Bride Price among Pashtuns, is not what it is assumed

[Akbar]

I had a debate about this with Iblis aka revolutionthroughreason or scimitar but he didnt want to understand the concept.

In Jaji, we do the first which we call "denyo" and the second which we call "zar" in addition to the brides family negotiates clothing as well.

yes
and the requests were ridiculous in most cases.
poor pamtiawal would go and work in dubai their whole life to get the requested amount.

[khushal]

yes
and the requests were ridiculous in most cases.
poor pamtiawal would go and work in dubai their whole life to get the requested amount.

Some people get greedy and that's when they venture into selling their daughters as commodities. The original concept is lost.

[khushal]

in pukhtunkhwa there is the dowrey system.
much like indians and pakis. the female parents and in some cases the male parent ask for household things and even cars.

in Afghanistan it used to be prevelant among some paktiawal ,they would ask walwar for their daughters and in some cases the girl and boy would become old because they couldnt pay the walwar.

this has been now banned by the teibal elders and governement.

No one listens to tribal elders and government in Paktia.
In our area, I have not heard of any girl that has not been married off. I know men that have not married or got married when they were much older than norm but because they were lazy or charsi and no one wanted to give their daughter to such a person.

Also, when the groom family can't afford the walwar, they sometimes tell the brides family, they will pay them half later but never does.

[khushal]

I don't think it's just urban areas. I was in Pakistan 1-2 months ago and our driver(who is a Pashtun from Swabi) was telling us how he had to give jahez for his daughter's wedding. I was surprised as I though this practice didn't exist among Pashtuns but was told that in recent years Pashtuns have begun to practice this. Our driver is a poor man who lives in a village and I wouldn't classify him as "urban."

Thats weird. Maybe the groom was indic. But that is a dangerous road. Indian families are aborting female babies cause they want to avoid the dowry they have to pay her future groom.
Bad request!




Indians are even doing this in Western countries:
Records reveal gender-selective abortion taking place in Canada | New Scientist

[maneatinglizard]

Seems like there's a lot of disagreement on the degree to which Pakistani Pashtuns are becoming "desified." From something as mild to eating spicier food, to freely intermarrying with Punjabis, the variance in responses is pretty huge. I wonder what stage the average Pakistani Pashtun is at, and how much real variance there is. I will say though, that if it's really gotten to the point that the Pashtuns no longer have any qualms marrying externally, then there wont be very many Pakistani Pashtuns left in a few generations. We've seen what happened to the Pashtuns who emigrated to India and mixed with other Muslim populations there. Supposedly about third of Muhajirs are of Pashtun descent owing to their Rohilla heritage, and I don't think anyone considers them still Pashtun.

And I don't think most would want to join Afghanistan even if it did become stable. Pakistaniyat has firmly established itself in the psyche of Pakistani Pashtuns. It's time we forgot this loy Afghanistan/pashtunistan stuff and focused on more attainable goals.

But how much of that Pakistani nationalism/loyalty is because of Afghanistan's instability? Pakistan is an awful hellhole of a country that treats Pashtuns and other minorities poorly. It's corrupt, under-developed, and is governed by truly stupid, greedy people. But, as horrible as it may be, Afghanistan is even worse, in just about every way, and has been under foreign occupation for much of the last 50 years.

If Afghanistan were stable (lets assume it's not radically better than Pakistan, but not worse either), why would Pakistani Pashtuns want to remain a part of a country where they're a second class minority, instead of one where they'd be the majority, and likely hold a majority of the power as well?

Unless Pakistani Pashtuns see themselves as Pakistanis before Pashtuns, I don't see why that'd be the case. Is that the case?

As for forgetting about a united Pashtunistan in favor of more realistic goals, what would those be? There's too much corruption, and it's far too entrenched in both governments, for people to be able to make substantial improvements to their societies without political upheaval (this goes for Punjabies and other non-Pashtuns as well). And, if we're already talking about a change in governance, why not a change in borders to go with it? Borders that weren't dictated by Western imperialists to keep the region as unstable as possible.

I don't want to come across as a nationalist or anything. Ideally the entire Muslim world would be united under a single government (whether that be a strong one or a weak one), including Pakistan and Afghanistan. But, while there's little movement towards that goal, I think the next best thing is to at least unite our own people. And Pakistan, while much better than Afghanistan, isn't a particularly stable country either. And it probably wont ever be one, as it seems determined to feud with its neighbors on multiple sides over borders. Even if someone were to somehow dismantle the corruption networks, you can't have a country perpetually at a standoff on two sides. It'd have to make concessions on at least one side, and I think Afghanistan is probably the better side for them to do that.

