Traditionally Burmese women wear a wrap-around nether garment called Htamein and a jacket. One unique feature of Burmese women is wearing Thanakhar – a pasty make-up obtained by grinding the bark of the Thanakhar plant with water on a circular slab of stone. It is the secret of Burmese women’s smooth and youth skin.
Our tradition, Burmese women show deference to their husbands, regarding them as “gods of the front part of the house”. The implication may be that they look upon themselves as “goddesses of the rear part” The conventional saying is men are bread-winners and women are home-makers. The roles are reversed sometimes and nowadays when woman take parts the position of a rice-winning wife!
Most Burmese women are religious. Their day starts with offering alms-food, water, flowers, lights and incense to the Buddha Image at their home alter.

The five traditional duties of a Burmese women are to do household chores, to keep away things securely, to be faithful to her husband, to share what she can with her husbands’s relations and her own and to work hard. You may like to know what are her husband’s. Here it is – to be free from disregard towards her, to place his earnings to manage for family living, to abstain from having affairs with other women, to be kind and loving to her. It can be regarded like an old fashioned though, it offers us a mutual respect, support morally each other, enjoy rights and freedoms equally. The ethics is a heritage from our great grandparents.