THE EMERGENT PATTERNS OF DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE IN NORTH INDIA Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY PRADYUMNA BEHARI MATHUR 1977 This is to certify that the thesis entitled 'DIE EMERIENT PATIERNS OF DIVORCE AND PfllARRIAGE‘. IN NOKIH INDIA presented by Pradyuma Behari Mathur has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph- D- degree in Anthropology Z 6124M, fir field/Er Major professor Date 8 August 1977 0-7639 ABSTRACT THE EMERGENT PATTERNS or DIVORCE AND RENARRIAGE IN NORTH INDIA BY Pradyumna Behari Mathur Since the enactment of the 1956 divorce law in India, this is the first study of divorces occurring in Lucknow and Jaipur during the fifteen year period from 1957 to 1972. After constructing a North Indian Hindu bridal absorptive model based on Lloyd Fallers' reformulation of Max Gluckman's hypothesis on marital stability arising out of the ideology of patriliny, 100 court cases, approximating 1/3rd of all divorces finalized in the two cities, were collected out of which narrative reports in 28 cases were written after interviewing divorced spouses, their extended kin, attorneys and judges. Utilizing a modified version of Pauline Kolenda's household typology, 22 divorce cases were classified into neolocal, uxorilocal, and patrilocal households corres- ponding with the membership-composition of households of the divorcing couples. The application of Elizabeth Bott's concept of "connected" networks to the study of divorces in neolocal households, reveals that continuation of separate and sex-segregated social and kin networks and roles, hinders the forming of P.B. Mathur intensity in conjugal bond necessary in neolocality. Status differential between spouses arising after marriage, is a divorce factor in neolocality. The structure of uxorilocality as distinguished from matrilocality shows the severity of strains on conjugal bond arising out of role reversal implicit in the North Indian uxorilocality (Ghar Jamai). Along with a negative correlation between "love marriages" and patrilocality, the span of a failed marriage is shortest in patrilocal households, though the incidence of divorce is much the lowest. Six other dissolution of marriage situations, highlighting the father daughter dyad —- the most rigid of all familial dyads and the one on which the kin and caste purity depends, permit examination of the "ritual purity complex" from the standpoint of virginity as an essential correlate of "purity". An adoption made by a divorcee and dowry transactions are further analysed in the context of the "purity" framework. Dowry with its emphasis on affinity exemplifies complementary filiation, and is often converted into a manipulatory mechanism to ensure the reproductive success of the daughter. Other dyadic structures are examined to determine their functional sense, and their instrumental and expressive roles, providing the format of patrilocality. The "respect and formal-avoidance" dyadic relationships ii P.B. Mathur on one hand are balanced against "informal and intimate" ones, both influencing the conjugal dyad. The major thrust of the analysis, however, is at two other theoretical levels: first, the contrast between "Dharma" (the caste ethic) and "Artha" (the ingredients of class and power). The concepts of purity and pollution, the twin pillars of the traditional marital system, cause different post-divorce coping strategies among women. They give rise to highly differentiated modes of remarriage of women, which run counter to the traditional marital model. The individuation response of thermxkrn—oriented divorcees and the important dimensions of the class variable are analysed in the ethnographic context, showing the manner in which the two variables -- the caste and the class, are mutually supportive as well as contrasting. Furthermore, the analysis shows that not only does the class variable stratify the internal composition of a caste, it augments behavioral trends to bilaterality. However, despite their education, economic and profess- ional accomplishments, women are unable to achieve complete autonomy and status equal to males because the concepts of purity and pollution condition their sex role models. The modern divorcees being outside the ritual complex and seeking their self-identity totally iii P.B. Mathur through the class variable, present a mini-model of accelerated socio-cultural change. They pose a threat to the caste system to the extent to which they are successful in reintegrating themselves in the larger society. The variables of caste and class, revealing a duality of identity of social actors in both frames of reference, suggest that a Hindu's identity cannot be explained either wholly with reference to Louis Dumont's purity concept, or in terms of class as suggested by Andre Beteille. The identity includes, instead, a bit of both, having two dimensions between which the social actors shift back and forth suiting to their personal needs. These findings, particularly the new bilateral trends and the duality of identity, highlight the present state of structural transition occurring in the urban North Indian society, showing the modes of adjustment which tradition makes under pressure from modernity. iv THE EMERGENT PATTERNS OF DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE IN NORTH INDIA BY Pradyumna Behari Mathur A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Anthropology 1977 (E) Copyright by PRADYUMNA BEHARI ’1977 MATHUR Dedicated to My wife Lane, and our son Arun. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The idea for this project began early in 19605 when I was a research fellow of the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi. Because of my exclusive training in law, the mechanisms for handling the divorce data were not developed until the seminar in Culture Dynamics under Dr.Charles Hughes and Dr.Leonard Kasdan in 1971-72 when my bridal absorptive model was first constructed. Discussions with the late professor Dr.Lloyd Fallers, at the University of Chicago under the auspices of the Midwestern Universities Consortium Traveling Scholars Program of 1972, helped further clarify the model. Dr.McKim Marriott's seminar on the concept of caste, and that of Dr.Ralph Nicholas on structuralism, were most useful in developing theoretical issues concerning the phenomena of divorce and remarriage. My thanks especially to Dr.Harry M. Raulet, Chairman of my doctoral guidance committee for his initial help in obtaining funding for the research proposal and for his valuable comments on the analysis of data; to the other members of the committee, Dr.Charles Morrison and Dr.William T.Ross, for their iii assistance in editing and sharpening my focus of analysis; and finally to Dr.Iwao Ishino for his stimulating questions which helped keep the study in focus. To the lawyers and judges in India, the litigants and their kin and friends for their special cooperation in helping me to collect adequate data without which this dissertation could never have been completed, I am also in debt and greatly thankful. The writing of this dissertation was itself funded by NIMH during 1974-75 by grant No. 1 F01 M—L‘SS789-Ol. I wish also to thank Ralph Fuchs, Professor of law at Indiana - Bloomington, and Robert E Mathews, Professor of Law at Texas — Austin, who obtained Ford Foundation funding for my Masters—in—Law at Stanford in 1962-63, thus setting in motion the chain of events resulting in this study. To David Popkin now at Indiana - Bloomington, whose thirty seven page description to his mother of a minor Hindu festival in 1961 was a challenge to my power of observation. Finally, my heartfelt appreciation to my son, Arun, who accepted with an unusual understanding my prolonged absences during the field work and my long hours at the typewriter. For my wife Lane, Dr.Mary E Fleming Mathur, I have an increased admiration and love for her moral, material and emotional support for the project, iv and finding time from her other burdensome professional commitments and household chores. However, she refused to offer the traditional secretarial assistance lest it compromise her position as a liberated woman. Any flaws, faults and errors of omission and commission are entirely my own, and I take full responsibility for them. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 The Frame of Household Typology 12 Table #1 showing divorce cases and their household composition. 18 Other Important Matrices of Analysis 20 Purity and Pollution Dharma and Artha The Locale of Study 24 Methodology of Field Work 25 The Background of the Law of Hindu Divorce 32 CHAPTER I : DIVORCES IN PATRILOCAL HOUSEHOLDS 37 Definitional Framework 37 SECTION I. - Dimensions of Patrilocal Authority and Marital Break-up. 39 Case #1. Ishwar vs. Indira 40 Case #2. Jagan vs. Jyoti 46 Case #3. Lila vs. Lachman 47 Case #4. Madan vs. Maya 52 SECTION II. - Love Marriages and Patrilocality 54 Case #5. Kumar vs. Kamla 55 Case #6. Omlata vs. Onkar 58 SECTION III. — The Class-Incompatible Marriages and Patrilocality 61 Case #7. Hemlata vs. Hari 61 SECTION IV - Patriarchal Authority and Marital Reconciliation Case #8. Umrao vs. Usha Case #9. Vimla vs. Vidur Case #10. Uma vs. Unesh CHAPTER II : DIVORCES IN NEOLOCAL HOUSEHOLDS A Definitional Framework SECTION I.- The Class-Incompatible Spouses Establishing Neolocal Households Case #11. Shanti vs. Shankar Case #12. Tara vs. Tarun. Case 13. Rani vs. Raj. Case 14. Yogin vs. Yogesh Case 15. Sarla vs. Satpal Case 16. Rohini vs. Rohan SECTION II - On Status Differential Between Spouses Arising During Their Post-Marital Period. Case # 17. Savitri vs. Sohan Case # 18. Rupa vs. Ram SECTION III - Attenuation of Kin-Group Ties of Neolocally Resident Men & Its Implications. Case # 19. Saroj vs. Sanjay Case # 20. Ritu vs. Ramesh SECTION IV - Love Marriage and Neolocality Case # 21. Triveni vs. Tikam ii 65 65 69 71 77 77 81 81 84 9O 92 96 98 100 101 106 111 111 113 118 118 CHAPTER III : DIVORCE IN AN UXORILOCAL HOUSEHOLD ... ... 125 A Definitional Framework 125 Complementary Filiation - A contraStooo .0. O O 128 Case #.22. Ugrasen vs. Udaivati. 131 CHAPTER IV . D IVORCES AND THE RITUAL COMPLEX OF PURITY - THE FATHER-DAUGHTER DYAD. ... 139 Case # 23. Amar vs. Asha 140 Case # 24. Gyan vs. Gita 142 Case # 25. Deomal vs. Deepa 144 Case # 26. Fakir Chand vs. Farima 145 Case # 27. Bina vs. Binod. 147 Case # 28. Charan vs. Champa 148 The Ritual Complex of Purity and Virginity... ... 150 The Concept of Virginity - A Correlate of Purity ... 153 Father-Daughter Dyad and the Ritual Purity Complex 158 Dowry and the Ritual Purity Complex 164 The Adoption and the Ritual Purity Complex... ... 169 CHAPTER V : THE FATHER SON DYAD 175 Rationale for the Dyadic Primacy 182 Implications of Love Marriage on Father-son Dyad 186 Father-Son Dyad and Son's Autonomy through Neolocality 187 iii CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII: CHAPTER VIII: CHAPTER IX MOTHER DAUGHTER AND MOTHER SON DYADS .... BHABHI DEVAR DYAD ... THE HUSBAND WIFE DYAD ... DIVORCEES: ASCRIPTIVE RITUAL POLLUTION AND MODES OF REMARRIAGE ... Ascriptive Ritual Pollution and Its Conceptual Format... No Permanent Pollution for Males Ritual Pollution and Its Victims Pollution and the Control of Women Table II - Emergent Patterns of Remarriages of Divorcees. Ceremonial of Remarriage Marriage and Remarriage Differentiated Love Marriage vs. Remarriage Traditional Marital Ritual vs. Remarriage Ceremonial The Virgin and the Divorcee - A Summary Mini-Model of Socio-Cultural Change iv 190 196 216 229 230 233 235 236 242 243 244 247 250 252 255 CHAPTER X : THE VARIABLES OF CASTE AND CLASS - THEIR IMPLICATIONS... .... 259 Layer System in the Internal Structure of Castes ... 270 The Caste Variable and Louis Dumont ... 272 The Class Variable - Modernity and Individuation 276 The Emergent Bilateral Trends 286 Caste and Class Variables Contrasted ... 290 The Duality of Identity ... 293 Summary: The Nature of Synthesis of the Two Variables 297 CHAPTER XI CONCLUSIONS 300 APPENDIX 1. (A Marriage Invitation Card) 318 BIBLIOGRAPHY : 319 I N T R O D U C T I O N After the ending of colonialism in 1947, independent India legislated in 1955, as a matter of social reform, divorce provisions for Hindus. Divorce is, therefore, a new phenomenon in Hindu society. There is no area of Hindu familial interaction other than a divorce situation that raises more profound cultural questions about the nature of contemporary Hindu social system. This dissertation deals with a selection of divorce cases of the last two decades investigating Hindu ideology and behavior in the areas of family, kinship and caste in order to elucidate the process of social change, specially in marital and familial institutions in the urban milieu of North Indian society. The divorce statute, the Hindu Marriages Act of 1955, introduced some new situations in terms of the fundamental principles of Hindu marriage and the realities of Hindu family, kin and caste relationships. According to law prior to 1955, Hindu marriage, as in the Roman Catholic Church, was a sacrament, not a contract as it is in the secular systems of many societies both simple and complex. The sacramental model created an irreversible marital relationship by transferring jural control over a woman from her father to the groom and his kin group. Such a jural transfer carried with it new rights of maintenance and inheritance for the bride (Mulla 1960). The sacramental model, founded on religio-cultural ethos and religious mandate, is accompanied by spiritual sanctions. The new statutory law providing for divorce contradicts, in principle and ideology, the very foundations upon which Hindu social structure rests. This bold experiment that a statutory regime, foreign at any rate in origin, should be imposed upon so vast a populace, is quite remarkable (Derrett 1968:352). By legally permitting Hindus to repudiate the ideologically indissolvable bonds of marriage, conditions are created whereby the divorced women become peripheral to the traditional social structural scheme of Hindu society. Divorce as with marriage in India, is not the concern of two individuals. It is not simply an isolated action but a social process that affects not only the individual but also family, kin and caste structures. A marital failure resulting in divorce represents the greatest challenge to the marital and familial institutions, customs and traditions of Hindu society. A detailed ethnographic description of divorce situations reveals more about marital and household relationships than just the troubles that beset the spouses. Such a description elucidates the nature of marital expectations, modes of social behavior, the ways of functioning of a husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, siblings and other consanguines and affines in a household. By highlighting the conditioning and conflicts that engender marital discord, it reflects the reality of life as it is lived. To write about divorce is to commit oneself to describing the stream of the cultural life of the peOple. It is to understand the domestic lives of social actors and how they, both as individuals and members of a family or a larger unit, related and interacted with one another. By so doing and searching for meanings of their experiences, an insight is gained into the values that are basic to the structure of marriage, familial and other doemstic institutions of the peOple, and the manner by which such institutions adjust to change. Divorces do not resolve dichotomies, polarities and conflict, instead they highlight them; and to learn about them is one of the main purpose of this study. More specifically, my object in analysing divorce situations is to ascertain the kind of households in which divorces occurred, the circumstances creating the situations leading to divorce, the patterns of post- divorce life styles of divorcees, the mode of their remarriage, and the ramifications of divorce and remarriage for Hindu domestic institutions. The caption of the dissertation, starting with the word 'emergent', is chosen to highlight the transition occurring in the familial and marital institutions of the region among the three highest 'Varnas', Brahman Kshatriya and‘Vaishya, of the North Indian region comprising the states of U.P. and Rajasthan. Twenty eight cases were selected from the three hundred divorce cases on record in the courts of Lucknow and Jaipur during the fifteen year period from 1956 to 1971. The cases were selected as being representative of the total divorces in the following way. The first twenty two cases highlight the dynamics of life in patrilocal, neolocal and uxorilocal households, and the last six elucidate the parental concept of marriage. All these cases reveal the diverse divorce causes, incidence, and modes of remarriage of divorced women. Since extensive studies on marital stability and instability appear in the literature on Africa but no theoretical study based on case analysis exists on India, it is to the Africanists one must turn for a theoretical framework. Among these studies I found that Lloyd Fallers' (1957) reformulation of Max Gluckman's hypothesfls appeared most fruitful for providing a basis on which to build the Hindu marital model. Gluckman (1950) stated that the ideology of patriliny prevents divorce in and of itself. Fallers disagreed and suggested that it was not the ideology of patriliny that brings about marital stability but the absorption of the incoming bride in her husband's patrilineage (Fallers 1957:121). Fallers did not elaborate on the meaning of absorption but expressly left it to others who work with the phenomenon in patrilineal societies to do so. Obviously, my first task is to identify the dimensions of such 'absorption' before formulating any hypothesis predictive of marital breakdown or the outcome of a divorce situation in patrilineal Hindus. Bridal absorption refers to a certain ethos and norms shared by an incoming wife, which function to accomplish the socially cherished objective of identifying and integrating her with her new conjugal family. Not only do the ethos and norms relate to the modes of her identification and loyalty but they also lay out a structural scheme of jural affiliation, rights and duties both in spiritual and temporal domains, having religious and social sanctions for both the spouses of a marriage. Emphasis on absorption of an incoming bride is placed in in the Hindu scheme in the following ways. 1. A transfer of control, both in ideology and reality, occurs on marriage from a bride's parents to her groom and his lineage. Daughters are raised as guests in their parental households and socialization prepares them for such a transfer. 2. Marriage involves a removal of a married woman from her natal home to her conjugal home. 3. The ties of a bride with her natal home gradually attenuate. First, there is a prohibition on her kinsmen to visit with her in her conjugal home. Secondly, gifts are not exchanged but given in a unidirectional manner from her natal kin to her affines and her children throughout her life. 4. Hypergamy is the norm whereby a woman ideologically marries up and her affines are viewed as socio-ritual superiors of her consanguines. This facilitates the transition and absorption into a home of higher socio- economic standing. 5. Rights of Pater vest in her groom and his lineage. There is a strong legal and cultural presumption of a husband's socio-jural paternity of the children born during marital period. 6. A married woman claims maintenance and inheritance only out of her husband's properties and the joint assets of his lineage, and not from her own father and natal home. 7. A11 rituals and festivities require her participation with her spouse and her affines. 