During adolescence, the world expands for boys and contracts for girls. Boys enjoy new privileges reserved for men; girls endure new restrictions reserved for women. Boys gain autonomy, mobility, opportunity, and power (including power over girls’ sexual and reproductive lives); girls are systematically deprived of these assets. Adolescent girls’ homes are not just residential bases; they are also the loci of powerful familial forces that shape every aspect of girls’ existence, including their time use, access to school and paid work, and social status. Many adolescent girls are virtually entrapped in the domestic sphere. This confinement serves two purposes: it keeps girls out of the public arena (see “Social and physical mobility”) and it keeps them in the household, where they undergo their apprenticeship for adulthood— an intense training for a lifelong role as wife and mother . In contrast to girls, boys are encouraged to develop some degree of autonomy and independence from the family, even in societies that stress filial obedience . Adolescent girls’ ability to move beyond their home and family-defined identity has profound implications for their development. Girls’ autonomy and skill levels are substantially limited if they are not at liberty to leave home to visit friends, places, or institutions outside the family; participate in female solidarity groups; and identify themselves publicly as students, workers, and citizens