DEPICTION OF WOMEN IN PASHTO PROVERBS

Abstract

The study is based upon proverb's collection, in relevance with women of the Marwat dialect, which is spoken in the southern city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, named as Lakki Marwat. Collection of the proverbs are analyzed with gender perspective, which is the aim of the study. Ethnographical design has been used, along with participation observation as a research tool. Purposive sampling is done for seventy homes, including the researcher’s family, in the place called Mohalla Saeed Khel of the city. The significance of the study is that ten proverbs are collected with a unique method, their themes has been designed and then restored, sketching out the portrait of the places; all the proverbs have been documented for the first time. The limitations of the study has also been observed, along with their translation; also shedding light upon the greatest limitation i.e. Covid-19 pandemic. All the collected data in the field work has been taken with consent. The argument of the study is that the image of women in Pashto proverbs fully relies upon individual’s perceptions, which derives from individual experiences that is further applied on collective group. Other factors like respect for elders, body language, and norm of giving advice in the Lakki Marwat society, gives a proverb more strength, which later becomes unchangeable, particularly for the proverbs, in the context of women. Respect for elders is the most dominant factor, due to which the proverbs become unquestionable, and if questioned, it will be considered as a disrespect for them. Talking about individual viewpoint, respect for women in the selected society is limited to a little fraction, where only a mother, sister, and daughter worth it. Every other woman, who does not fall into the above-described category, is always targeted in proverbs. In conclusion, the local proverbs, in larger sense, are going to lose their existence due to the modern technology. The new generation, predominantly youth, is no more interested to restore the local literature, which makes the previous generation, the elders of the society, perplexed and disappointed