8. Rituals and prestations generate cultural ethos which guide her conduct and status in her conjugal home. 9. Ideology prescribes that a husband must perform all rituals with his wife and not by himself acting alone. ‘ 10. Ritual pollution does not attach to a married woman living in her conjugal home on the death of any of her own natal home kin. The above enumeration represents an organizing concept that refers to particular units of thought to which several other ideas and activities are related. Such related ideas serve as primary postulates undefinable outside of the system of thought to which they give essential structure (Neale:1969:6). Bridal absorption among the North Indian Hindus is an encompassing multi-dimensional phenomenon. The term 'absorption' may be characterized as a referent wherein are crystallized certain ideals and values to serve as guidelines for a bride, as well as her conjugal family, to bring about emotive and material, actual and ideological readjustment and assimilation. The model provides only the structural guidelines for absorption which does not occur overnight but must take place slowly over time. The absorptive model elucidates the Hindu design of child rearing, family organization and general living. The model reveals the working relationships between various familial dyads and processes, showing the manner in which agnates, consanguines, and affines are inter-related and supposed to interact. Once the model is laid out, any deviation from it should suggest the potentiality of marital discord. In any case, on the basis of the bridal absorptive model, I had formulated in the research proposal a set of five exploratory hypotheses on the causation and outcome of divorce. 1. In a patrilocal household, a divorce initiated at the instance of a husband would result in his having to leave the household, while the wife and children stayed there. 2. In divorces occurring among neolocally resident spouses, divorced women would be found maintaining close ties with their natal home, contrary to the absorptive model. 3. Among neolocally resident spouses, status inconsistency arising during their post- marital life would render the marriage unstable, and cause divorce. 4. Class incompatible caste-endogamous marriage in an urban setting would cause marital stress regardless of the type of structure of the house- hold of the couple. 5. Among professional people, hypogamy, a phenomenon of recent growth, would be an independent variable for divorce. All these five hypotheses, exploratory in nature were designed with a view to develOp understanding of marital discord leading to divorce. This perspective of my inquiry though includes explorations of hypothesis, a methodology that anthropologists share with sociolo- gists, does not determine and control the framework of data analysis. I have not attempted to analyse the data for hypothesis testing and to obtain their precise correlations in view of the sample being small and selective. My sample comprises only of 28 cases out of the large corpus of 300 existing on court records in the cities of Lucknow and Jaipur. My analysis is not a review of divorce cases but a situational analysis of marital discord that led to divorce,undertaken with a view to understand the dynamics of marital life, divorce and post divorce modes of adaptations in the region. I believe that a concern for rigorous methodology and scientific precision in the analysis of marital and familial institutions would have been at the expense of culturally significant problems existing in the Hindu society of the region. To elucidate the dynamics of various inter-relationships in a household, the roles of a husband and wife in it, the data analysis is undertaken in the theoretical framework of household structural typology. Such a framework of analysis advances our understanding of the organizational theory of Hindu domestic institutions, that lies behind the constraints or motivations for the behavior of social actors. The household structures, from the standpoint of individual couples obtaining a divorce, are examined in the context of patrilocality, neolocality, and 1O uxorilocality, with a special focus on the following aspects. a) the particular problems which the divorcing couples faced from co-resident members of the household. b) the inter-generational differences in the concept of marriage, as well as the different attitudes and expectations of disputing spouses regarding marital living. c) the inference on the dynamics of life in the three household structural types relative to divorce or marital stability. Thus, the term "household structure" in this dissertation is used to signify not only the composithr of a household but also the existence of primary dyadic relationships that are central in a particular type of household,,gfig., father-son, father-daughter, sibling relationships in patrilocality, conjugal dyad in neolocality, and the role of a wife's parents in uxorilocality. In this manner, the concept of house- hold structure serves to organize the framework of analysis. Each of the above type of household has its own domestic authority which implies a meaningful pattern of attitudes and behavior on the part of members living in it. By segregating households in terms of their structural components, the social behavior in marital and familial life situations is better understood. These types of households do not characterize any particular caste or class of people 11 in any part of the region; rather, they provide a single summary way of looking at the phenomenon of dissolution of marriage in the context of cultural dynamics involved, reflecting a pervasive aspect of marital living among Hindus of the region. The three types of households mentioned above are analytical types. The first two may display an occasional overlap in terms of authority structure in a concrete case, that is to say that the authority may rest in one and the same person in the first two types of households. Yet it is not a common thing to occur. Further, these types are clearly distinct in terms of membership composition. I have distinguished them from one another for two purposes: (a) in order to find patterns in attitudes and behavior among the co-resident kin in relation to the married couple, and (b) to explain how a particular type of household generates a particular kind of marital discord disruptive of marriage. 12 THE FRAMEWORK 9g HOUSEHOLD TYPOLOGY: In the absence of well delineated native categories of household structure, except 'separate" and "joint", anthropologists have fashioned their own to indicate household structural types which are at variance with one another. Such typology-classifica- tions are almost as many as the anthropologists them- selves. Because of the limited usefulness of some of these, I am confining my discussion of types to Kolenda (1967, and 1968), Vatuk (1972) and Shah(1974). By adopting Pauline Kolenda's typology and suggesting certain modifications, I hope to advance theory on such typology. Kolenda (1968) was the first to undertake a comparative study of the correlation between household structures and post-marital life in Indian families, and to develop a concise and exact system of nomenclature. Because her categories systematize and describe with precision the types of household structures, they represent the most useful set of terms established thus far in about 26 anthro- pological and sociological studies of Indian family undertaken since 1949. Sylvia Vatuk's (1972:53-54) use of the term "family" rather than "household" and the term "joint" rather than "extended" used by Kolenda (1967 and 1968), I find preferable since her substituths 13 keep Kolenda's nomenclature free of the ambiguity which "family" and "joint" have acquired during the long history of confused usage in the literature. The minor flaw in Kolenda's categories noted both by Vatuk (1972:53) and Shah(1974:222) that both patrilineal and matrilineal families are includible is remedied by a simple notation that households covered by a particu- lar set of data are patrilineal unless otherise noted. Uxorilocal and matrilocal households, being rare, can always be noted in a footnote. If the incidence of such households is substantial, relevant prefixes like "patri" and "matri", can always be added to Kolenda's categories, drawing two sets of tables in place of just one. I have used the following categories from Kolenda's (1967:149-150; and 1968:346-347) nomenclature as modified by Vatuk (1972:53-54) to describe the composition of households in which divorced couples had lived during their marital period. 1. NUCLEAR: married couple, with or without unmarried offspring. 2. SUPPLEMENTED NUCLEAR: A nuclear household with one ' or more kin like widowed mother or father not constituting a married couple. 3. COLLATERAL EXTENDED: Two or more married couples with or without offspring, between whom there are sibling bonds. 14 4. SUPPLEMENTED COLLATERAL EXTENDED: Collateral exten- ded household along with one or more addi- tional kin who do not themselves constitute a married couple. 5. LINEAL EXTENDED: Two or more married couples, with or without unmarried offspring, between whom lineal links exist. 6. SUPPLEMENTED LINEAL EXTENDED: Lineal extended household with one or more additional kin not constituting a married couple. 7. LINEAL COLLATERAL EXTENDED: Three or more couples, with or without offspring, between whom both lineal and collateral links exist. 8. SUPPLEMENTED LINEAL COLLATERAL EXTENDED: Lineal collateral extended household plus one or more additional kin not constituting a married couple. It is a great merit of Kolenda's nomenclature that it describes a household composition with accuracy as to the membership content of households, and at the same time makes the various categories of households mutually exclusive. Furthermore, her nomenclature spells out the principles of lineality and collaterafity basic to kinship organization in the context of which relationships are perceived, used and acted upon by social actors in the region. Shah (1974:222) attributes his objection to the use of Kolenda's typology to his strongly held belief that Indian nuclear and sub-nuclear households in their culture-specific context are not quite the same as 15 their Western counterpart. His error lies in making a basic assumption that "it is a crucial fact of Indian culture that an elementary family may be genealogically complete but is is socially incomplete" (1974:143) rather than showing it as a research conclusion which it should be if so substantiated by the analysis of his data. But that he fails to do. My data remain inconclusive on this point as discussed in Chapter VIII on "Husband-Wife Dyad" in this disser- tation. Though Kolenda's categories of "Nuclear" and "Sub-nuclear" do not elucidate social behavioral patterns of the members resident in those types of households, they identify, nevertheless, the membership of such units with precision. It is left to the field worker to explain their Operation and conclude whether a particular household structure represents a type specific to a region or culture. Shah's criticism is unfounded because he speculates in the realm of cultural idealism while Kolenda provides formal categories to be used as analytic tools - heuristic devices for cultural analysis and not as ends in themselves. Moreover, Vatuk (1972:128-135 and 190) successfully uses Kolenda's "Nuclear and "Sub-nuclear" format to explain whether the intensity of kinship bonds 16 diminishes on the formation of nuclear households in the context of rural migration to an urban center, and whether an urban neighborhood is an impersonal place where the primary relationships of its inhabi- tants are lost and anonymity prevails. Her research conclusions that neither hypothesis could be supported by the data, do not in any way render Kolenda's’ typology invalid, but only show that the household structures are not social isolates in the cultural milieu and that their existence should not be viewed as evidence of any alleged or supposed demise of the Indian extended family system. Vatuk's study showing these research conclusions which lend support to Shah's cultural idealist-assertions, makes far greater gains through the use of Kolenda's typology than Shah's (1974) attempt without it. Vatuk is able to obtain new levels of empirical reality regarding the connections and dynamics between nuclear households of the city of Meerut and the extended ones of the countryside without taking her reader to a tortuous road of new and largely undefined categories, as Shah does. Because Kolenda's typology has the potential of providing self-explanatory classificatory system of households based on easily understood generic principles of kinship without entailing a cumbersome 17 definitional chart as well as facilitating inter- regional and cross-cultural comparisons, it should be followed in future studies of the Indian family. TABLE No.1. 18 HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION OF 22 CASES -EQEIQZEEE-§§-§§éE$§§§-II-EEz-BEB-EIE;---- Household Number Name & Personeel Types: of the Case in each House- Number. Household holds. NUCLEAR 10 Shanti#11 H. w. Tara #12 H. W. 2Ds. Rani #13 H.W. D. Yogin #14 H.W. 2Ds. S. Sarla #15 H. W. Rohini 16 H. N. D. S. Savitri 17 H. W. 2Ds. Rupa 18 H .w. 2Ds. Saroj 19 H.W. Triven121 H. W. D. SUPPLEMENTED NUCLEAR 1 Madan # 4 H.W.M. Ugrasen 22 H. w. WF.(Uxorilocal) Vimla 9 H. W. 2Ds. S. SUPPLEMENTED COLLATERAL EXT. 1 Ishwar #1 H. w. HF, B Bw, B'D&S. SUPPLEMENTED Hemlata#”7 H. W. HF, HM & Bs.Zs. LINEAL EXT: 6 Jagan #2 H. W. HF, HM & BS. Kumar S H. W. HF, HM & B5. 25. Lila 3 H.W. HF, HM & Bs. Ritu 20 H. W. HF, HM & B. UMA 10 H. w. HF, HM & B. LINEAL COLLATERAL EXT: 1 Omlata #6 H. w. D. HF, HM. BS. BW and 25. SUPPLEMENTED LINEAL COLLATERAL EXTENDED: 1. Umrao #8 H. w. S. HF, HM, B and HFB. Six case narratives on dissolution of marriages are given in Chapter IV on Ritual Complex and Father-daughter dyad. 19 The preceding table shows, through the use of Kolenda's typology, that the single largest category of households is Nuclear-neolocal; that there is a variation in the composition of patrilocal households; and finally, "Supplemented-Nuclear" households are both patrilocal and uxorilocal. The 22 case narratives contained in Chapters I, II and III show that a I composition of a household as no apparent correlatknm with income, profession, occupation or caste of the members; and, that any type of household can be found in any caste or class of people in the region. In analysing the divorce cases, I am concerned with showing the extent to which attitudes and expectations inherent in traditional North Indian kinship system engender marital discord, or conversely, reconcile discordant marital situations and play a role in constructing post-divorce life styles and remarriage. Accordingly, I have examined structural configurations of household composition from three perspectives. First, I discuss households as whole units, or entities, by their members as shown in Table I; then, in terms of the various familial dyads of which a husband and wife are members; and, finally, from the standpoint of the spouses obtaining divorce. By approaching divorce situations in the context of household composition, 20 one finds it easier to understand the thinking and behavioral patterns not only of spouses themselves but, more importantly, of the co-resident kin and affines associated with particular types of households. OTHER IMPORTANT MATRICES OF ANALYSIS: 1. "PURITY AND POLLUTION". 2. "DHARMA AND ARTHA”. The analysis of familial dyads given in Chapters IV to VIII of this dissertation is, however, not the primary focus of the whole analysis of divorce and remarriage data. Because the study deals with the present day people in the urban milieu, not some recreated traditional ideology, we find the social actors in the case narratives to be subjected to the type of conflicts arising from their educational, occupational-professional format in which they live and the traditional ideology that regulates the marital and familial institutions. These are contemporary people with real life conflicts and problems resulting from living in the two worlds - the traditional and the modern. By focusing on the dilemma of these people, a new perspective on the conflict of modernity and tradition highlights the stresses between the'ritual" Hindu conceptualized by Dumont (1970) and the "class" 21 Hindu of the urban elite described by Beteille (1969) which I find co-exist in the same individual. The major thrust of the dissertation is, therefore, to explore the ideology of contemporary urban society in regard to marriage, divorce and remarriage at two distinct levels: first, it is in the matrix of "purity and pollution" that I have outlined the concept of ritual purity and its correlates in Chapter IV and ascriptive ritual pollution on divorcees in Chapter IX. These two chapters, although separated by necessity, form two bookends supporting the traditional marital system. The second level of analysis is concerned with describing the modes of post-divorce coping behavior of divorced women in the matrix of "Dharma" and "Artha" wherein the caste ethic is contrasted with the ingredients of class and power. This attempt is, to an extent, a response to the challenge posed by Kolenda (1976) when she comments that neither Dumont nor any Anglo-American trained social scientist has explored the ideologies of living Hindus to under- stand social interaction in the context of "Dharma" and "Artha". In the matrix of ritual pruity, the analysis suggests that virginity is an essential correlate of 22 the ritual-purity-complex, fully discussed in Chapter IV. Virginity is found to be more of a socio-structural concept than a physiological one; and for a woman to compromise her virginity prior to her marriage is a grave sin for a daughter to commit against her father. The modes of remarriage of women, analysed in the context of their ritual pollution, are compared and contrasted with the traditional marriage of virgins. The various ramifications of the two modes of remarriages are pointed out.in Chapter IX. In the urban milieu of the region, the process of individuation for women takes place in a broad institutional context which provides education and occupational-professional roles for them. This institutional context creates a potential for occupa— tional and financial independence, enabling divorcees to restructure their lives on their own and succeed by tapping such potential. This brings us to the second level of analysis of "Dharma" and "Artha". Those women who after their divorce remain dependent upon their kin and allow things to happen to them are categorized as traditional; whereas, the women who restructure their marital lives on their own or arrange their post—divorce life by themselves, are described herein as modern. The process of individuatflni 23 seen in the coping behavior of the modern divorcees is a concept which serves as a point of comparison for appraising the way in which the traditional marital system distributes the benefits and burdens of its shared social existence to persons in different categories. Such a comparative framework also provides the rationale for the transition being experienced by the urban society today in choosing various social arrangements in marital and domestic instituions. Furthermore, the process of individuation which is an essential correlate of the variable of class society, fosters the growth of new bilateral trends in the urban society, discussed at length in Chapter X. The variable of class provides a sharp contrast to the ritual aspect of life in the situations of modern divorcees, facilitating their reintegration at the level of class-elite in the larger society. This phenomenon is in a way reflective of the duality of identity of a modern Hindu, an aspect examined in that chapter. I have synthesized the diverse theoretical formulations on identity-orientation of contemporary Hindus offerred by Dumont and Beteille, and suggested that social actors maintain both identities to be emphasized one over the other depending upon the circumstances of the situation. 