Traditionalization, or the making of a reputation: women, weddings and expenditure in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article aims to show how traditionalization is enforced by women in Tajikistan in the realm of marriage, focusing on the economic dimension of life cycle rituals: ritual expenditure and gift-giving. It shows that from women’s points of view, performing ceremonial competition may itself be a resource to recover their reputation, for example when a matrimonial rupture has harmed it. Focusing on single mothers, it demonstrates how practices of traditionalization performed by women can be directed at addressing gender constraints and stereotypes, such as the normative relation between marriage and femininity, and how they may also secure women’s separate sphere of competence and relative financial autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Traditionalization
• reputation
• wedding
• marriage payment
• women
• Tajikistan

Acknowledgments

I warmly thank Judith Beyer and Peter Finke, as well as Madeleine Reeves and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The civil war in Tajikistan killed more than 60,000 people (1% of the population at the time) and displaced about one million people inside the country and across its borders (Kuvatova 2001). See also Ismailbekova (2015) on coping mechanisms in Kyrgyzstan.

2 On the relations between women’s bodies and national projects in Central Asia, see also Cleuziou and Direnberger (2016); Ibañez-Tirado (2016); Suyarkulova (2016).

3 The term ‘reputation’ has the advantage, compared to ‘honour’, to de-exoticize social relations in Tajikistan, to separate the Tajik context from general analyses made on the basis of material from the Middle East or the Arabic world, and to better convey the meaning of my interlocutors in daily use of both Tajik words, nomus and obru.

4 For a close examination of how textiles and cosmetics reflects one’s status or position, see also Ibañez-Tirado (2016).

5 Tajikistan has been until very recently the most remittance-dependent country in the world, the share of these money transfers equating 50% of its GDP (see e.g. Betti and Lundgren 2012; Buckley and Hofmann 2012; Rubinov 2016)

6 In-kind or monetary payments given in theory by the groom’s family to that of the bride.

7 In-kind or monetary payments given in theory by the bride’s parents to their daughter, and brought to the groom’s house.

8 In-kind or monetary payments given in theory by the husband to his wife.

9 Though not everywhere. To my knowledge, people do not (yet) organize such ceremonies in the area of Gharm and Qarotegin.

10 For example, in India, see Bénéï (1995); Anderson (2007). In Vietnam, see Teerawichitchainan (2012). In China, see Siu (1993).

11 It is beyond the scope of this article to elaborate on why this reversal happened; it will be the focus of other publication. It is notable, however, that in the second half of the Soviet period, people became richer and had access to more cash but lacked ways to spend it. At the same time, bride price was targeted by the authorities as an archaic practice. The development of the dowry might have been an answer to the urge for social distinction through consumption in the context of lack of manufactured goods and ideological constraints.

12 It is possible that the Soviet ban on bride-price and the consequent stigma that it could have put on families accused of ‘selling their daughters away’ may have contributed to the weakening of the practice. See for example the 1967 Soviet comedy ‘Kavkaskaya Plennitsa, ili Novye Priklyuchenya Shurika’ (translated as ‘Kidnapping, Caucasian style’), Leonid Gaïdaï’s movie which mocks bride abduction and bride-price payments.

13 An important feature of dowry transfers is that they effectively consist in the repetition of unilateral gift-giving at many occasions: the bride’s family makes gifts just before the wedding day, at the ‘calling for the bride’ after the wedding (talbon), at the celebration of a child’s birth (gohvora bandon), and so on.

14 This partially explains the renewal of polygyny in the country, because being married as a second wife always seems better than not being married at all (Cleuziou 2016, 9).

15 According to Beyer, uiat is best translated as ‘shame’ only when children, who can be reprimanded directly, are concerned.

16 Although in Tajikistan spreading gossip is often women’s prerogative, these examples are of women because my fieldwork took place mostly with them. But men may contribute to spreading gossip and rumours, too.

17 Full name, ‘Legislative acts on the regulation of tradition, celebrations and ceremonies’ (Sanadhoi me’erii huquqi oid ba tanzimi an’ana va dzhashnu marosimho). See Jumhurii Tojikiston (Republic of Tajikistan) (2007).

18 In Tajik: ‘Qonuni mazkur bo taqozoi rushdi jomea an’ana va jashnu marosimho tanzim namuda, ba khifzi arzishhoi asili farhangi millii va ehtirom ba sunnathoi mardumi baroi baland bardoshtani sathi ijtimoi iqtiisodii haeti’ (Jumhurii Tojikiston (Republic of Tajikistan) 2007, 6).

19 Details on the official Presidential webpage: http://www.prezident.tj/node/15923.

20 It is notable that Muslim reformists are very critical position of ceremonial spending, and have been for a long time (Dudoignon and Noack 2014). For example, conflicts exist over how weddings should proceed, and there is a tendency in certain families known for their pious background to forbid the performance of music and dance and, a fortiori, of lavish ceremonies. Some women have refused to participate in feasts where music is played. In the context of the crucial importance of gift-exchange in women’s sociability, one can imagine the inner conflicts these decisions engender. Yet, to my knowledge, this form of celebration is not common.

21 See also the contribution of Beyer and Kojobekova (2019), in this issue.