required to obtain the permission of husbands for
purposes of travel or employment. The new poli-
cies and laws were enacted under the banner of the
promotion of Islam, the struggle against colonialist
and imperialist plots, and the protection of culture,
morality, and family.
afghanistan
In April 1978 the People’s Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in what came to
be called the Saur (April) Revolution and estab-
lished the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
(DRA). The DRA introduced a radical reform pro-
gram to modernize Afghan society. These included
the government promulgated Decree No. 7, which
would enhance the status of women and girls
within the family while also reducing the high costs
of marriage and the prevalence of indebtedness
among rural households.
The first two articles in Decree No. 7 forbade the
exchange of a woman in marriage for cash or kind,
customarily due from a bridegroom on festive
occasions; the third article set an upper limit of 300
afghanis, the equivalent of $10 at that time, on the
mahr.
Articles 4 to 6 of the decree set the ages of first
engagement and marriage at 16 for women and 18
for men. The decree further stipulated that no one
could be compelled to marry against his or her will,
including widows. Aware that abolishing poly-
gamy would engender considerable hostility, the
PDPA prohibited its members from practicing it.
The PDPA attempts to change marriage prac-
tices, expand literacy, and educate rural girls met
with strong opposition. Unlike Iran, the Afghan
state was not a strong one, able to impose its will
through an extensive administrative and military
apparatus.
Discourses of women, gender, family, and Islam
have figured prominently in political developments
in Iran and Afghanistan since at least the late 1970s.
In Iran, compulsory veiling signaled the (re)defini-
tion of gender rules, and the veiled woman came to
symbolize the moral and cultural transformation of
society. In Afghanistan, uncovering women, raising
their status within the family, and promoting their
schooling and social participation were the chief
markers of the socialist modernizing project of the
DRA. Further divergences, however, took place in
the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century.
Iranian women’s rights activists, both Islamic and
secular, succeeded in effecting some changes to dis-
criminatory gender policies and the family law.
Moreover, as their educational attainment rates
rose, women began to marry later and have fewer
turkey and the caucasus 165children. Meanwhile, Afghan women experienced
a draconian gender regime under the Taliban, who
claimed that Islam and Afghan tradition mandated
the confinement of women to their homes and the
burqa≠. The post-Taliban transition brought about
some relief, but schooling was still inaccessible
to most rural girls, for whom marriage and child-
bearing remain the main life option. The new con-
stitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
(approved January 2004) stipulates the equality of
all Afghan citizens, women and men, and calls on
the state to “devise and implement effective pro-
grams for balancing and promoting of education
for women” (Article 44). It also states that the
“family is a fundamental unit of society and is sup-
ported by the state. The state adopts necessary
measures to ensure physical and psychological well
being of family, especially of child and mother,
upbringing of children and the elimination of tradi-
tions contrary to the principles of sacred religion of
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sidered the backbone of Turkish and Caucasian
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gion. Among the Turkish societies of the region, the