24 The locale of the study are the cities of Lucknow and Jaipur, the capitals of the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, respectively. These are large cities with a population of over half a million in each. Although, the distance between them involves a 20 hour journey by a railway train, they have a mutually interacting and inter-marrying populace through the caste system, thereby turning the whole area into the milieu of a common culture region. The divorce data reflect marital alliances that are far flung into the adjacent states of Haryana (Punjab), Delhi, Central Provinces and Berar. No particular type of marital discord or a cause of divorce was found to be specific to either of the two cities of the two states. Both the causes and processes of marital discOrd cross-cut all the castes in the two cities. The Hindu religion in this region forbids marriage if the relationship between two potential spouses is traceable either in the patrilineal line upto seven generations, or in matrilineal line upto three. In this manner, the bilateral counting of kin- ship with a strong bias for agnatic kin characterizes the social organization of the region. 25 METHODOLOGY gr; FIELD WORK: Because both Pauline Kolenda and Sylvia Vatuk had expressed surprise at my ability to gain access to data, especially contacting women (comments on P.Mathur 1977), it has become necessary to dwell rather fulsomely upon both my fieldwork methodology and my background which provided me with far greater Opportunity for access to the data contained in Chapters I,II, III, and IV, than would normally be possible. I was at the timecf the fieldwork a citizen of India who before coming to the United States had studied for my LL.B. in Lucknow and LL.M. at Jaipur as well as practised law in Jaipur. I had taught law at the University of Rajasthan at Jaipur, and later in Meerut and Mathura, spending also a year as a research fellow of the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi. From this I had a broad acquaintanceship with members of the legal profession, many of them being my colleagues and former students, to add to the very large number of lawyers and judges in my own extensive kindred. All of these people proved very helpful in making me known to divorce lawyers, judges and giving me access to their own files and that of others. 26 The judges were kind enough to ask their court- staffs to locate files for me, a very onerous task since Indian courts do not have the efficient filing system of the western world. It is this which has long been a major stumbling block in the attempts by earlier researchers to obtain data. Rapport with the court staff, lack of which being the second problem for other researchers, was easily obtained both because they wished to please their superiors and secondly because I was of local origin in both cities. Furthermore, thirteen years in the United States makes "even an Indian" learn respect for human dignity which when extended to junior clerks in India in the form of simple courtesies, seems to make obtaining their cooperation very easy. Beyond this the court staff received a few packs of American playing cards, the only reward they would accept. The court files on divorce cases were generally thick, containing voluminous testimony and cross examination not only of the spouses but often of their parents, and friends including neighbors. Once I gath- ered relevant data from two district courts in the two cities in about fifty cases, I selected for further investigation 25 cases having adequate data on a representative basis to cover all aspects of marital 27 discord situations and divorce causes seen in the cases. In these cases, I succeeded in contacting attorneys representing both sides and their clients, and reconstructed pre—marital, post-marital, and post—divorce life styles of the spouses. I found that divorced men and their relatives were very cooperative, and gave me as much time as I needed. Males were generally easy of access and did not observe any reservations in their replies. There was no reluctance in their discussing any tOpic. Contacting divorced women and their relatives for an interview was, however, much more difficult. Normally, it is virtually impossible for a man who is not a member of the kindred to obtain informa- tion from or interview a woman in Hindu society. A divorcee is no different. Perhaps, because a divorce case raises a general concern for the bad example it creates for young persons, and causes apprehensions for the kind of change that it sets in motion, it becomes a subject for gossip and concern. In a male dominated society where divorce is rare, divorced women are looked upon as being from a different species. The general curiosity about women who have obtained a divorce is mixed with some awe for her daring in defying the normal mores. Moreover, the 28 Hindu society attaches a stigma to divorced women which leaves many of them with an inferiority complex and sense of personal failure. Many are driven by this into an enforced seclusion. Moreover, any attempt to obtain from them details of a personal and private nature regarding their lives with their ex-husband and former affines embarrasses them. I was able, however, by identifying collateral relatives and making their acquantance to meet with some of the women and their kindred. By avoiding direct reference to the issue of divorce and by using the medium of my female relatives who are professors and lawyers in both cities, I was able to obtain con- tact with many divorcees. In the case of others renewing my own membership in the professional group of the two cities made contacts possible and easier. In still other cases, the presence of my 'foreign' wife, herself an anthropologist, provided the Opening wedge. My wife and I generally initiated discussions with female informants at an objective and impersonal level on the general topics of status of women, nature of difficulties of career-oriented women, and their views on marriage, education and family authority 29 structure, focusing in on the decision-making process in match-making and marital living. The divorced women resent the fact that their ill-fated matrimony is a matter of public concern, and that the soceity gossips about them with a self-righteous indignation. No questions On divorce or their ex-affines were initiated directly by us. Almost in every case the divorcees brought the topic of divorce for discussion by themselves and volunteered all the data. Our modest inquiries of "How did it happen that way?", or our expressions of puzzlement served to keep them in the desired focus and helped them give us the relevant details of all that happened in their experience. A special feature conspicuously present in our interviews with divorcees deserves a mention. The divorcees displayed reluctance to discuss their divorce status in front of their parents or kin, yet in the presence of my wife could scarcely wait to unburden themselves to me. Even the presence of the chauffeur of a car did nOt deter them, if they were talking to us in the automobile kindly lent to us by friends. The same women would have behaved far differently if my wife were a native herself. And, if I had been all by myself, unaccompanied by my wife, they would have scarcely talked to me. They complained 30 bitterly on the predilection of Indian women to gossip. A foreign couple is assumed either not to gossip in the native circles, or we were known to be leaving too soon to spread gossip, and thus we provided a cathartic listening post. My wife however noted that, although without her presence the divorcees would not talk, it was to me they poured out their story. Gaining the sympathetic ear of an Indian man and perhaps my real interest in their story itself provided the stimulus for this. In any event, an accompanying female either my wife or any other kin added to respectability of the visit and made them feel much less uneasy in talking to me. Also, a visit by a couple does not arouse suspicions in the minds of neighbors that a visit by a man alone would do. A structured questionaire in such delicate social situations would have defeated the very purpose and object of our interviews. In fact, it would not have worked at all in the Hindu situation. Once these women began to tell things, they poured forth in torrents the details of their marriages and marital break-ups, the faults of their own parents in the match- making, and the false ideology in which the parents had labored to arrange their marriage, the faults and 31 and ineptness of their ex-husbands and cruelties of their affines and how their marriages could have been saved'..: They did not curse ’their kin or affines but ' highlighted the details with emotion and taint of bitterness. None seemed to admit their own short-' comings save occasionally bewailing the birth of daughters rather than sons. I wish to emphasize that a direct contact with a woman without a referral from her kinsmen or attorney just to seek data on her divorce would be most unadvisable. My work was most facilitated when their own attorneys advised them of our objectives for the interviews. In couple of cases, the divorcees were themselves extremely social and enlightened individuals, and volunteered information without the slightest reservation and with utmost candor, helping us to obtain a clear view of domestic interaction. 32 THE BACKGROUND OF THE LAW OF HINDU DIVORCE: Before the enactment of the Hindu marriages and divorce law of 1955 which provided for divorce, Hindu males were free in law to marry more than one wife. The Hindu Law (Reform) Committee of 1947, known as the Rau Committee, collected overwhelming evidence in favor of monogamy, and found that although polygyny was permitted in theory, it was monogamy which was actually practised.- The committee were persuaded also by the orthodox opinion that a man who marries a second wife when his first wife fulfilled all the conditions required of a "Dharmpatni" i.e. a wife in dharma and religion, commits a sin and should be punished. Their recommendations that monogamy should be a rule of law and bigamy punishable with imprisonment were enacted by the 1955 statute. On the issue of adultery and adulterous cohabitation by a male, the Committee did not agree with those who wanted to permit a man's keeping a concubine unless he aggravated the situation by bringing the_concubine actually into his marital home. The Committee recommended that the law should operate equally between man and woman, believing that the public opinion would not tolerate differential standards in that respect. Curiously enough, the Committee 33 observed: "We are satisfied that very few Hindu wives will seek a divorce where thenais nothing else against a husband, except that he keeps a concubine. Even in countries where divorce is now allowed merely on the ground of adultery, women care a good deal for outward appearances and do not advertise their husband's indidelity by seeking a divorce, especially when there are children of the marriage." (1947:26, # 98). The correctness of the Committee's observations is borne by the fact that in the last 20 years of the entire record of suits filed by wives for judicial separation and divorce in the two large and important cities of Lucknow and Jaipur, there was not a single suit filed by a petitioner-wife complaining against her husband's adultery as the cause of action. There were, however, two divorce suits, as also discussed in the dissertation, initiated by the wives of adulter- ously cohabiting husbands. The wives were coerced, threatened and bribed through financial settlement made for them into so doing by their husbands who desperately wanted to marry the women with whom they cohabited, and whom they did marry after the divorces were over. But the divorced wives did not, or perhaps could not, remarry. The Rau Committee was further strengthened in their pro-divorce opinion by reviewing the experience of the divorce law of the Hindu state of Baroda 34 which was a principality outside British controlled India, and the provisions of the official divorce Bill introduced by the Bombay State legislature. The Committee, therefore, recommended for divOrce in a manner to give relief in hard cases and ensure that divorce provisions would not be abused, as they themselves put it, "our recommended provisions steer a middle course. They do not make divorce too easy. Nor do they make divorce impossible". However, the Indian federal legislature, more conservative than the Rau Committee in providing for divorce, created several waiting periods in different stages of the divorce proceedings under the statute. Thus, to obtain a divorce, it now takes a minimum of four to seven years, which explains why there were only 300 divorce actions filed in the two major urban centers of our study. This phenomenon is further compounded by the judges who are obliged by the statute to see that a divorce being sought is non- collusive and that it has a cause of action on genuine legal grounds. Often judges are themselves very conservative in maintaining their own notions of the sanctity of the marital bond and in imposing their personal standards especially on petitioner wives to endure hardships and cruelties in their marital homes. 35 Hence, the judges often deny to petitioner wives who had been living separately for four and in one case six years before filing a petition for judicial separation, even the preliminary decree which is a long way away from a divorce. The state of Uttar Pradesh by a special law introduced the ground of cruelty for filing a divorce petition in that state, a prOcedure permitted by the federal statute. The state of Rajasthan has not enacted any additional ground for divorce other than what exist in federal law. Hence, the ground of cruelty entitles a person only judicial separation under federal law, and after the expiry of two years of the court's issuance of such a decree, the parties hawea right to move for divorce. The divorce record of the two courts of Lucknow and Jaipur indicated that both males and females apply for divorce almost equally. A very special feature of the divorce law is that it does reluctantly provide for a way out of an oppressive marriage after crossing several legal hurdles. The legislative apprehension that divorce would imperil the marital system and family structure was responsible for their half-hearted approach in making divorce available, which in turn, has seriously 36 undermined the prospects for divorced persons, especially women, to reconstruct their marital lives. The divorce seekers very often spend a good part of their youth in legal proceedings after their marital disruption, and therefore, find themselves on the wrong side of the marriageable age after the divorce proceedings are completed. For Indian women the range of the marriageable age ends at about 29, and for men it ends at 35. With divorce proceedings taking generally seven or more years, there is very little time, desire or opportunity left to be suitably remarried. The Indian Law Commission in 1975 had recommended reducing and even eliminating some of the waiting periods structured at every stage of the divorce proceedings. But the Indian parliament has yet to act and it minimally would take three to five years to pass the recommended amendments to the statute to introduce less stringent provisions for divorce. CHAPTER I DIVORCES IN PATRILOCAL HOUSEHOLDS 5_Definitional Framework: For the eligibility of marriage of a Hindu male, the establishment of an independent household is not only unnecessary, it is universally preferred that married life be started in his parental family household. Minimally, the Hindu belief system advocates that the first few months of the post-marital period be spent with the parents of the groom even if a longer stay is not possible because the groom is employed in another city. Since newly-wed spouses are almost always strangers to each other, their respective natal homes encourage them to ' know each other better around some kin before the two can be trusted to live neolocally. Moreover, the new bride should not have primacy over her groom's agnatic kin according to the Hindu tradition. Education, occupation, income and caste backgrounds do not make any difference to these rules. Furthermore, an addition of a new member is not viewed as causing the stress in family relationships as it would in Western culture. In fact the traditional patrilocal household is composed of the married couple, the husband's parents, sometimes even father's parents, siblings, with a married brother and his wife and children in the household. 37 38 A marriage in the Hindu society is a complex social affair because of the arranged nature of the matrimonial match, problem of dowry, ideological irrevocability of marital bond, and establishment of kin-group alliance which is augmented by the children born of the married couple. The parents and the kin of parental generation of a marrying couple have some leverages favoring them through dowry, inviting kin to participate, forming a groom's marriage party for reception at the bride's home, and performing the accompanying rituals - the important aspects of a Hindu marriage, which are accomplished only when a groom and his bride act in concert with their respective parents. These features reinforce not only patriarchal authority but also patrilocal mode of living on marrying couples. The traditional marital model and the data confirm that there is no social expectation that marriage imposes full economic obligations upon a couple beginning marriage since an independent domicile is not a part of the social expectations. Neither economic nor social individualism is. promoted by child-rearing practices for adolescents of either sex. The performing of early marriages by parental arrangement itself acts to further limit any moves toward independence by the new couple. Not only doe. the son maintain the same economic claim on the parental ‘household but his wife simply joins him as a dependent. 