City Research Online

Abstract

Landays are two line poems that are most often written by anonymous Afghan women. Intense distillations of emotion and everyday preoccupations, they reveal the struggles faced by those whose husbands, on whom they are forced to depend, migrate. While Pashtun women are increasingly becoming visible in the economy, politics and society, social norms still dictate that most of these women should remain at home, uneducated and dependent on male family members, so that the migration of their husbands renders their lives even more confined. However, while the anonymous form of the poems allow women to complain about the constraints they face, it also permits them to merge as active participants in �their lives, urging suitors to go abroad to earn the money necessary for marriage, to bring back gifts and to remain faithful.

Publication Type:	Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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