Purdah or pardaa (from , meaning "curtain") is the practice of concealing women from men. According to one definition:

:Purdah is a curtain which makes sharp separation between the world of man and that of a woman, between the community as a whole and the family which is its heart, between the street and the home, the public and the private, just as it sharply separates society and the individual.

This takes two forms: physical segregation of the sexes, and the requirement for women to cover their bodies and conceal their form.

Purdah exists in various forms in the Muslim world, India, and other cultures.

In the Muslim world, preventing women from being seen by men is closely linked to the concept of namus. In Middle Eastern, patriarchal societies, namus is a strongly gender-specific category of relationships within a family, described in terms of honour, attention, respectability and modesty. The term is often translated as "honour".

Meaning

A woman's withdrawal into purdah restricts her personal, social and economic activities outside her home. In other words, a woman in purdah should always remain at home. It is permissible, however, for a woman in purdah to come out of her house in extreme necessity, subject to certain conditions, as follows:

She should be accompanied by a close male relative (mahram) if the distance to her destination is more than three days and three nights. This is the distance covered by walking or on an animal with usual breaks for resting and eating. Scholars of Islamic law have explained this to be about 48 miles.

She should be covered so that men cannot see her. The usual purdah garment worn is a burqa or a niqāb to conceal the face. The eyes may or may not be exposed.

She should not mix with men who are not related to her, unless it is unavoidable.

Physical segregation within a house can be achieved with walls, curtains, and screens which separate the Zenana (women's chamber) from the Mardana (men's chamber).

History and context

Persia

Muslim scholar Fadwa El Guindi observes that the Achaemenid rulers of Persia were reported by the Greco-Roman historian Plutarch to have hidden their wives and concubines from public gaze.

The wives were hidden in wagons and litters. It is likely that the custom of veiling continued through the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanid periods. This tradition of Purdah is reflected in the Shahnameh, the Persian chronicle in which women are generally referred to as ''pushide-ruyan'' (پوشيده رویان) "those whose faces are covered" or ''pardegian'' (پردگيان) "those behind the curtains".

Purdah was rigorously observed in Iran before it was banned under Rezā Shāh. The practice was also observed under the Taliban in Afghanistan, where women had to observe complete purdah at all times when they were in public. Only close male family members and other women were allowed to see them out of purdah. In other societies, purdah is often only practised during certain times of religious significance.

Greece and Byzantium

Upper-class Greek and Byzantine women were also secluded from the public gaze.

India

In much of northern and central India, particularly in rural areas, Hindu and Muslim women follow complex rules of veiling the body and avoidance of public appearance, especially in the presence of relatives linked by marriage and before strange men. Purdah practices are inextricably linked to patterns of authority and harmony within the family. Such rules of feminine modesty are not considered purdah but merely proper female behavior.

For almost all women, modest dress and behavior are important. Clothing covering most of the body is common; only in tribal groups and among a few castes do women publicly bare their legs or upper bodies. In most of the northern half of India, traditionally dressed women cover the tops of their heads with the end of the sari or dupatta (Scarf).

For traditional Hindus of northern and central India, purdah observances begin at marriage, when a woman acquires a husband and in-laws. Although she almost never observes purdah in her natal home or before her natal relatives, a woman does observe purdah in her husband's home and before his relatives. Through use of the end of the sari as a face veil and deference of manner, a married woman shows respect to her affinal kin who are older than or equal to her husband in age, as well as certain other relatives. She may speak to the women before whom she veils, but she usually does not converse with the men. Exceptions to this are her husband's younger brothers, before whom she may veil her face, but with whom she has a warm joking relationship involving verbal banter.

For Muslim women, purdah practices involve less emphasis on veiling from in-laws and more emphasis on protecting women from contact with strangers outside the sphere of kinship. Because Muslims often marry cousins, a woman's in-laws may also be her natal relatives, so veiling her face within the marital home is often inappropriate. Unlike Hindus, Muslim women do not veil from other women as do Hindus. Traditional Muslim women and even unmarried girls, however, often refrain from appearing in public, or if they do go out, they wear an all-covering garment known as a Burqa , with a full face covering.

In rural communities and in older sections of cities, purdah observances remain vital, although they are gradually diminishing in intensity. Among the educated urban and rural elite, purdah practices are rapidly vanishing and for many have all but disappeared. Chastity and female modesty are still highly valued, but, for the elite, face-veiling and the burka are considered unsophisticated. As girls and women become more widely and more highly educated, female employment outside the home is commonplace, even for women of elite families.

The Arab and Islamic world

Muslim women were to be veiled (''hijab'') or secluded because it marked them as respectable (see ''gender segregation and Islam'').

In historically Islamic Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the custom of purdah has a cultural rather than religious basis. Even in the United Arab Emirates, where women can wear skirts and similar modest garments, Arab women often observe purdah. It is important to differentiate between ''purdah'' and ''hijab''. Hijab is an Islamic moral tradition, while purdah does not necessarily conform to Islamic teachings.

Criticism

Criticism of purdah has occurred at various times. The custom was criticised from within its community, for example in the 1905 story entitled The Sultana's Dream, by Bengali feminist Roquia Sakhawat Hussain. In 1925 Marmaduke Pickthall, a British convert to Islam and translator of the Quran, gave a lecture in Madras entitled "The Relation of the Sexes" which condemned purdah in the Indian subcontinent, and also criticized the practice of face veiling among Muslim women.

In his 1946 book ''Pakistan, or The Partition of India'', B. R. Ambedkar, a social reformer and the chief architect of India's constitution, attributed many fo colonial-era India's evils on the system of purdah, saying that women lack "mental nourishment" by being isolated and that purdah harms the sexual morals of society as a whole.

Pratibha Patil, who later became President of India, once claimed that the purdah system was introduced among Hindu women to protect them from the Muslim invaders.

See also

Gender apartheid

Awrah

Hijab

Sex segregation and Islam

Zenana

Dupatta

References

External links

King's College Women's history

Description of purdah practices in 20th century India by C.M. Naim, Professor Emeritus of Urdu and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago

Category:Islamic dress (female) Category:Afghan clothing Category:Indian clothing Category:Pakistani clothing

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