39 Thus the continuance of institutionalized parental authority is assured by patrilocality in the early years of marriage. Since the cases are not ideosyncratic but symptomatic of the traditional authority structure, they reflect various dimensions of patriarchal authority having both negative and positive aSpects. The cases themselves would not reveal so much if they could not be placed in the familial authority framework. The break-up of marnkmfis of patrilocally resident couples was caused mostly by the stresses resulting from the traditional concepts of marital life. SECTION I. DIMENSIONS OF PATRIARCHAL AUTHORITY AND MARITAL BREAKAUP: - If it is recognized that the primary goal orientation of patrilocally resident kin is the maintenance of the multi-generational household as a unit, much of what occurs by way of marital interaction is more explicable. Since all males born into the patrilineage have an economic claim upon the household, it is necessary for the elders of the household to control the incoming women. If the women seem as potentially disruptive of the formal authority and as desirous of establishing neolocal residence as Indira was in the following case, these women must be forced to submit or be driven out. 40 Case No.1. ISHWAR vs. INDIRA Indira, Brahmin by caste, was raised by her parents in a small town where she passed her high school. Facilities for college education being non-existent in the town, her parents sent her for further education to her father's married sister and her husband who lived in the state capital. She stayed with them and obtained her B.A. from the city university. Her own father being a widower at the time of her marriage, it was Indira's uncle and aunt who performed her rites of marriage. She was married in her own caste to Ishwar who was the third son of a university president in a city in Rajasthan. This matrimonial match was initiated and negotiated by the wife of Ishwar's oldest brother. She and Indira were distant cousins related through their mothers. Ishwar had met Indira once prior to the marriage. Both were consulted before their marriage was finalized, and they had indicated their desire to marry. They also exchanged correspondence with each other prior to their marriage. Ishwar had passed his B.Sc., and was employed by the state agricultural department in a small town fifty miles away from his parental home at the time of his marriage. He was renting there a small room for himself where heestayed five days a week. After his marriage, his wife lived with his parents and he commuted to his parental house on weekends. The two had to live this way for the reason that the town where Ishwar worked was too small to have even a half decent house to rent. Added to this was the fact that Ishwar's salary was not large enough for him to afford to live neolocally with his wife. Ishwar's older brother and and his wife were also patrilocally resident, though the older brother was better educated and a professionally well placed person. A few months after her marriage, Indira who had been raised in the environment of a more cosmopolitan city became bored of living patrilocally with a husband around only two days a week. She was not allowed by her affines to have a full time job outside her home as that would lower the social standing of the household in the community. She was thus forced to spend her time doing household chores. When, after some time, she went to her natal home for a brief visit, she picked up a regular full time office job, and later informed her husband about it. She wrote him to say that he should come and live with her there, and obtain a job there so that both could live together. On receiving his wife's letter, Ishwar went to her to taDc things over. During the week he was there, he did not show 41 any interest in finding a job. Despite his wife's great insistence that he should stay on to find a job, Ishwar returned to his town all by himself. Shortly thereafter, Indira wrote another letter imploring her husband to come to her city to live with her, and that she had arranged an employment for him.too. Her letter was as follows: "Dear honey, lots of love. I believe you had a safe and comfortable overnight journey on the train on your way back home. I am alright though I miss you dreadfully. I love you very much. It is certain, however, that I have made up my mind to stay here. My cousin asks you to come here to take up a job which he has arranged for you. You must come. I indeed feel very sad to learn that the members of my conjugal family have put me in disrepute in several places and you did not defend your wife. Well, it is entirely your pleasure. You must come to this city and live with me. I shall serve you so well that will marvel. I shall soon rent a house large enough for both of us. So far as I am concerned, I have never uttered a single word against you nor I shall ever do that. You made a comment the other day in the restaurant before our two guests that you could remarry and so can perhaps Indira. That has pained me very much. I do not mind your taking another wife but to think I shall ever accept another man is very sinful. I can never in my life entertain a thought of remarriage. I am not a prostitute. Please do not ever mention such a thing for me. I shall live in this world as you will,and you will find until the very end that I shall be faithful to you. Please do reply at your earliest. With lots of love, Indira." The above correspondence and the circumstances of the situation were discussed in great detail by Ishwar and his patri-kin who communicated with Indira's uncle. Her uncle arranged with his own daughter and son—in-law to forcibly escort Indira back to her conjugal home. Ishwar joined in their efforts and brought Indira back to her parental home, while he continued on his job as before. After some time, however, the clashes between Indira and her husband became so ugly that Ishwar and his older brother's wife jointly thrashed Indira with sticks. Indira ran to the local police for protection. The chief of police being known to her father-in-law reported her back to him, handing him over her custody. This caused some embarass- ment to Indira's father-in-law. Anyhow, she resumed living in her marital home. She was aSked never to see anybody all by herself or to step out of the house unaccompanied. All her female friends were forbidden to communicate with her. Ishwar sent threatening letters to Indira's friends living in her natal home city. An excerpt from Ishwar's letter to Parvati, a friend of Indira, runs, "I shall take very serious and drastic 42 action stone-heartedly. And no holds are barred. I cannot tolerate your slightest contact with my wife." After some time, Indira did write to Parvati to apprise her of her sad predicament alleging virtual imprisonment in her own conjugal home. But before she could smuggle her letter out for mailing, she was caught and beaten up. One day, she stealthily left her house, and took a railway train back to her natal home city. This time, however, she did not go to her uncle but to Parvati and lived with her friends without letting anybody know of her whereabouts. Ishwar sent a telegram to Indira's uncle, followed by a very strong letter from Ishwar's father to Indira's uncle demanding the latter's explanation for Indira's bad conduct. Indira's uncle replied, "I received your letter and the earlier telegram from Ishwar. I cannot express my shock by the news that Indira slipped away from your residence like a thief and doubly sorry to realize your appropriate feelings of resentment that such a girl has been dumped in your family by us knowingly. I assure you that I was quite . unaware of such mad plans of Indira prior to her marriage. However, I was glad to see that both Indira and Ishwar had exchanged letters by express delivery mail months before the final marriage took place, and both of them were impatient for their marriage. If such a mad plan could be conceived by me as you say, I would not have run to your city along with my entire family with a large dowry, and a cooker and transister, and opened savings account in Indira's name in the Allahabad Bank in your city on the day of her marriage with Rs.500/—, turning over the bank pass book to Ishwar. I presume the madness which Indira has shown is not due to any young man ( a lover) who you suspect accompanied her unnoticed by Ishwar when she traveled from my city to yours. Both my daughter and son-in-law accompanied Indira in their first class compartment from this city and the party was later joined by Ishwar on their way to your city. She was not allowed to meet anybody during the journey. It is only the evil woman Parvati, her friend, who is instrumental in spoiling the life of Indira and in turning her towards the evil ways. Here the psychiatrist is of the opinion that Indira should be committed to a mental hospital otherwise there is a likelihood of her committing an offense which will add further insult to our injury. This action can be initiated by Ishwar and we will arrange for a prOper medical report which will permit her commitment to a 'mental facility for women. She is a stupid and spoiled girl and she must suffer the consequences of her actions. My whole family is disturbed. We would prefer Indira dead rather than alive if she continues the company of her evil friend Parvati." 43 It appears that Ishwar and his patri-kin did not find it worthwhile to rOpe Indira in again. They abandonai their plans to go after her. Meanwhile Indira's uncle died, and Ishwar filed for divorce on the ground of desertion. After his divorce, Ishwar was remarried to a girl of his caste in a neighboring city. As he was transferred to the city where his father lived, the couple live in the parental household. Indira works in the department of family planning in a district town not far away from her natal city. She remains unmarried of her own accord. Her relatives and caste members think badly of her and have severed all connections with her. Her network of friends is exclusively her professional group. The first effort in a patrilocal household is the regulation of the amount of intimacy allowed a young husband with his new bride. Even his sexual access to her is often controlled by his mother though not to the extent of antagonizing him in the normal marital situation. In the case of Indira and Ishwar, the groom's employment in another town served the purpose more effectively than even the ordinary enforced sex segregation during the day to maintain the groom's primary ties with his patri-kin and agnates preventing his infatuation with his new bride to separate him from the co-resident kin. The jural severance basic to the bridal absorptive model is designed to prevent continued identification of the new wife with her parents and siblings as well as the rest of her natal kin. In her affinal home, the relation- ships while new, are neither tenuous nor ambivalent in ideology, though intensification must occur with time. 44 Thus the ideology makes the bride an integral part of her new patrilocal resident group even as it regulates and controls her relationships. These pre-estafilished instrumental relationships allow not only the couple but also the kin-group to adjust to each other and prevent disintegration of patrilocal household and coparcenary unit. Since the social rank of the incoming bride is derived from the status which her husband occupies in the household hierarchy, the acts of Indira become clear. The college educated young woman found herself the week- end wife of the youngest son in the family and a full- time maid to her senior affines. The whole household was particularly barren for her because there was no one with whom she could play an expressive role. Indira's Bhabhi i.e. her husband's older brother's wife who presided over the household, was her own older cousin who had arranged the marriage. Indira's desire to seek employment outside the household was suppressed with greater vigor for this reason. Indira being far more assertivetand individuated than her husband sought to help both of them escape. When her successful obtaining of jobs elsewhere for both of them was ended by her husband's bringing her back and Iver being beaten, she sought police help. When that failed and her own kindred plotted to have her incarcerated as a lunatic, she fled on her own never to return. 45 Ishwar was a typical dependent son unable to establish a separate household or give protection to his wife, lacking self-confidence in his conjugal role. The authoritarian household could only have seen Indira's insubordination as threatening the whole coparcenary unit by her challenging the established norm of a new bride's behavior. Such a situation invariably creates a disharmony in intra—familial relations against the bride, which either destroys her by her becoming suicidal or hysterical, or she must flee to save herself from the oppressive affinal regime and lead a life on her own, financially independent of all her relatives. The position of extreme subordination of an incoming bride, however, has other facets as well. The following two cases reflect inadequate dowry brought by the brides from their' homes to be the cause for termination of their marriages at the behest of the parents of the grooms. In the first case that of Jagan vs. Jyoti, the greed was so blatant, that the lawyer handling Jagan's case who provided the main details of the case, was so appalled by the parents of his own client that he agreed to handle the divorce just to let the defendant bride be free from them. 46 Case No.2. JAGAN VS. JYOTI Jagan, a high caste young man of 20 studying for his B.A., was caste endogamously married to Jyoti - a pretty girl of 18 years, a high school graduate, living with her parents in another town 150 miles away. On her arrival in her patrilocal residence, Jyoti's father—in-law let it be known that the dowry given to them by her parents was much too meager for their son. After the traditional first stay for a week, she returned to her natal home and duly conveyed to her parents the demands made by her affines of Rs.5,000/- cash for dowry. After a few months she came to her conjugal home and found herself entirely unwelcome by her parents-in-law as she did not bring with her any sum of money towards the demanded dowry. She was told by her father-in-law to write to her parents to take her away. Jyoti's parents sent her younger brother to bring her back. Jyoti's brother was very rudely treated in her sister's conjugal home. Her father-in—law did not permit Jyoti to take any of her ornaments or saris with her. Nobody went with her to the railway station to see her off. Her younger brother being too inexperienced and Jyoti upset, they both boarded on a wrong train and after a lot of inconvenience and confusion reached their natal home. Jagan's father not only had word sent through common relatives but also sent Jagan to prevail upon Jyoti's parents the seriousness of his intentions. Jagan left word with Jyoti's close kinsmen and returned home without Jyoti. Jyoti's parents sent several letters to Jagan's father imploring him to live by the traditional norms and caste ethic, and not to confront them with unreasonable demands of money towards dowry after the completion of marriage. Their letters as well as their emissaries failed to change the mind of Jagan's father who through an attorney obtained for his son the decree of restitution of conjugal rights in an gx-parte proceedings. Jyoti's parents were too poor to needlessly defend themselves. After two years, Jagan moved for divorce on the ground of the decree remaining unsatisfied, though Jagan and his patri-kin saw to it that Jyoti might not venture to return to her conjugal home. He was married obtaining a rich dowry. Four years after her divorce, Jyoti's father negotiated her remarriage in his own caste in a small town 50 miles away. Jyoti was ten years younger to her groom who was a widower with two children from his previous marriage. Her remarriage is reported to be satisfactory. 47 In the following case, Lila vs. Lachman, the dowry dispute arose primarily as a result of a.difference in the sophistication level and the degree of urbanization on the Western model between the two cities of Lucknow and Jaipur and their respective states. Case No.3. LILA vs. LACHMAN Lila was a very pretty woman of 20 and had passed her B.A. when she was married to Lachman. She was born and raised in a high caste family in the state of U.P. where her ancestors on her father's side had distinguished themselves as lawyers, judges and physicians. Both Lila's parents are state civil service officers, and she has only one older unmarried brother who works as an engineer in a far off factory town. Two brothers of Lila's father live in the same town and their wives are Western educated women. Lachman at the time of his marriage was 25, a college graduate and a business executive. He was born and raised in Rajasthan. Lachman's ancestors were typical of many who had migrated from the state of U.P. to the Princely Indian States in Western India. These states were not a part of British India as U.P. always was, but had encouraged over the centuries educated upper class and caste migrants to fill in administrative jobs. After India's independence, the Princely states of Western India merged into one single political unit that came to be known as Rajasthan. Lachman's father was in business there. His mother, however, dabbled in politics and, at the time of Lachman's marriage, was an elected member of the state legislature. Lachman had one younger sister who was in the ninth grade. The marriage negotiations of their marital alliance were initiated by the common caste-acquaintances of the famflies of the two spouses. The marital match was finalized by their respective parents after the potential spousesihad seen each other once at an arranged tea party. Their marriage was caste endogamous and was solemnized according to the traditional Hindu rites in Lila's natal home town. 48 The groomS marriage party of 200 men had travelled from his town to participate in the solemnization of the marriage. The marriage party was entertained in a traditional manner with all pomp and show. A token dowry was provided to the groom since there was no mention of any dowry in the marriage negotiations. An express demand of dowry as a consideration for marriage is unlawful under a 1964 statute which purported to abolish dowry system’ from India. In SOphisticated professional families of cosmopolitan centers of the region, dowry is not subject to bargaining and is viewed only as a token gift. This, however, is not the case in either business families or provincial areas of the region. In Lila's extended natal family, the dowry custom had been abandoned for over a generation. Neither Lila's father nor her father's brothers who are several, had received any dowry in their marriages. After their marriage, Lila and Lachman lived patrilocally. A bride's first stay in her conjugal home is traditionalhy a short one, ranging from a week to a month. During her stay that extended to three weeks, Lila was subjected to ridicule and sarcasm over the meager dowry, and she was instructed by her mother-in-law in clear terms to bring Rs.5,000/- from her parents toward her dowry. Lila also found during that period that her husband's position in the household interaction was that of a nonentity. Lachman had nothing to say about dowry and took the position that the dowry affair was a matter between her and his parents. On her return to her natal home, Lila discussed the matter of dowry with her parents. Her parents felt aggrieved but counseled her to expect the traditionally-oriented household to continue to act in that vein for some more time. They hoped that Lilafs good behavior in her conjugal home towards her parents- in—law would eventually reconcile them with her, softening their attitudes with the passage of time. An expression of resentment by affines against a bride and her natal home on account of either a meager dowry or a perceived flaw in entertaining the groom's marriage party, is a common occurrence. And a bride during her first stay in her conjugal home is sometimes exposed to bad tempers of her affines but they are supposed to cool it in time. After Lila had stayed with her parents for a month, she was called back to her conjugal home as is customary in that region. Lila returned to her conjugal home without the dowry she had been earlier asked to bring with her. Her mother-in-law felt outraged at the complete disregard of her wishes. She not only cursed her parents but gave Lila a sound beating. In the continued mistreatment, 49 Lila found her husband to be of no protection to her. Lila managed to elist the support of a distant male relative who was a petty civil servant in the city. Though he viewed the meagerness of dowry as amounting to shortchanging Lachman's parents, he did not approve of their beating Lila for it. He felt that they should not have been so blatant as to take it out on the young woman. His attempts to patch up the trouble did not succeed as Lila's mother-in-law viewed her relationship with Lila to be not open to any discussion. Lila was not physically thrown out of her conjugal home, but her position in the household was no better than of a maid servant. Lila found that her options were limited to either conceding to the continuing mistreatment or to return to her natal home. She opted for the latter, and persuaded her relative to escort her back to her parents. On leaving, she announced to her affines the fact of a complete severance of her marital relationship with that family. Her husband as usual had nothing to say in the matter. Lila reported that her affines being traditional were a little surprised at her decision as they did not anticipate her fighting back by staging a walk-out. Even though Lila's declaration of severance of relationship was more defiant than they had expected, they nevertheless abstained from persuading her to stay as their pleading with her would compromise their pride, and undermine their position of authority over her. Lachman's father wrote a letter to Lila's parents asking them to send their daughter back to her conjugal home which she left without their permission. Lila and her parents did not reply to it. Lachman did not go to Lila's natal home to persuade her to return. Instead, after the lapse of a month, he filed a petition in the local district court praying for a declaratory decree for the restitution of his conjugal rights both against Lila and her father who allegedly was illegally detaining her. Lachman's motive in filing the court action was largely to vindicate himself and his family in the eyes of the local people, and to save himself from Lila's potential claim of alimony if he succeeded on obtaining such a decree from the court. On receiving the formal court notice of the legal proceedings, Lila countered by filing for divorce in the court of her district in U.P. on the ground of gross cruelty which is permissible under the U.P.Marriages Amendment Act of 1964. The state of Rajasthan has no comparable statute, and is wholly governed in the domain of family relations by the federal law which does not provide for divorce on the count of gross cruelty but only judicial separation. 