especially single mothers, their dormitory room
may be their sole accommodation, and thus might
be considered to contain a household.
Family size changed during Soviet times as im-
proved health conditions allowed increasing num-
bers of children to survive to maturity. As of 1996,
for instance, the average family size in Tajikistan
was 7.1 (Tajikistan 1996, 82). Recently, economic
pressures have reduced birth rates. Simultaneously,
however, they also make it harder for families to
afford to live separately. For the first time, divorce
rates have risen so high that for want of other liv-
ing quarters adult women have started to return to
their parents’ home in significant numbers, usually
accompanied by their children. As a result, overall
household size has increased.
Especially in postwar Tajikistan, numbers of
female-headed households have grown consider-
ably, both nuclear households, where a woman
lives alone with her children, and extended ones
where her married sons reside with her.
New forms of polygynous residence have also
arisen. That least encountered consists of two
wives living in the same home. More commonly,
one wife is chosen by, and resides with, her hus-
band’s parents, while he additionally marries a
woman of his own choice, either establishing her in
an urban apartment or moving in with her if she
already has her own place. This happens frequently
when men from rural areas migrate to work in a
town, whether in Central Asia or the Russian
Federation. In Tajikistan at least, the imbalance
between the sexes has led to women consenting to
become third and even fourth wives rather than
never marrying. Such women may continue to
reside with their natal families and be visited only
occasionally by their husbands, who take little or
no responsibility for them or their offspring.
While multiple wives can be married by nikà™,
civil law permits only one wife. If parents do not
register the first marriage then the husband can reg-
ister his second. Since civil registration is entered
into one’s passport some men “lose” these and
obtain a second one so as to register a second time,
thus effectively committing bigamy. Registration
of marriage is especially important for marriages
in Russia for the purpose of obtaining residence
permits.
Same-sex households remain rare. Divorced or
widowed men usually remarry, invite a female rela-
tive to keep house, or move in with another family
member. They tend to live together only as a last
resort, such as during labor migration to the
Russian Federation. Most homosexual men marry
or live with their parents.252 household forms and composition
Slightly more common are households consisting
of one or more women, with or without children
and/or siblings. These are unlikely to be lesbians
but rather sisters, mothers and daughters, or even
friends. I have also come across rare cases of appar-
ently intersexed persons living together in what
resemble women-only households in that those
concerned may present themselves as females, irre-
spective of genetic make-up.Bibliography
E. E. Bacon, Central Asians under Russian rule. A study in
cultural change, Ithaca, N.Y. 1966.
L. Krader, The peoples of Central Asia, Bloomington, Ind.
1971.
A. Meakin, In Russian Turkestan, London 1903.
L. F. Monogarova, Contemporary urban family structure
in Tajikistan (on materials from Ura-Tyube and Isfary)
[in Russian], in Sovetskaya Etnografia3 (1982).
V. Nalivkin and M. Nalivkina, A study of women’s life-
styles among the settled indigenous population of Fer-
gana [in Russian], Kazan 1886.
E. Schuyler, Turkistan, New York 1876.
Tajikistan/UNDP, Tajikistan. Human development re-
port, Dushanbe 1996, <http://www.undp.org/rbec/nhdr/
1996/tajikistan/>.
T. A. Zhdankova, Study of changes in the traditional
structure of family among the peoples of Central Asia
under the conditions of socialism [in Russian], in
Slovensky Narodopis 31:3 (1983), 414–25.Colette HarrisIran and AfghanistanHouseholds vary with class and location. Tradi-
tional agricultural/pastoral households contain an
extended patrilineal/patrilocal family spanning sev-
eral generations, forming a production and con-
sumption unit with complementary sexual division
of labor. In urban and non-agricultural households
women do not produce much (except children);
they prepare food and provide care with materials
provided by the men. These households change to
nuclear family patterns earlier than agricultural ones
under the influence of changing work patterns, lim-
ited urban spaces, and modernist ideas. Traditional
wealthy urban households usually are the largest,
including multiple wives of the household head, an
extended family, other relatives, and servants.
Structurally, the developmental logic of the ex-
tended family informs household composition and
relationships: a man will try to exert control over
wife (wives) and sons as early and as long as possi-
ble, staying in his father’s house, compound, or
camp and identifying with his father’s and brothers’
interests as long as necessary or advantageous for
him. Eventually, he will establish an independent
nuclear household, which leads to the next ex-