ABSTRACT
The problem starts at the birth of a female child, which is frowned upon in many Muslim societies and escalates as the girl approaches the age of puberty. The ideal had to be uncovered from its historical wrappings while empirical research was necessary to bring out the contextual realities within which Muslim women existed. Role expectations within a Muslim family are derived from the norms prescribed by Islam. In order to study Muslim women the framework of role perspective is very useful. Muslim women could be anchored on a continuum, one end of which is labelled the ideal and the other end, the contextual realities. The ideal is structured by the Islamic role norms from which are derived the Islamic role expectations for female role performance in Muslim societies. The focus of this study is limited to the implications of Patriarchy in Muslim societies.