50 On being served with the U.P. Court's notice of Lila's divorce action, Lachman requested the U.P. court through his attorneys to stay the divorce proceedings till his petition filed earlier for the restitution of conjugal rights was disposed off by the Rajasthan court. The U.P. court agreed to Lachman's request and ordered the requested stay of divorce proceedings. Lachman's parents communicated through their attorneys to Lila's attorneys that they would wish to patch up their differences with her. Lila maintained her position that it was not worth putting up with such wretched parents-in-law in order to keep up marriage with a man as useless as Lachman. In the Rajasthan court, Lila successtlly put up the defence of cruelty against the petition for restitution of conjugal rights. The judge found Lila's forthrightness in her testimony that she brought no dowry both refreshing and impressive. He accepted her contention that she incurred the wrath of her mother-in-law for her bringing no dowry, and disbelieved Lachman's legislator-mother who testified that she did not beat Lila. Thus, Lachman was denied the court declaration of restitution of conjugal rights in his favor, and his petition was dismissed. On the conclusions of legal proceedings in Rajasthan court, Lila with the help of her attorney- uncles pursued her divorce petition in the U.P.court, and obtained divorce. She made no claim for alimony. On leaving her conjugal home, Lila joined a graduate program in the university of her home town. She hopes to teach in a college on completing her degree. There are several women's colleges in her city and other towns in close proximity. She does not intend to remarry through a negotiated match in the future. Her parents do not suggest that either. As she does not subscribe to the notion that marriages are made in heaven, she is very likely to remarry when a proper Opportunity arises. Lachman after two years of divorce remains unmarried. During my field work in the region, I interviewed several judges for their views on divorce situations. One of the judges interviewed was the judge who had dismissed Lachman's petition. By chance, he cited Lachman as an example of a worthless husband, an adult son completely under the thumb of his parents, spineless and unable to 51 make decision on matters that directly affected his life. According to this judge, Lachman lost an exceptionally good wife by putting her in an oppressive patrilocal household and failing to restrain his rather domineering and demanding mother from committing such follies as beating his wife. The way Lachman conducted himself in his court gave the judge an impression that Lachman obtained his executive job entirely due to the influence of his legislator-mother. Lachman scarcely has a chance of being suitably remarried locally except to a girl with little education from a poor family of his own caste. It would be another matter, however, if a marriage match is negotiated for him in a far off town in some other state and the fact of his divorce is not discovered by the match-makers on the bride's side. To paraphrase the judge, his parents have not made up his mind for a remarriage as yet after two years of his divorce. Lachman appears in this case as a mere nonentity in the eyes of his wife and the eyes of the judge. The strong domineering mother made the new husband's position wholly farcical specially in relation to his bride. A combination of such a mother-in-law and Lachman's own personality did not make for a desirable combination for the educated Lila raised in an upper-middle class 52 nuclear household. The mother-son relationship has serious implications for the conjugal dyadic relationship in the next case also - Madan vs. Maya. The case isincluded in this chapter to show the dynamics of patrilocality in the particular structural type of their household. Case No.4. MADAN vs. MAYA Madan, the only child of a very distinguished family, was educated in the best schools in India. When his father, a doctor with World Health Organization died, Madan was 18 years old. The legacy bequeathed by his father consisted not only of large real estate but substantial dollar savings which enabled Madan to go to the U.S. after some years for his graduate studies. His mother, a gracious and charming lady whose father was a high court judge, joined him in the U.S. within a year. She stayed with him both during his graduate work and when he was employed for a short time as an instructor in Canada. Both Madan and his mother were popular on the campus but the American co-eds who were his friends found him too tied to his mother's apron strings. Despite his being handsome and cosmopolitan, no one became seriously involved with him. During Madan's six years in North America, two of his distantly related cousins who were in the U.S. for graduate studies, married American women. In order to prevent that from happening to Madan, his mother urged him to return to India and take care of the extensive real estate located in a high value area of a city in India, which he had inherited from his grand- father and father. As soon as they returned to India, Madan's marriage was arranged in the conventional manner to a girl of his own caste. Maya to whom Madan was married was 21 years of age, a graduate of an Indian girls' college, and had no brother or sister. Her mother had died a year before Maya was married. Her father was a wealthy owner of a corporate business house. 53 Though attractive in looks, Maya was less cosmopolitan than her husband and her mother-in-law. A year after her marriage, Maya's father died. Madan's mother constantly clashed and bickered with her daughter-in-law since she was too possessive to share her son with anyone. Furthermore, Madan's mother was bitter on the score that Maya had not produced any child to perpetuate the family even after three years of her marriage. Madan's mother conveniently forgot that neither she nor any of her sisters had been very fertile, and their only children were produced late in their marriage. She herself had only one child - Madan, while her one sister had twins after 14 years of marriage, and the third had none. Faced with a situation of constantly inflicted mental cruelty from her mother-in-law and no sympathy and little companionship from her husband, Maya found herself forced to leave her conjugal home by a possessive mother-in-law. Madan filed for judicial separation for her alleged desertion and subsequently for divorce at the behest of his mother. Maya did not contest the legal proceedings. She was too shattered and heart-broken to do so. With her parents dead, she leads a semi-renounced life and spends her time in philanthropic activities and managing the affairs of a family temple of which she is a trustee. She has no worries for money and owns large amounts of real estate. Her father's brother manages the corporate matters for her. However, as of last report, Madan has stood up to his mother in one respect. He has refused to remarry. In a conference of his relatives on the subject of his remarriage, Madan is reported to have stated that he did not remember any fault in Maya, and saw no reason for any other woman. Earlier, when mediators had approached Maya for marital reconciliation, she had told them that if Madan and his mother came to beg her to do so, she might reconsider her position after discussing it with them, but she would not resume cohabitation with them on her initiative. Madan refused to initiate a reconciliatory move largely because of his mother whom he could not forsake according to the Hindu tradition. Maya is also single, and a remarriage is remote to her mind. Although it appears on the surface that Maya's problems can be diagnosed as simply mother-in-law problems, the influence of Madan's mother can be better understood in terms of the ramifications of patrilocality. 54 A household founded by the man's parents remains patrilocal when joined by the young couple even if the father died prior to the marriage. The authorityin the household remains in the hands of the widowed parent, and the mother is viewed as a surrogate for the father. The surviving parent is not an adenda to the household of his or her own son, but the center of authority in the household he or she helped to create. It is for this reason that this case and the case of Vidur and Vimla discussed later in the chapter, are included in patrilocal households even though earlier in the dissertation the two cases were classified as "Supplemented Nuclear" in accordance with Pauline Kolenda's (1967) scheme of nomenclature. It is to this extent that Kolenda's household structural typology is modified. SECTION II. "LOVE MARRIAGE" AND PATRILOCALITY: The hostility of co—resident affines is also generated in the situation of a "love marriage" particularly because such a couple challenge patriarchal authority. The incongruity of combining such a rmode of marriage with patrilocality is evident in the two cases - Kamla vs. Kumar, and Omlata vs. Onkar. 55' Case No.5. KUMAR vs. KAMLA Before his marriage, Kumar lived in the same building as a tenant as did Kamla and her parental family. Kumar was 26 and had worked for a company as a clerk for five years when he met Kamla - a pretty girl of 20. As they both were of the same caste and liked each other, they let their respective parents know of their desire to marry.\ Kumar's parents lived in another city where his father had a junior civil service job. Neither of Kumar's parents were in favor of the marriage but were forced by the wishes of their son to accept the marital match. They regretted losing a potential match in which a promise of a large dowry was made. By the time of Kumar's marriage, his parents moved to the same city, and the couple started their marital life patrilocally. The inadequacy of dowry became a contentious issue right from the start of the marriage. A cash dowry of Rs.1000/- with some ornaments, sari, and other gifts did not satisfy Kumar's father who asked Kamla to bring more money towards dowry. When Kamla could not bring any more money, Kumar's father refused to let any of Kamla's kin visit with her in her conjugal home and refused to let her go to her natal home even for ritual visits. Only when Kamla's father sent Rs.250/— to make up the deficiency in the dowry was she allowed to visit with her parents for a day. On the occasion of the death of her only sister, she was not allowed to visit her natal home. Kumar's parents continued to make demands for more money. At the instance of their mother, Kumar's brother and his two sisters made her marital life totally miserable by poisoning the mind of her husband against her. Often her sister-in-law would slip into the kitchen and ruin her cooking by adding extra salt and chillies to the food, for which Kamla would get scolded and cursed. Further, her husband's younger brother made sexual advances, perhaps instigated by his mother to do so,vflfich left her terrorized. Her pleadings to her husband to establish a neolocal home were ignored. Her husband never believed any of her complaints and refused to admonish his brother. When she threatened to expose his brother's acts to the neighbors and the visitors to the family, Kumar begged her not to dishonor his family's name and honor. Kumar's father cursed and threatened to burn her to death, if she did not take a divorce from his son. Finally, Kamla could not take it any more, and left her conjugal home, returning to her parents. 56 After a parentally initiated reconciliation effort failed, Kumar filed for restitution of conjugal rights claiming that his wife had left him without cause. Kumar thought that Kamla would not contest the legal proceedings and that after obtaining the requested decree from the court, he would move for the final decree of divorce on the expiry of the two-year mandatory waiting period. Kamla, however, chose to contest the proceedings and asked for a dismissal of Kumar's petition along with an award from the court of a decree of judicial separation on the ground that she had a legitimate apprehension of her life in her conjugal home. Kamla testified that she was in virtual physical imprisonment in her conjugal home and that her affines treated her with extreme cruelty. Kamla's version was supported by a tenant living in an apartment on the upper floor of the building in which Kumar and his parental family lived. The judge accepted Kamla's version and granted her judicial separation, dismissing Kumar's petition. This way, Kamla, and not her guilty husband, was entitled to move for the final decree of divorce if and when she desired it. The observations of the judge are in part reproduced here because they are an interesting commentary on the general customs regarding marriage and dowry in the social class of the two spouses: "...First of all, let us take the instance of the reason of cruelties. It was allegedly the dissatisfaction of the parents of the petitioner husband on the issue of dowry. The petitioner before marriage was living as a tenant in the same building as the respondent and her parents. It was here that the proposal of marriage took place. According to the testimony of the respondent wife, the marriage was proposed because of petittioner getting to like her. The petitioner husband's cross-examination suggests that it was a case of a love marriage. In either case, initially the parents of the petitioner would seem to have been out of the picture. Such a match is not an inconsequential matter for a Hindu parent, and as such the displeasure of the petitioner's parents was probably incurred... While the respondent wife testified on the issue of dowry, the petitioner husband denied that a dowry wasrrttled. Looking to the social conditions, it is difficult for me to believe that no dowry was settled. The petitioner's emotional attachment to the woman may explain that he may not make dowry a precondflfinn to marriage, but there is no reason why the parents of the petitioner would let go the opportunity - an occasion for the notorious custom of the society. They could only have been prevailed upon by the petitioner husband not to ask and insist on a large dowry. But if they did so agree, 57 it would not have added to their charm for the new bride in their household. The ill-feeling arising on a meager dowry would be in all likelihood there, showing the root source of the cruelties alleged by the respondent wife..." After the expiry of the mandatory waiting-period, Kamla did not file for the decree of divorce and caused great discomfort to her affines in arranging a remarriage for Kumar. However, Kumar was secretly married without divorce having been finalized. Kamla learned of his remarriage after a year when a son was born to Kumar's second wife. Kamla could have filed a criminal action complaining of bigamy, but she chose not to penalize Kumar's wife and her new-born son by having Kumar arrested. After two years of his remarriage, the divorce statute was amended giving either spouse the right to seek the final decree of divorce after the waiting-period of the decree of judicial separation has expired and resumption of conjugal relations has not occurred. Soon after the amendment of the law, Kumar took divorce and had his worry removed for all times. Kamla, after leaving her marital home, had rejoined her parents and continued her studies in the city university. She obtained an M.A. in education and became a teacher in a girls' school. Although Kamla's parental family is distressed that she remains single, they do not know how to handle the situation. Kamla herself is too deeply imbued with the Hindu ideal that a woman should be married only once in her life time. She has no present plans of a remarriage. It is obvious that the "love marriage' idealized by the romantic youth are no more than infatuations that have a strong potential to fade under the pressure of parental antagonism. The young couple know each other prior to marriage only briefly without any of the courthx; experiences of Western couples. Such marriages are I viewed in society more as running against the grain of patriarchal authority than involving the problem of 58 insufficient dowry. In fact the latter is just one more excuse to object to such a bride. The next case of a 'love marriage' that of Omlata vs. Onkar reveals a severe class incompatibility between the wife and her husband's female kin, engenderhx; affinal hostility against the bride despite a very understanding and gracious father-in-law. Case No.6. OMLATA vs. ONKAR Omlata's widowed father, a Hindu Khattri of high caste, practised medicine and her two brothers were also medical doctors. Her father's brother owned several sugar agencies, and some of his children are professors, one in the U.S. Omlata's brothers had chosen their own spouses but from their own caste. Omlata was also a medical student but she quit after three years of medical school. While in the medical school, she met a young Hindu Jat medical student, Onkar, who because of his athletic training, physical build and a junior college diploma in science was selected to be an airforce pilot, a socially more prestigious job with much more money to it. She had been dating him while they were in the medical school. She married him against the wishes of her own parents though they acquiesced to her strong insistence. Onkar, a handsome Jat, belonged to a landlord family of the rural aristocracy, and had two younger brothers and two younger sisters, He was the eldest among his siblings, and therefore, his father respected his wishes. Though Onkar's marriage was caste exogamous, it was ceremonialized in a traditional style. The couple started out living patrilocally. She became a head nurse in a local hOSpital and was well paid. After a few months Onkar's younger brother was traditionally married to a Jat girl, and the new couple also lived patrilocally. A Jat caste is not known for the education among their women. In fact, their women are better known for a physical capacity to work and for their 59 strong build. Status of Jat women in their caste is low compared to women in other castes. Jat men do not always treat their women gently. Wife beating is not uncommon among them. In this background, it was not a bit surprising that- Omlata found herself living with women who resented her and were envious of her. Omlata could not win their affection and sympathy in her loneliness caused by frequent absences of her husband despite her placating them with her earnings. The caste exogamous match of her son with a woman whom she could not command and subject to her imperium, greatly annoyed and frustrated Omlata's mother-in-law. She was always unkind and often bitter in her comments to Omlata. What irked her most were Omlata's caste and her occupation which she thought to be unbecoming in a daughter-in-law of her household. Onkar was twice posted on non-family stations and acquinai a name for himself as a woman-chaser. This annoyed Omlata greatly, but she reconciled herself as Jat males enjoy a name for such behavior. But soon another misfortune appeared - her giving birth to a daughter. Onkar felt annoyed because whenever he returned home from the different airforce bases, he found his wife busy in her professional obligations at odd and inconvenient times. She was not always available for evening socials. He could not persuade her to make herself available to him at his convenience. Obviously, her professional commitments took priority over the conjugal demands of her husband. This widened the rift and brought in mutual accusations of adultery. Omlata reported her father-in-law to be a noble soul and the only person who was always very gracious and kindly disposed toward her in the best traditions of a father- in-law. Despite his counseling to the contrary, the mother was able to instigate Onkar successfully, aided by her other sons and daughters, to dump Omlata forever. Omlata reported that Onkar himself did not inflict any physical cruelty on her but the main reason for her divorce was complete incompatibility with her husband, aided and abetted by a hostile in-law environment because of their caste-exogamous love marriage. She left him after talking it over with him at great length and ascertaining that he will not be able to carry on with the marriage. The divorce was, however, taken on the ground of extreme mental and physical cruelty in the conjugal home. That is the only ground for divorce without the great proofs and bad name to the husband as adultery would carry. Further, adultery was not a ground directly for divorce at that time as was cruelty. 