Even this so called desification is basically making food more spicy, Pashtuns despise punjabies any ethnic group which sees no shame in openly farting in front of others, what is there to take from them?

Do Punjabies really do this? I've never encountered a Punjabi that does, though granted I live in the West and most of the Punjabies I know are religious and educated. Speaking of the West, it is acceptable here to fart in public, and a lot of my Muslim friends that were more Westernized used to do that when we were all young. It was disgusting.

For Punjabies and Muhajirs of course they have hit the jackpot as every one of their future generations can now claim to be Pathan or Afghan. Also another plus point is that they can also slowly now change their complexion through this practice.

I don't think anyone is marrying Pashtuns so that they can lighten their descendants' complexion.

[khushal]

Eating spicy food does not equal to Desi. Central Africans, Latin America and certain parts of Southeast Asia eats as much spicy food as South Asians.
Peppers slow down the growth of bacteria in the food. Before the invention of refrigeration, people that lived in hot climates used peppers to keep food from spoiling quickly.

I like to eat a jalapeno pepper with my food here and there.

[Elite Pakhtun]

Seems like there's a lot of disagreement on the degree to which Pakistani Pashtuns are becoming "desified." From something as mild to eating spicier food, to freely intermarrying with Punjabis, the variance in responses is pretty huge. I wonder what stage the average Pakistani Pashtun is at, and how much real variance there is. I will say though, that if it's really gotten to the point that the Pashtuns no longer have any qualms marrying externally, then there wont be very many Pakistani Pashtuns left in a few generations. We've seen what happened to the Pashtuns who emigrated to India and mixed with other Muslim populations there. Supposedly about third of Muhajirs are of Pashtun descent owing to their Rohilla heritage, and I don't think anyone considers them still Pashtun.

Okay, I take it you're not from Pakistan. Pakistani Pashtuns do marry other pakistani ethnicities (like Punjabi). It's frequent enough to be considered somewhat common. It's the same as Afghan Pashtuns marrying Tajiks, Uzbeks or Hazaras. Tell me how common it is in Afghanistan. Very common, right?

You can't compare indian mohajirs with Pakistani Pashtuns. The amount of Pashtuns that were in india were probably bare minimal vs the amount in Pakistan. I'm sure the amount in india wasn't more than a few villages. Nothing like a full province and a half.

But how much of that Pakistani nationalism/loyalty is because of Afghanistan's instability?

That's definitely a reason, and probably a big reason. The other being people may have bought a house or something in other cities outside of KPK, or they've lived in Karachi for X number of years etc. Losing that isn't feasible. There's other reasons I'm sure.

The elites will go with what's best...

Pakistan is an awful hellhole of a country that treats Pashtuns and other minorities poorly. It's corrupt, under-developed, and is governed by truly stupid, greedy people. But, as horrible as it may be, Afghanistan is even worse, in just about every way, and has been under foreign occupation for much of the last 50 years.

If Afghanistan were stable (lets assume it's not radically better than Pakistan, but not worse either), why would Pakistani Pashtuns want to remain a part of a country where they're a second class minority, instead of one where they'd be the majority, and likely hold a majority of the power as well?

Unless Pakistani Pashtuns see themselves as Pakistanis before Pashtuns, I don't see why that'd be the case. Is that the case?

Of course in many situations that is absolutely the case.

The other reason is majority of Pashtuns, like other ethnicities in the entire south asia/south central asia region, are uneducated and even illiterate. The rule of law isn't really applied there the way it is in the US/Canada, so really... to them, the concept of the country itself is not only arbitrary, but rather meaningless.

It's only derived meaning recently with the refugee and the "fence the borders" stuff. But even that, from what I hear, the media is exaggerating how bad etc it is.

[khushal]

It's the same as Afghan Pashtuns marrying Tajiks, Uzbeks or Hazaras. Tell me how common it is in Afghanistan. Very common, right?

No its not common. The only Pashtuns that I have heard of who have married Tajiks or Uzbek are in Kabul. I've never heard of Pashtuns or Tajiks marrying Hazaras cause they are Shia.

[Elite Pakhtun]

No its not common. The only Pashtuns that I have heard of who have married Tajiks or Uzbek are in Kabul. I've never heard of Pashtuns or Tajiks marrying Hazaras cause they are Shia.

OK forget Hazara. But Tajiks, and even Uzbeks, I assume is kinda common. Is it?

