Findings on Guardianship: Where Have All the Fathers Gone?

Abstract

Where have all the fathers gone? This chapter presents the study findings on the third and final element of consent-seeking: wilāya/guardianship. The findings on this element are some of the most interesting, as a manifest divergence between Pashtun culture and Hanafī law is found to exist in the realm of guardianship in marriage. Pashtun marriage requires a ‘Nikāh plaar’ (‘Nikāh father’) to represent unmarried women in the process of contracting marriage. However, this cultural role is markedly different to the Hanafī conception of a walī/guardian in both purpose and intent. Perhaps most significantly, this chapter reveals that the Pashtuns in this study did not know much about guardianship from a religious perspective at all—and the distant, almost non-existent Nikāh plaar acts as anything but a father entrusted with the best interests of his daughter in Pashtun marriage.