6O Onkar remained unmarried as of the last report three years after his divOrce. He wants more time to find out what he needs in a marriage. Also, the matrimonial offers that he is receiving from his caste do not equal in physical attractiveness with his former wife. The scarcity of educated women who will be acceptable for a high ranking military officer from among his Jat caste and his mother's known antagonism toward such a woman further complicate matters. Such women if available are going to insist upon neolocal residence, a propositflmi which Onkar's interests in the patrimony make him reluctant to agree. After her marital break-up, Omlata rejoined the medical school and completed her M.D. During the period of her college internship, Omlata met another military officer of her own caste. His family kin are not as well placed as Omlata's. His father was a very petty government clerk. Omlata was successful in persuading her father to marry her off in a traditional Hindu style to this young man. After great reservations and hesitancy, her father when approached the young man's father to communicate the matrimonial proposal, was rebuffed. The young man's parents had never thought in their remotest dream that they would see their son marrying a divorcee who also was a mother of a six year old child. However, great pressure from Omlata's natal home kinsmen as well as the insistence of the young man made his parents yield to accept the match. Omlata was traditionally married. But this time she opted for a neolocal home right from the start of her marital life. The new couple are reported to be quite happy with their circumstances. Omlata's child from her previous marriage is living with her, and addresses her new step father as her 'daddy'. Every effort is being made to erase the memory of the earlier broken marriage, as if it never happened. A mention of it would be viewed as very impolite. 61 SECTION III THE CLASS-INCOMPATIBLE MARRIAGE AND PATRILOCALITY: The preceding case of Omlata showed that an important variable for the failure of her self-arranged marriage was her class-incompatibility with her co-resident female affines. Similarly, a father who imposes a class- incompatible marriage on his daughter, arranging it in haste for one reason or another to a male of his own caste but of a lower class in educational and professional terms, might well find himself in the situation of Dr.Hemlata's father as the following case shows: Case No.7. HEMLATA vs. HARI Of the three sisters and three brothers, Hemlata was the eldest. -Next to her was a sister, followed by two brothers, then a sister and a brother. Her father was a civil engineer for the state government.Her lineage males pursued the professions of engineering, law, medicine, and state civil service. But Hemlata was the first female in her extended kin group to go for graduate education in a university with a view to acquiring a career. Hemlata reported that one of her female cousins had done her B.A. five years earlier to Hemlata's going in for medical education, and was married in the traditional style of an arranged marriage. When Hemlata finished her degree in medicine and became a doctor at the age of 25, her younger sister had already completed her M.A. and was married in the traditional style before Hemlata's marriage could be arranged. In the eyes of her father, this further lowered his oldest daughter's value in the marriage market. Since the lady doctor was not very attractive in appearance, her father was most anxious to marry her off. He advertised very extensively in the matrimonial columns especially of the caste newspapers for a suitable match for her. 62 Hari, a pharmacist assistant — generally referred to in India as 'compounder' responded to the matrimonial advertisement. Hari lived with his parental family in the capital city of another state, five hundred miles away from Hemlata's home town. Hemlata's father, against the wishes of his wife's kin who belonged to the same city as Hari's family, rushed into finalizing the marriage so quickly that Hemlata's wedding took place only two weeks after her younger sister's marriage. Hemlata's natal home was a bungalow with an Open courtyard garden and lawns in an upper middle class neighborhood. Her conjugal home in which she was patrilocally resident was located in a small and dingy alley without a courtyard in a very run-down lower middle class neighborhood. Her co-resident affines were her husband's parents and their children. Her father-in-law had retired from a junior ranking position of the state buraucracy and lived on a small pension. The reason for eagerness of groom's kin for this marriage was that the old father was diabetic and required daily insulin shots which his medically trained daughter-in-law was to provide. Strangely, however, the family members resident in the household did not accord the new bride any respect. They suspected her not to be a virgin at her marriage as they held a notion that it was not possible for a lady doctor to be one. The manner in which Hemlata's father rushed her marriage served only to reinforce their view. Hemlata was to discover still' another snag in her marriage. The young groom, Hari, was teased both by the household and neighborhood children who often used to sing a ryhme "Bhabhi is a doctor, Bhaiya is her compounder". The words implied that since their sister-in-law ordered prescriptions and the brother had to fill prescriptions ordered by doctors, his role was to obey, and hers to command. In this extremely hierarchized patriarchal society, the older brother's marital status was viewed as lower to his wife, and therefore, anomalous and funny. Hemlata stayed just one month in her conjugal home. When she went to her natal home on the pretext of a brief visit, she never returned. Hari went to see Hemlata to her natal home but she declined to accompany him to live patrilocally. After some time Hari and his father's brother came back to persuade Hemlata's father that he put pressure on his daughter to return to her marital home. Hemlata did not oblige her father either. She refused even to meet them and her father had to advise them that he had no influence left upon her, and they must give up their hOpes for continuance of the marriage. 63 Hari obtained a declaratory decree for restitution of conjugal rights against Hemlata. The decree haVing remained unsatisfied for over a period of two years, Hari sued for divorce which was granted to himlgx part . Hemlata's mother and her kin had Opposed the marriage, but her father's insistence prevailed. Now that the marriage had failed, Hemlata's father was left with no influence upon anyone. The father had fallen completely from his pedestal as a dominating patriarch with the revelation of clay feet and his realization that the whole episode was entirely his fault. The father had assumed that no matter what match he made for his daughter, the young couple would carve out a niche for themselves as has always been true among traditional Hindus. Perhaps, a more careful choice might have turned up a better match for his daughter. Hemlata is now accorded by her parents and siblings the status due to the eldest son and a brother. She is making a large financial contribution to the parental household where she lives. She is held in esteem by her kin-group after her acquiring a high professional position of a doctor and a professor in medicine. She has counseled and supported her siblings in their education. She played a dominant part in arranging the marriages of two of her younger brothers who were in civil service and her sister. In fact, she has emerged as the defacto head of her parental household as her parents grew old. Her married brothers live and work in other cities of the state. Only the youngest brother who studies in the local engineering school lives at home with her and her parents. Hemlata did make definite moves towards her remarriage with a fellow medic, however, without success. She reported that she discovered a great reluctance on the part of a potential groom's kin to permit marriage with a divorcee. A young doctor who wanted to marry her could not bring himself to sever all his kin and caste network of relationships. Hemlata remains single. On her dissolved marriage, Hemlata commented that she could not have established a rapport with her husband as she was a constant threat to his status - a phenomenon most vividly seen in the children's chanting slurs. Her husband's deep involvement with his parental family rendered her hOpe of a nuclear marital home in the foreseeable future impossible. The contemptuous attitude of her in-laws whose social status was so much lower than her own was the final insult since there was little support from her husband and little likely to be forthcoming under the circumstances. 64 The overwhelming obligation to arrange a marriage for one's daughter, specially the caste-endogamous 'Kanya-daan', prevailed over the apprehensions of Hemlata's mother that the rushed match-making by Hemlata's father had a risk of failure. The father's duty to arrange a daughter's marriage is sometimes performed without adequately weighing the chances of her future happiness. Marriage itself is the end, the goal, anthhe expectation is that the young couple will somehow make the marriage work. However, with the exception of Omlata, no patrilocally resident couple ripped apart a life created together involving children. Most of the marriages were little more than formalized, legalized sexual unions, and never developed into full-fledged marriages with marital and familial commitments between the spouses. At the same time the social tragedy of 'single parent' homes did not occur except temporarily in the case of Omlata who soon after her divorce remarried keeping the child in her new marital home. This leads us into examining the positive aSpects of patriarchal authority which saved some marriages from disruption. This is done by reviewing the case data in the next section. 65 SECTION IV PATRIARCHAL AUTHORITY AND MARITAL RECONCILIATION: The passive role of the husband in most cases of marital break-up is also supported by the following cases of reconciliation discussed in this section - Umrao vs. Usha, Vimla vs. Vidur, and Uma vs. Umesh. In all these cases the kin relationships in the patrilocal mode Of living and the affinal contact of the bride assured a good measure of emotional, economic and marital security. In the case of Umrao vs. Usha, parental Opposition to divorce prevented Umrao from throwing his wife out and terminating his marriage, as the following account shows: Case No.8. UMRAO vs. USHA This case narrative is based on the data collected after three years of the marriage of Umrao with Usha. Umrao was forty and Usha twenty six when they were married and for both of them it was their first marriage. Umrao and his father are well established practising physicians who Operate a clinic jointly. Umrao is the eldest son of his father and has two younger sisters and two younger brothers. After graduating from the state university located in the city, Umrao's two sisters were traditionally married off with men of their own caste - one to a civil service officer and the second to a judge. Both are happily married, have children of their own, and live in different cities of the state. These marriages as well as that of Umrao's younger brother took place before Umrao had married because of Umrao's initial resolve to remain unmarried forever. Umrao's younger brother had worked for a pharmaceutical firm for five years in another state before he finally married but after making certain that Umrao was firm on his resolve not to marry. All these successful 66 marriages of Umrao's siblings were arranged by his mother who is very perceptive. Umrao's youngest brother is also married, and lives in another city working for a govern- ment hospital. Umrao had seen Usha when she was 20 and she used to visit his home as a college friend of his younger sister. That sister was married off after her B.A., while Usha studied for her M.A. and became a teacher in a girls' high school in the city. During this period of five years, Umrao did-not meet Usha. When Usha brought him her youngest ailing brother for his medical advice and treatment, Umrao and Usha became romantically involved. Once they dated secretly for a dinner and movie at which time they decided on marrying. Usha, however, belonged to a different caste altogether. She was the eldest daughter of a senior civil service officer who lived in the same city. Usha's father had married her mother caste exogamously and out of state in a ceremony in which none of his kin participated. He was thus alienated from his patrikin forever. Usha's parents raised her as well as their other children all by themselves unexposed to any extended kin-relationships. They helped Usha to do her M.A., and oriented her to find a spouse for herself on her own. Since Umrao is very close to his mother and holds his elderly father in formal respect, he mentioned to his mother about his intention of marrying Usha subject to his parental approval. He did not want to live away from his aging parents and a co-resident old uncle, as he was needed in the household. He, therefore, assured his mother that he and Usha would live patrilocally after their marriage. His parents at first objected to the marriage not only because Usha was not of their caste, but also her upbringing in a nuclear household of her parents would present difficulties for Usha to adjust with the mode of life of the extended patrilocal household. However, faced with their son's insistence, the parents yielded, and Umrao and Usha were married in a brief ceremony. Only very few people and some of the immediate kinsmen were invited to participate in the wedding. As both Umrao and Usha had announced that they would not accept wedding gifts, no dowry was given by Usha's parents on their marriage. After her marriage, Usha resigned her teaching job to become a housewife. However, contrary to the expectations that she had held out to her husband, Usha exhibited no sensitivity to the demands of a patrilocal household. She showed little interest in helping her mother-in-law about the house. 67 Whenever any of Umrao's kindred happened to visit with the family, Usha excused herself from the hostessing chores on the pretence of having either a headache, or to go shopping or to keep an appointment. Once a cousin of Umrao came unannounced to stay with the family for a couple of days. As the guest room in which such a kin usually stayed was not tidy and swept and had to be made ready in a hurry, Umrao himself cleaned up the room in the absence of his servant. When his mother caught him doing the cleaning, she inquired why he had not asked Usha to do the job. Umrao explained that if Usha could not see by herself to do the job, she might not have completed the cleaning as swiftly on being asked or even could have refused in which case there would be a row at his hands in the presence of the visiting kin, resulting in a situation of embarassment to everybody. Since Umrao has a great concern for the comforts of his mother, he feels very distressed by his wife's behavior. Umrao Spends long hours in his medical practice starting from 7.a.m. to 1.p.m. and 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Often running into 10.p.m. He thus has no way to monitor his wife's conduct in the household. As his own caste and social upbringing reject a display of violent emotions, Umrao simply ignores his wife. Once, Umrao did not talk to Usha for days and was on the verge of asking her to leave him forever, but his mother came in the way and reconciled them by putting pressure on Umrao. She believes that since her son married Usha, he must put up with her. Umrao's marital discord came to light as a result of a quarrel between the two, which led to Usha going off in a huff to her parents and Umrao preparing to file suit papers for divorce through a mutual lawyer acquaintance. Because of the intervention of Umrao's father and his father-in-law, the divorce suit was never filed, and the affair did not reach the courts. The marriage survives after over three years, thanks to the birth of a son after a year of marriage. Umrao's parents are extremely fond of their grandson who has brought a new happiness in their lives. Certainly as long as they live, Umrao will not wish to leave the parental home to establish himself neolocally, nor will he be allowed to divorce Usha. The proceeds of both his and father's practices are required to support the household. In any case, Umrao is the next head of the family. His marital relations, however, still leave a great deal to be desired. He barely manages to tolerate the companionship of his wife. 68 One wonders why Umrao chose to disregard the conventional wisdom of his parents and siblings by marrying Usha who was neither of his caste nor known to him in terms of her preferences and temperament. It was reported that his father raised all the children rather repressively as a' stern patriarch, allowing them no personal freedom. Resultantly, his other two sons branched out when they could. By his marriage, Umrao posed a challenge both to his father and to the age-old traditions of caste endogamy and ostentatious marriages. It is more than likely that if Umrao had acceded to Usha's suggestions to live neolocally, his marriage would not have survived for any length of time. It is Umrao's patrilocal household that sustained