ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of Zebi. Zebi is a young woman in her early twenties from a southern Dushanbe suburb. Her mother, Khayma, is a high school mathematics teacher; her father, Fazil, teaches Russian language and literature in another high school. A mother determined to force her kelin to submit to her authority at all costs can easily destroy her son's marriage. Zebi learned to milk cows, process cow pats and carry out other rural tasks that as an urban apartment dweller she had previously been completely unfamiliar with. Zebi's in-laws hated the fact that her parents were not behaving like those of the other kelins and that they continued to visit her frequently, taking no notice of hints to leave their daughter alone. The modernist family, based on Zebi's, is a type that as yet has few adherents.
