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Anne MeneleyIran, Afghanistan, and South AsiaHospitality is an extremely significant part of
Muslim culture. The obligation to give hospitality
confersstatus and honor on the host. Religious
gatherings, and life cycle rituals for engagements,
weddings, births, and mourning all entail hospital-
ity. Until recent decades, such occasions and even
political and economic meetings took place in
homes, as did visiting and socializing. People rarely
ate in restaurants. Restaurant food served only the
needs of travelers and working people. Some men
frequent tea and coffee houses or kabàbìs and sim-
ple roadside food providers. By tradition females
do not go to public places. They socialize in the
home, sometimes at picnics in walled orchards or
relatively secluded outdoor areas, in the company
of family members.
Women, responsible for maintaining homes,
shoulder great responsibilities for hospitality. In
light of the relatively informal structure of social
institutions, personal relations have been crucial to
conducting business. Building trust and personal
relations requires refreshments and conviviality in
a comfortable setting. The work of women in pro-
viding hospitality and thereby gaining respect,
emotional attachment, and a sense of obligation
thus contributes not only to the conversation and
social interaction valued in itself, but also to the
social connections through which economics, poli-
tics, and religion operate.
Gendered division of labor resembles gender
structure elsewhere. Females in the home clean and
decorate interiors and process, prepare, and serve
refreshments and food. In Iran and Afghanistan,
iran, afghanistan, and south asia 231females among herding nomads and in agricultural
areas milk animals and produce buttermilk, yogurt,
butter, and dried yogurt. They also use wool and
hair of animals to make items necessary for enter-
taining guests. They weave, knot, and sew rugs, kil-
ims, tents, and cushions. Nomadic and peasant
women also gather wild herbs, fruits, nuts and veg-
etables to set before guests. Women care for chick-
ens. They spend hours baking thin sheets of bread,
the diet staple, with rice as an important dish in bet-
ter off families. Iranian and Afghan women must
always be prepared to boil water in a charcoal
samovar and brew tea. They cut up sugar lumps
from large cones to serve with the tea. Pakistani
and Indian women stew tea with milk, sugar, and
spices. Iranian cuisine includes a great variety of
regional dishes with subtle spicing and unique com-
binations. Pakistani and Indian women carefully
prepare, grind, and learn how to use spices.
Excelling in cooking delicious food brings a
woman respect and admiration. The pleasures of
eating well prepared food according to familiar
recipes is accorded great value. Women with more
resources and access to wider networks of informa-
tion will subtly compete to provide different prepa-
rations and many dishes to guests. Girls learn to
help their mothers at an early age. Cleaning rice,
legumes, and greens for cooking are time consum-
ing activities. Nomadic and peasant women cook
over wood and charcoal fires, first gathering the
wood and carrying water for cooking. The women-
folk of important men are especially busy cooking,
and serving guests.
An important part of a wife’s duty lies in serving
her husband’s guests to reflect well on him and his
family. Given the segregated gender organization,
males often visit without their wives, and the women
who prepare the food are out of sight. In an earlier
period and still today in more conservative homes,
boys might actually bring the tea and food to seated
males. Among the Pukhtun (also known as Pathan
or Pushtun), better off men or families or neigh-
borhoods arranged men’s houses or separate areas
within a home for receiving male visitors. In less
rigidly segregated areas, women might serve tea
and food to a visiting group of men discussing
political or economic issues, or perhaps asking for
the hand of a daughter. Being present to distribute
refreshments or listening out of sight, women might
learn about the proceedings of the meeting, then
talk among themselves and later with the house-
hold men.
When men visit, hospitality usually assumes a
higher level of formality and generosity. They are
hosted in the best available room, provided with