his marriage with a stubborn and non-coOperative spouse. However, Usha remained completely oblivious of the fact that heraffines kept her husband in line for reasons of their ideological commitment to her marriage and for the sake of the child born to her. A further example will be discussed in Chapter II through the case of Savitri vs. Sohan where a class incompatible marriage was held together as long as the couple lived patrilocally and fell apart in their shift to neolocal living. As the following account of Vimla vs. Vidur shows, a wife's unhappiness in her patrilocal household might never have forced her husband to agree to live neolocally to save his marriage if her husband's patri-kin had not prevailed upon him to agree to live neolocally. At the same time, the birth of a child specially a son leads to 69 strong patri-kin support for the preservation of a marriage. The importance of a son in Stabilizing Hindu marriages is implicit in the traditional marital model. This aspect has been discussed more extensively in Chapter V on "Father-son Dyad". Case No.9. VIMLA vs. VIDUR When Vimla completed her B.A. at the age of 20, her oldest brother, a senior army officer, arranged her marriage with Vidur - a young medical graduate who had joined the army medical corps. Both Vimla and Vidur were of the same caste and met only once before their marriage. After his marriage, Vidur continued to live along with his wife in his parental household. The co— residents in the household were Vidur's widower father, the widow of his father's older brother, his unmarried younger brother and a sister. Six months after his marriage, Vidur was transferred to a hospital in another state where though family quarters were available for doctors, he did not ask for one to live with his wife. Every month or two, he would visit with his wife who lived in his parental household. The services of his young wife were needed to run the house- hold as Vidur's brother and sister were studying for their B.A. Several times Vimla expressed her desire to live with her husband but she was always turned down both by her father-in-law and Vidur. With the birth of a son after a year and half of marriage, Vimla found her father-in-law to be increasingly domineering, interfering and difficult to live with. She often wrote letters to Vidur telling him of the cruel treatment she was receiving from her father-in-law and also from her un- cooperative sister-in-law. Though Vidur did admit in his letters that his father was often cruel and a miserable soul to live with and his sister could also be unreasonable at times, he insisted that Vimla continue to live as before in the interests of the household for some more time. 70 After three years of marriage, Vimla filed a suit for divorce, producing letters from her husband to show the admitted nature of cruelty inflicted upon her in her marital life. All Vimla wanted was a nuclear-neolocal household to live where she could have a real marital life rather than an occasional sexual relationship with her husband, and where her son could also live with his father. After Vimla filed the suit for divorce, there was a rush of reconciliation efforts both from Vidur's father and Vimla's kin to prevail upon Vidur to live neolocally. Finally, Vidur realized that he curtailed his wife's conjugal needs far too long, and that he was in the wrong to make a university graduate the housemaid of his parental home. He was sorry that his relationship both as a husband and father to his own son was inadequate. Even though Vidur was outraged and embarassed by Vimla's divorce suit, he could not let Vimla go for that reason and lose his son to her in the process. Since he agreed to establish a neolocal-nuclear household, Vimla withdrew her suit and returned to him. In comparable cases where a wife leaves her marital home and there is no son born to the couple, reconciliation efforts are made largely by her kinsmen but not as much by the husband's kin. ' In the present case, however, even his father inSisted that Vidur must live with his wife and son according to Vimla's wishes. The case situation thus highlights the son as the prime variable for Vidur to agree to neolocal living demanded by Vimla for salvaging the marriage. These are not the only cases which suggest that patrilocal residence is not intrinsically fatal to a marriage. On the contrary, the small incidence of divorce in such households indicates that much of the effort of the patri-kin is designed to preserve the marriage and prevent any spousal incompatibility from develOping into serious conjugal-rift. Since all the marriages which broke up did so before the marriages had a chance to establish themselves, i.e. within a range of a few weeks 71 to a year of the solemnization of marital rites. The pressures of patrikin-Opposition express themselves early. After the patrikin have decided to support the marriage, a breakup of the marital bond in patrilocality is rare. The extent to which patrikin of the two Spouses support the marriage is perhaps even more exemplified by the case of Uma and Umesh recounted by a judge who was proud of his role as the agent of a dramatic reconciliation. Case No.10. UMA vs. UMESH A nineteen year old wife, Uma, from a farming community had her own ideas as to what constituted cruelty in her patrilocal household. She fled her young husband's home to the city 10 miles away and fell into the clutches of a divorce lawyer. The latter thought he had an excellent opportunity to set up the beautiful girl as his paramour and use her to entertain his associates as well. He surrounded her with his own men and ensconced. her in the care of a male clerk of his office. A petition for divorce was meanwhile filed by the attorney on behalf of the young wife. The young husband, Umesh, had a change of heart and wanted his wife back since he felt it unlikely that he could replace her with another as attractive. With the help of his father, Umesh filed a petition for restitution of conjugal rights naming his father-in-law co-respondent, a usual occurrence in Indian divorce litigation. Soon he learned that his father-in-law did not know of her whereabouts and they all started to look for her to discover her fate. The lawyer held the wife incommunicado and confused her with a lot of 'legalese'. She was convinced that she had no escape and could not return either to her husband or to her father, and the police would catch her and lock her in jail for ever. The judge heard of the sordid affair through his court clerks, and learned that the 72 girl had been secluded and seduced into submission and that she had fallen into the complete control of her attorney. On the court date for reconciliation proceedings, the' judge announced he would hold a short private conference first with the litigant wife in his chambers on the ground that he did not wish to cause embarrassment to the young shy woman in the open court with his interrogation at the start of the judicial proceedings. In his chambers, on verifying from her of what he had earlier learned about her new mode of life, the judge scolded her, pointing out that her lawyer would not keep her as a mistress forever, and eventually, would abandone her to bad characters, and that sooner or later she would wind up in jail. Uma was apprehensive of that, but did not quite know if she could return to her husband without falling a prey to enthusiastic law enforcement officers. The lawyer had obviously taken full advantage of her naivety and legal ignorance. The judge asked her to come to his court the following day at five minutes before ten in the morning and cautioned her not to report his instructions meant for her to her counsel. The judge then advised the young husband in his private chambers that his wife had already undergone a lot of misery because of his thoughtless behavior toward her, and that a young wife deserved to be treated gently. On ascertaining his clear intentions of taking his wife back in good faith, the judge advised him to keep a fast moving conveyance ready with escorts to take his wife home at 10.a.m. sharp the next day when he would award him the custody of his wife and dismiss the divorce petition against him. After the private conferences with the two Spouses were over, the judge announced in the Open court that he would continue to conduct reconciliation proceedings the follow- ing day, and the parties were required to make appearance accordingly. Normally, while the civil courts open at 10.a.m. in both the states of U.P. and Rajasthan, the sessions do not begin until 11.a.m. The first hour of the morning is spent by judges doing routine file work. The litigants are not given the exact time to show up on a court date but are always required to appear and be available for the whole working day of the courts. The judge in the present case had rightly suspected that the wife's attorney would show up at 11.a.m. or thereafter when the case would normally be called by the court clerk. 73 The litigants appeared in the judge's court room early next morning at the exact time asked of them by the judge. The judge again questioned them under oath in Open court on their mutual willingness uninfluenced by external coercion to live together as husband and wife. On being so assured, he awarded the custody- -of the wife to petitioner-husband dismissing the wife's divorce petition. By the time the wife's attorney arrived a little later after 11.a.m. in the court, his client had already escaped with her husband by a fast running horse-driven carriage for the husband's village. The lawyer ranted and raged as to how the divorce petition of his client could be dismissed in his absence. The judge reminded him that the case was only a matrimonial proceedings, and as the litigants appeared in his Open court on their own and took an oath of reconciliation, no prejudice could possibly have been caused to his client or to him by the dismissal of the divorce petition of his client. The attorney left the court room in a huff. The hired guards of the attorney gave an unsuccessful chase, but the young couple having been given a good start by the judge's clever ploy reached the marital home safely. In this case, even an adulterOus wife was forgiven and taken back into the patrilocal household. The husband and his patrikin did not wish to insult her natal home kin-group by letting the marriage break. They considered the young woman sufficiently punished by her experiences. Furthermore, they did not wish to lose face by having to admit that the girl chosen for the young man was a mistake on their part. The judge was able to use this as well as the affection the young man had for his wife to foil her attorney and his minions. The aforementioned case narratives reveal that patrilocality is not merely a system of father dominance or patri-kin dominance. It is a system that conditions 74 behavior of the resident members of the household, who organize their activities and define their attitudes toward one another in ways that satisfy the requirements of inter-generational familial living - the most important feature of the Hindu family system. In patrilocal house- holds, three even four generations share each other's life, and live closely to participate in the life style of the other. The reality shown by the divorce data, however, is of a different order. The data Show oppressive parental regime that stems the growth of the individual 'self' of adult men and women to the extent of even limiting the handling of their own litigation. The litigant spouses are merely the names in which the litigation proceeds; otherwise they are powerless by-standers. Their attitudes are moulded by the resident kin completely. Not only do their friends, kinsmen and their attorneys perceive their lack of freedom and their being manipulated by the situation in their patrilocal households, but judges have commented on it as when the divorce judge in Lachman's case called him the Hindi equivalent of a 'poor excuse for a man'. The social structure holds peOple in a vise, so to speak, as the culture is intensely group-oriented, 75 negating individual as an entity. Thus, the patri-kin are either strongly for the dissolution of the marriage or for its maintenance early in the life of the marriage. Once they have committed themselves, the failure of the marriage or its success would depend more upon their posture than on the wishes of the young husband. Normally, the patri- kin of a married man will resist strongly any attempt to dissolve the marriage by either of the spouses. However, early in the marriage their support is more tenuous and they are quick to inflict insults or cruelty upon the bride for the way her kinsmen entertained the marriage- party, or for the inadequate dowry she brought with her from her natal home. Thus, the patriarchy is the tone- setter in the situations of both marital discord as well as marital reconciliation. The responsibility for the largest segment of marital discord situations lies at the door of inflexibly authoritarian patriarchy, exemplified by imposed marriages and dowry related divorces. Much fewer marital disruptions occurred at the instance of individual spouses themselves in patrilocal households. To briefly summarize, the more important features of divorces in patrilocal households are the persistence of authoritarian patriarchy, and the prolonged adolescence and dependency of married males. Caste exogamy and inadequate dowry are the two major causes leading to 76 divorce among patrilocally resident couples. In these cases, the parents with the acquiescence of the newly married son drove out the bride before the conjugal relationship had a chance to form. In this. mode of living, marriage is not an intimate, sharing, and companionate relationship. Interspousal intimacy requires that each Spouse understands the other's needs and feelings, and can readily extend empathy. For this there is neither occasion nor scape in patrilocal living. Naturally, under these circumstances a negative correlation exists between the marriages based on self-selection of marriage mate particularly the caste-exogamous love marriages, and patrilocality. The remaining causes of divorce arose from the .inability of educated brides coming from nuclear- parental households to adjust to the situation of a patrilocal household with its less emotive-expressive and more formal-instrumental relationships. And this points to the necessity of picking a bride raised in extended family household for the stability of marital life in the circumstances of patrilocality. CHAPTER II DIVORCES IN NEOLOCAL HOUSEHOLDS A Definitional Framework: Neolocality refers to that mode of living where a married couple establish their household apart and separaue from both sets of kin-groups (Fisher 1958:508). In terms of membership composition, a husband-wife household with or without an offspring of their own is called nuclear. A husband-wife household separates a couple from their kin, and naturally pushes aside other primary relation- ships. The couple gradually tend to become distant from their other kin, and eventually become the critical socLfl. unit to satisfy the mutual needs of the husband and wife. Through its particular mode of living, neolocality necessitates the development of a new concept of self for the spouses, ideally to be anchored in the husband- wife dyad. This development, seen in the shift involved in conceiving one's own image, is implicit in neolocality. This shift that must exist in attitudes, values and the mode of spousal interaction of a neolocally resident couple for their marriage to succeed,either did not come about or ceased to exist after a few years of marriage as the cases Show in this chapter. The neolocal 77 78 situations of divorced spouses reveal that each Spouse maintained his or her individual network of friends and kin for personal interaction without, however, including the other Spouse in it. This factor was potentially responsible for marital discord. The variable of separate networks and marital discord can be explained better in the framework of analysis of Elizabeth Bott's (1957) pioneering study of Family and Social Network. Bott hypothesized that 'the degree of segregation in the role relationship of husband and wife varies directly with the connectedness of the family's social network' (ibid:60). Even though her monograph is concerned with a somewhat different social setting - neolocal households in the highly industrial, urban and bilateral English society, and social network that embraces friends, neighbors and kin, the principle involved is the same about any social relationship of a spouse relative to the husband-wife dyad. Bott's"connected" network involves friends and kin who know and interact with one another and is, therefore, closed as regards others outside its interaction. Bott concludes that where each of the two spouses has his or her own close-knit network, the spouses perform more household tasks separately. Her hypothesis about "connectedness" of a Spouse's network 79 having a direct correlation with the pattern of conjugal role segregation and sharing, has applicability to the situations of marital discord in neolocal households discussed in this chapter. A caveat, however, is necessary here. Bott's objective in her monograph is to explain patterns of marital living in neolocal households, whereas I am concerned herein to explain patterns of marital discord in them. Furthermore, while sex segregation of roles is often seen in the Hindu households whether or not separate and closed networks for spouses exist, Bott's closed networks do furnish a necessary prelude - explanatory of the divisiveness and consequent marital discord between neolocally resident spouses. Closed networks produce marital role segregation in one society, and marital divisiveness and discord in another, making it appear that the resultant phenomena are of the same order. However, the most salient feature of her analysis is that it sheds light on processual aSpects of the forming of marital role segregation and potential divisiveness between spouses. Her analysis gives us, in the words of Max Gluckman (1957:xix) "clues to understanding the process of develOpment of types of social relationship" in different societies. Pushing Bott's analysis one step further, her emphasis on the "connectedness" of social networks as a 80 cause of role segregation between spouses could be extended to explain the causation of marital discord between neolocally resident spouses. Bott shows that just as outside their conjugal relationship a husband and wife are oriented to their own respective kin and friends, so within the household the couple are oriented to the traditional sex-linked male and female roles in the division of labor. Generally such spouses earlier performed the same tasks in their families of orientation, forming attitudes toward sex roles, and after marriage simply changed their work sites adhering to the original pattern both in attitudes and performance of household tasks. The continuity of this pattern to an extreme length by Hindu spouses of the divorce data accounts for the lesser transfer of emotional ties in their conjugal relationship. In so far as a network of kin and friends outside of the husband-wife dyad Offered an alternative source of gratification and emotional reliance to a spouse, it posed a potential threat to the conjugal bond. It is in this perspective that I discuss the difficulty of transition that a husband-wife dyad faced in gaining primacy over the competing network of relationships of a husband or wife with his or her peers and kin. The difficulty of such transition has a definite correlation with a spouse's closed network. Such a.ciosed network is the independent variable of marital discord. 