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Women's Autonomy in India and Pakistan: The Influence of Religion and Region

THE CULTURES OF South Asia are largely gender stratified, characterized by patrilineal descent, patrilocal residence, inheritance and succession practices that exclude women, and hierarchical relations in which the patriarch or his relatives have authority over family members. Levels and patterns of female autonomy vary considerably within the region, however, and the question is why. Two arguments have been advanced in the literature to support the hypothesis that women in Pakistan have less autonomy and control over their own lives than do women in India. The first argues that in Pakistan as in other Islamic settings, women occupy a separate and distinctive position that effectively denies them education and autonomy. Women’s lack of control over their own lives has been cited as the central factor underlying the poorer mortality outcomes experienced by Islamic societies (Caldwell 1986: 175). The second argument draws on research conducted in India that demonstrates the dominant influence of behavior and norms imprinted by regionally prescribed social systems, and points out that the social systems that characterize the southern region provide women more exposure to the outside world, more voice in family life, and more freedom of movement than do the social systems of the north (Dyson and Moore 1983; Basu 1992; Jejeebhoy 2000). In this view, to which we subscribe, region plays the major conditioning role, and once region is controlled, Muslim women exert about as much autonomy in their lives as do Hindu women, wherever they reside. The argument in favor of regional social systems as opposed to religion as the driving force is strengthened by evidence suggesting wide variations in the ways in which gender and behavioral norms are manifested across a range of Islamic countries (see for example, Obermeyer 1992).