Stirling's two villages were supposedly incorporated into this uniform system and dutifully elected local headmen and councils according to national provisions, sworn to promulgate and uphold Turkish law. These officials served reluctantly and scarcely ever met to perform their duties. Actual political decision making and dispute settlement were handled on an informal basis according to local standards of morality, authority, and justice. Village Characterization Community members maintain a strong sense of their own identity and of superiority over neighbouring settlements. The virtues of the village are an eternal topic of conversation with outsiders, and of banter between men of different villages.
Every village has the best drinking water and the best climate.
Every village is more hospitable., more honourable, more virile, more peaceable, gives better weddings than any of its neighbours. Other villages are savage, mean, dishonourable, lying lazy, cowardly. Nevertheless there is an implicitly acknowledged status hierarchy among villages that appears in rates of outmarriage and other indices.