When I say common, it's the equivalent of a Pashtun in a major city (isb, lhr, or khi) marrying someone non-pashtun. It doesn't typically happen in NWFP, obviously.

Isn't Shamlawar a half Tajik? Wasn't that guy who shot people in the gay nightclub married to an Uzbek?

[toughpashtun]

To say that Pashtuns marrying Punjabis or other non-Pashtuns in Pakistan is common , is quite an exageration. Firstly , no rural Pashtun would do this.Even someone living in small cities would not.
The ones that do are those residing in major urban centres like Karachi , Islamabad etc.Even amongst them , I'd say that the upper/upper middle class would be prone to it and even among them not all do it.

[Traveller]

As far as I have seen, Pashtuns in Pakistan have no problem at all with Desification at all and the younger generation don't even realize how Desi they have become. It's very different now to what it was like just a mere 20 years ago. They are actually very proud of their Urdu language for some reason. Sadly to me it appears that Pashtuns in Pakistan are a very mild form of Pashtun. The ones that seem to be more Pashtun are branded backwards or "badmashaan".

Lala, sta somra mooda shiwi da che Pukhtunkhwa ta tale ye? In most of your posts you are being negative and acting like Pakistani Pashtuns have completely forgot tneir culture. I was in Pakistan recently and the Pashtuns there are extremely proud of their culture. Every Pashtun I met spoke Pashto with pride and they would all speak it with their kids, this was true even for the ones married to Punjabis. All of my cousins who grew up in Islamabad, a non-Pashtun city, still spoke Pashto as their first language. And while Desi and western culture have creeped in among the educated classes due to the influence of media, people still uphold their cultural traditions to the best of their ability. And btw, those influences are also reaching Afghanistan, many Afghans know Urdu and watch Bollywood films. And people who live in a more traditional manner are certainly not viewed as badmaashan.

[Traveller]

A lot of Pashtun families now give their daughters to Punjabies in marriage without any hesitation. This was almost unheard of in my fathers generation. It was extremely rare, now no one even bats an eyelid. For Punjabies and Muhajirs of course they have hit the jackpot as every one of their future generations can now claim to be Pathan or Afghan. Also another plus point is that they can also slowly now change their complexion through this practice. As far fetched as it may sound, it's becoming more and more common.

It is true that Pashtuns aren't as endogamous as we used to be but we still definitely prefer to marry our own. And most of these marriages are happening in Indic cities.

[Khostai]

Some people assume that so called "bride price" , the word used in English books and literature about Pashtuns must be "selling" of girl to any Tom and dik. Thats not the case. Its nature is like that of Haq-i-Mehr of Islam. Even elite and wealthy families of Pashtuns have so called Bride price and its in crores worth of Jewellary. There types of customs are observed in Pashtun society ;




In my region (Lakki Marwat) , the second custom is observed in which particular amount of 'zar' /gold is taken from groom family, and the bride keeps it with herself as social security. This gold is sold by her in extreme conditions. So its nothing more than additional haq-i-mahar. As wife retains the gold or the money parents receive from groom is for expenditure on marriage or dowery for bride is demanded from groom family (opposite of what happens in Indic world), so its not selling.

I dont know about marriage customs of Afghanistan but i assume it will be similar.

Its the same. But humans being greedy as usual, some abuse this tradtion to benefit themselfs, but I never heared of anyone getting rich by the marriage of their daughter....

[khushal]

Its the same. But humans being greedy as usual, some abuse this tradtion to benefit themselfs, but I never heared of anyone getting rich by the marriage of their daughter....

People try to marry into rich families or influential families so they can rise in status or influence.

[khushal]

OK forget Hazara. But Tajiks, and even Uzbeks, I assume is kinda common. Is it?

When I say common, it's the equivalent of a Pashtun in a major city (isb, lhr, or khi) marrying someone non-pashtun. It doesn't typically happen in NWFP, obviously.

Isn't Shamlawar a half Tajik? Wasn't that guy who shot people in the gay nightclub married to an Uzbek?

Inter-ethnic marriages happen in places where there are many ethnic groups living together. This happens all over the World. It is natural.
Shamlawar is Netherlandian whose parents come from the Kabul culture.

City people and Rural people have different cultures values whether they are Pashtun or Tajik. Rural Pashtuns are closer to rural Tajiks culturally than city pashtuns are and city Pashtuns are closer to city Tajiks culturally. City people whether Pashtun or Tajik look down on rural people whether Pashtun or Tajik as uneducated, primitive etc.