Throughout Pakistan, as in most agr

Throughout Pakistan, as in most agrarian societies, family organization is strongly patriarchal, and most people live with large extended families, often in the same house or family compound. The eldest male, whether he is the father, grandfather, or paternal uncle, is the family leader and makes all significant decisions regarding the family and its members. Traditionally, a woman’s place in society has been secondary to that of men, and she has been restricted to the performance of domestic chores and to fulfilling the role of a dutiful wife and mother. However, in the Punjab, cotton picking is exclusively a woman’s job, and women may keep the money thus earned for their own purposes.

In wealthy peasant and landowner households and in urban middle-class families, the practice of keeping women in seclusion (purdah) is still common; on the rare occasions on which women set foot outside their houses, they must be veiled. Among the rural poor, women have duties on the farm as well as in the house and do not customarily observe purdah. Houses of those who practice purdah have a men’s section (mardānah) at the front of the house, ... (200 of 34,604 words)