Purdah and Changing Patterns of Social Control among Rural Women in Bangladesh

Using data gathered in 1966 and between 1975 and 1982 this paper shows how changes in womens productive activities and in the demand for female wage labor have affected the accoutrements and expression of purdah among Bangladeshi villagers. Purdah is defined as the specific pattern of exchange between the sexes. Purdah incorporating as it does patterns of social control in combination with religous justification changes in saliency as social conditions change. 1 reason is that the ability of a society to institutionalize and perpetuate particular forms of social behavior depends on the continuation and stability of particular patterns of social organization. Traditional patterns of social control encompassed by the purdah system enhanced the status of the families of women who…