The Tribal people of Afghanistan

Society in rural Afghanistan (and most of Afghanistan is rural) is organized in family and tribal units. The afghan family resembles very closely other tribal societies of both the Near East and Central Asia. It includes the head of the family, his married sons. All of them share the common responsibility of the entire family. As a result beggars are rare in Afghanistan, for the aged, the sick, the handicapped, and the unemployed are cared for by the family as a matter of course.

The Eldest male, as head of the family, has complete authority over his entire household. The position of family patriarch generally passes to the eldest son. Sons stay in their father's household, while married daughters go to their husband's family. Often there is preference for marriages within the extended family or among near relatives.

In this type of family most property is owned jointly, and the entire family's earnings are pooled and distributed by the patriarch. When the head of the family dies, the property is divided among the sons to keep the family from becoming too large. (Moslem law requires that one share go to each son, one-half share to each daughter, and one-eighth of the total property to the widow.) The eldest son remains in the patriarchal dwelling.

Among settled peoples the family generally lives in a group of flat-roofed, mud-brick dwellings within a high mud-walled compound. These compounds often resemble a small rectangular fort (which, were in less settled time). Each married couple has a room or a small house. In a central courtyard a well or pool provides water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing. Meals are prepared by the women at a cooking oven and eaten together by the whole family around a huge metal tray set on the floor. A crude latrine will be the only sanitary facility, if it exists at all. These country compounds are surrounded by their fields of grain, with a low walled enclosure for livestock and perhaps and irregular orchard of nut or fruit trees near the walls.

The nomads follow a similar family living arrangement. In the summer months when pasture grass grows high on the mountains, they pitch an encampment of handwoven black goats, hair tents thrown over rectangular frames of rough poles. The furnishings are extremely simple. Rugs or felt mats woven by the women provide floor coverings, and there will the be a pile of blankets, a nest of copper utensils and earthenware jars for cooking, goatskin bags for liquids, occasionally a wooden chest for clothing. The parents and unmarried children live in one tent. If a man has more than one wives, each has her tent. The women of the family weave a tent for each son when he marries. In the winter they move to the lower valleys to escape the snows, and number of related families set up their tents together in a larger camp.

The men of the nomadic tribes hunt and care for the flocks. The women father fuel, carry water, and do the cooking sewing and weaving. The family's flocks of sheep, goats, or camels provide them with their meat, butter, milk, and cheese, the wool for their clothing, tents and blankets, and even dung for fuel. In addition, both the animals and their wool or skins are sold in towns to pay for such simple necessities as sugar, tea and thread.