes it much more difficult for the child's sisters to find suitors. In Arab tradition, only the father of a handicapped child - not the mother or mother's family - must bear the costs of therapy and medical treatment. Consequently, women who are thought likely to transmit a handicap to their children are viewed as a potential source of unusual expenses and difficulties by suitors and their families.