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11 - The marriages of Hajji Adam's descendants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2009

Nancy Tapper
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Summary

The cases described in chapter 10 show clearly that Maduzai households are now ruthlessly competitive. Evidence indicates that this was not always so. The particular character this competition now takes among the Maduzai is related to the increased value set on household independence, which in turn can be attributed to the considerable increase in population of the region over the last fifty years, the consequent pressure on land and pasture, and the process of settlement which the Maduzai have experienced. The tribespeople themselves recognize the importance of these factors. On the one hand, they recount with a certain amazement stories of how, in the old days, people could afford to be ‘simple’ and apparently casual in their marriage arrangements and the control of women, but on the other, they also see clearly that when there was an abundance of land and pasturage, ‘everybody had adequate means, people were comfortable and had qaumi’.

We have seen how the control of marriages and of the sexual behaviour of members of a household may be usurped by others. The likelihood of such an infringement of their rights depends very much on their strength or weakness. The Maduzai accept that all outsiders to the subtribe present a potential threat to its resources, but they admit that among themselves too there are trouble makers, men who like to fight and won't hesitate to ‘eat’ the rights of other men, whether in women or in animals or land, if they think they can get away with it.

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Chapter
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Bartered Brides
Politics, Gender and Marriage in an Afghan Tribal Society
, pp. 240 - 277
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1991

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