81 SECTION I. THE CLASS-INCOMPATIBLE SPOUSES ESTABLISHING NEOLOCAL HOUSEHOLDS: Many of the males whose marriages ended in divorce were raised in traditionally sex segregated and extended joint family households. The sex segregation inhibited the development of a real inter-spousal relationship even on their becoming neolocally resident. Many of the these men continued to have for themselves an intense and closed peer and kin network of relationships which cut across the marital dyad. These men and some women could not see marriage as signaling the end of their carefree pre-marital days. The first case of Shanti vs. Shankr illustrates the problem resulting from raising sons to be sons and not husbands. Case No.11. SHANTI vs. SHANKAR Shanti and Shankar, high caste Brahmins, were married in a parentally negotiated marriage though both had seen each other before they gave their consent to the marriage. At the time of finalization of marriage, Shanti had completed her B.A. as well as her first year of law school. Shanti's three older brothers had done well in their education and professional careers occupying much higher positions in the civil service and professions than their own father. However, the parents of the couple were of similar middle class status. Shanti's father was due to retire from government service within next six months and, therefore, wanted to marry off his daughter while he was gainfully employed and had access to certain facilities and amenities from his government position to make suitable arrangements for the accommo- dation for stay and entertainment of the groom's marriage-party on the day of Shanti's wedding and the 82 day following. Among her siblings, Shanti was the last to be married and her marriage before her father's retirement would free him of all familial obligations toward his children. Shanti's father, therefore, negotiated for her an early marriage with Shankar who after his junior college had completed a diploma course as an engineering draftsman. He was employed as a draftsman in a government department in a district town two hundred miles away from Lucknow. Neither parental family lived nearby. Shankar's father lived in Delhi where he had a civil service job of middle rank, while Shanti's father was similarly employed in Lucknow. After their marriage, the young couple established a neolocal home for themselves in the town where Shankar was employed. Within four to five months, inter-spousal conflict arose. The young husband maintained his close friendships with his male friends who impinged upon his time most of the evenings. Sometimes, he would go off to late night movies from 10.p.m. to 1.a.m. with them, leaving his wife all by herself. Whenever Shanti protested, she was called names and was cursed.' Once while her younger brother was visiting with her, Shanti objected to be cursed so Openly, that her husband struck her. She wrote out the whole episode in sex pages addressed to Shankar's mother. Her communication was a litany of Shankar's short temper, rustic behavior, ill-education and lack of ambition in life. Shanti threatened to leave Shankar if his parents would not set him straight. Shankar's father on receipt of the letter wrote a short forwarding memo-type letter to Shanti's father, urging him to prevail upon his daughter to be submissive to her husband and patient with him. Shankar's father mentioned also that he was quite helpless to take any action against his son's behavior from such a distance. He, however, hOped that things would work out for the young couple if they showed some restraint. On learning that Shankar's parents are helpless and would not be effective in helping her husband to improve upon his marital life style, Shanti left him and went back to her parents to live and complete her LL.B. When ' Shankar's father learned that Shanti had left her husband, he wrote a long letter to Shanti's father dwelling upon his obligations to advise his daughter of her duties to her husband, and to exhort her to face challenges of her marital world realistically, urging him to send Shanti to her husband. But Shanti did not join her husband. Shankar wrote a letter of repentence for his having thrashed and mistreated her, and begged Shanti 83 to forgive him. As his letter did not elicit any response from Shanti, Shankar wrote letters to Shanti's brothers telling them that Shanti left him because he could not be as well placed as they were in life. He did not want his wife to become an attorney as he would never want to be reduced to be a chaperone and escort of a lawyer-wife. If they did not help him, they should counsel Shanti to obtain a divorce which will free him too, and he will be able to marry a girl of his own status. Shanti obtained a divorce which Shankar did not contest. Shanti completed her LL.B. but did not practise law. Instead, one of her well-placed brothers working in federal civil service in a far off city in another state married her off locally to one of his caste friends employed in government service, probably concealing her earlier marriage and divorce. It appeared from the interviews that Shanti's relatives have erased the occurrence of her divorce from their memories entirely. Shankar's parents while arranging another marriage for him preferred to follow hypergamy faithfully for a traditional marital life for their son. They selected a high school drOp-out who belonged to a family of lower socio-economic status than their own. His marital life now is reported to be satisfactory. Bringing male friends home unannounced and demanding that their wives cook for them as well, might not be a serious reason for complaint in a land of full freezers or supermarkets, but in a land where shopping is done almost daily, such a complaint is serious even though in a patrilocal household it is likely to be dismissed. More serious for neolocally resident wives who had been themselves raised by their parents in nuclear households, was the tendency of a husband to spend their evenings with their friends eating out and going to the movies without informing their wives whom they kept waiting for them at home. Wives were never 84 invited to join their husband's friends. Men like Dr.Tarun as seen in the following case failed utterly to provide any semblance of company to their wives, or, to act as fathers to their children. Case No.12. TARA VS. TARUN Tara's father negotiated her caste-endogamous marriage with Tarun, a handsome well-built physician of 28 who had done his post-graduate work in medicine in England. Tara herself was a pretty woman of 22 at the time of her marriage. She had received her education in exclusive private schools and did her undergraduate work in a women's college. Tara's father and her grandfather as well as other lineage elders had attained distinguished careers both in the medical profession and the state civil services, earning a name for their professional distinctions and cosmOpolitan culture. Tara was the youngest among her sisters and brothers who were married in the traditional caste endogamous manner as was she with Tarun. Tarun was the first man in his entire kin-group to branch out in medicine. His father was engaged in money-lending and the jewellery business, the ancestral occupations of his lineage. His two older married brothers were patrilocally resident and lived in the traditional Indian Bazaar-and-residential area, the inner core of the city. Though Tarun's family was known to be propertied and fairly wealthy, compared to Tara's, they were extremely traditional in their ways. No woman in Tarun's extended kin-group was even a high school graduate. Although the two families lived in the same city, they were not close to one another either in geographic proximity or in social class. However, a little before his marriage, Tarun had rented a modern and well furnished apartment in a neighborhood generally known as a "civil lines area". All North Indian cities have such "civil lines" which are essentially class-stratified residential areas, built around the old inner core of the cities. These residen- tial suburbs are not caste limited and led a cosmOpofitan air. The residents of such areas generally belong to 85 upper middle class and are members of professions, or civil service or corporate officers. Tara's marriage with Tarun was solemnized according to Hindu rites with a dowry satisfactory to the groom and his father. The groom's marriage party of 250 persons was treated with-great fanfare, festivity and feasting. After staying patrilocally for a week with her affinal relatives, Tara moved to her groom's rented apartment to live neolocally with him. After a year, a daughter was born to Tara. Family expenses began to increase. Tarun, according to her, was very miserly and forced her to run to her father all the time for money. He spent his salary on rent, paying for and maintaining his car purchased partly out of the cash received in dowry, on his clothes, and very little for the household. Tara complained of his petty- mindedness and the manner he allowed her to spend money in the running of the household. Tara noted in an interview the great differences in the manner in which money is Spent in the households of professional class families and Shop keeping families. According to her and extensively noted by me and others as well, shop- keeping families in general are stingy on the amount of money they spend on items of food and house-clothing, but immoderate in Spending for display and prstige- getting items e.g. ostentatious clothing and jewellery for Showiness outside home. The oils and the fuel - the medium of cooking used by them, would be the cheapest available in the market. They would rather save on fresh vegetables and buy the cheapest poor quality ones. They would have predominantly carbohydrate based meals whereas, in professional families, meals are generally nutritionally balanced with vitamins and proteins. Such were the differences that characterized the house- holds of Tarun's father and of Tara's parents. Obviously, to run a household as Tara wanted required more money as well as some adjustment of items on which money was to be Spent. Tarun did not earn enough to meet both his and Tara's needs. Tarun's own parents would not give him any money as they had Spent a good fortune on his education in England. Further, his parents and others in his parental family felt that Tara was not one of their kind anyway. The female kin in Tarun's parental family did not socialize in mixed company as Tara did, and viewed it negatively. The' females in his kin-group are not, strictly speaking, 86 in purda but they do remain restricted in their movements and general interaction. Tara was probably polite to her affinal relatives as she claimed to be but condescendingTy so. Being neolocally resident, Tara had little or no occasion to closely associate and identify herself with them. Perhaps She could not because of the differences of life styles. Tarun began to reason that because of her, he was forced to Split from his stem family by finding a neolocal marital residence. Even though Tarun himself wanted to live in a residential area away from his tradition- oriented kin group, he rationalized his doing so by blaming his wife. Tarun remained a member of the Hindu caparcenary - the corporate unit holding the patrilineal family assets, by not demanding a partition of the ancestral properties and business assets to which he has a legal right of joint ownership. Nevertheless, he began to climb away socially and professionally from all the coparceners e.g. his father and brothers and other patri- kin. Tarun is, therefore, apt to feel a little insecure without them, yet in a way he feels ashamed of them. He walked a tight rOpe between his traditional kin group and his modern wife. It is one thing for a husband to feel ashamed of his parental family but quite another if his wife ever let it be known that she felt the same way. A man can always manipulate back into their affections but if his wife inadvertantly shows her indifference even to her female affines, the difficulties created thereby become insurmountable for the husband because the women of the lineage are not supposed to take such behavior from a mere newcomer who is a bride of a junior male member. An indifferent behavior on her part militates against the structure of female hierarchy in the extended family. Tarun wished his wife to cope with the extended family situation and maintain a friendly facade with them, to follow wherever he led her but never to outdo him, to be gracious hostess when occasion demanded otherwise should stay in the back catering to his desires and whims which were many. Frequently, Tarun would not return home in evening for dinner, and when he did, he would also bring male friends unannounced for dinner and demand that his wife prepare meals for them too. He maintained very traditional attitudes toward his wife and her place in the home. Tara's social life in the neighborhood came in sharp conflict with Tarun's attitudes. Tarun resented her socializing in his absence. 87 He himself was away from home, however, most of the time, not only all the days of the week but some of the evenings too. He gave very little time and attention to his wife and his daughter. The disharmonious family environment continued when a second daughter was born to Tara three years after her marriage.~ Tarun's neglect of his family reSponsibilities increased, and so did Tara's dependence on her friendly neighbors. This resulted in Tarun casting aSperSions on her chastity, and making half-hearted accusations of adultery. This infuriated Tara. Matters only worsened when Tarun spoke his mind to Tara's father who abstained from reprimanding Tara. Tara viewed the develOpments not as a rift but a complete rupture of her marriage. Quietly, one day she removed all the valuables, cash and jewellery from the bank locker jointly rented by her and her husband, and moved into the home of her father with her two daughters. Tara's surprise move enraged Tarun who filed a police report for the unauthorized removal by Tara of the contents of the joint locker, and forced removal of the children from his lawful custody, alleging also "an indiscreet and fast life being led by her to the detriment of the morals of his children". Tarun's filing of such a police report embittered Tara all the more and also alienated her kin-group from him. Ever Since, absolute enmity existed between the two. Tarun did not, however, initiate any further criminal action. Perhaps, his filing the police report was designed to create evidence of his reactions to the moves of his wife, and thus prepare his defence for alimony and child support litigation that he saw coming. A filing of a police report by a spouse is used as evidence in future litigation in civil courts to Show the attitudes and conduct of the respective spouses. In the social class of Tara's kin, exposing personal problems in police reports is considered very disgusting lower class behavior. Adultery was not made an issue in the litigation. Tara filed for judicial separation on grounds of mental cruelty and apprehension of the safety of her life. Even though the law did permit her to file for divorce exactly on the same grounds as alleged, she chose not to do so. She hoped that during the two years of waiting required by the statute before a court can be petitioned to make the decree of divorce final, a reconciliation might occur by some miracle. But it did not happen that way. After due process of law, She obtained divorce. Meanwhile, however, a separate litigation for alimony and child support was fought by the Spouses. The trial court determined Rs.400/-, about k of Tarun's net income, 88 as an adequate amount for alimony and child support. Tarun successfully appealed to have it reduced to Rs.300/— about 1/5th of his recomputed income. Further appeals to the state supreme court filed by Tarun were dismissed. Despite the passing of several years since the issues of alimony and child support were litigated, Tara and her daughters did not receive even a penny from Tarun. This bottleneck in collection of alimony and child support is a frequent occurrence in Indian Civil Courts in the absence of contempt powers for non-payment. There was no dispute among the disputants on the issue of custody of children and visitation rights, for Tarun did not have anything to do with the daughters anyway. Tara has no thoughts of remarriage after two years of her divorce. Instead she has enrolled in a graduate program and is working for her Ph.D. She does substitute teaching along with her studies. Her children are taken care of by her parents as well as her own brothers. She runs a separate household for herself within a stone's throw from her parent's residence. She reports however, that she remains on casual but good terms with her husband's patri-kin. Tarun is also unmarried as yet. It is highly improbable that his kinsmen could negotiate a match for him as they do not wish to concern themselves actively with Tarun's personal life problems. He may marry eventually on his own. In Tara's marriage, her parents had failed to realize that a man's own social class and professional achievements do not necessarily overcome the results of the traditional child-rearing practices. A wife's pleadkr; has little effect on a husband to mend his bachelor like ways if he has been raised in an environment where the opinions and needs of women are ignored and satisfied only within the semi-purdah conditions of a traditional joint-extended household. In contrast with the earlier childhood experiences, the requirements of a neolocal- nuclear household demand recognition of the wife's 89 needs for Spousal companionship. The Western reader Should sympathize with the predicament of wives such as Tara and Shanti since the loneliness and isolation of which they complained is a common cry from the Western liberated woman as well. The problem of conjugal interaction in a situation of social hypogamy in which the young man is either of a lower socio-economic and professional status than his wife and her kin, or only a recent achiever of the socio-economic and professional status of his wife's parents and siblings, is also highlighted by the following case of Rani vs. Raj. Raj created his own marital difficulties by refusing to allow Rani a network of interacting friends that would give her an opportunity for some social life outside her marital home. Since he could-not provide her an adequate companionship himself because of the nature of his job obligations, and denied her outside friends so violently, Rani refused to put up with the confining marital environment despite her being the mother of a daughter. The clash of marital life style of the two Spouses touches a new high in this case. 90 Case No.13. RANI vs. RAJ Rani was a pretty woman, born in a high caste and upper Class family. 'She was educated in Western style convent schools in New Delhi. She did not go for a university degree and was married at the age of 19. Her marriage was caste-endogamous, parentally arranged, and ceremonialized in traditional Hindu style with Raj. Even though Raj's father was a petty civil servant, Raj had been recruited a year before his marriage to the officers cadre of the federal civil service. The young men and women who belong to this cadre are highly prized in the matrimonial market because they have a secure future in government with ever increasing responsibility and power, eminence and prestige coupled with a high salary and other large perquisites attached to the office e.g. free mension like residence, a retinue of servants, chauffer driven auto, etc. One year after their marriage, a daughter was born to Rani. Raj was posted as an officer in charge of a county outside of Delhi in another state when Rani started to miss her socio-cultural environment of New Delhi. She was bored without the Opportunity to Spend her evenings in high society. Friction in life style followed. Raj was often occupied in late afternoons and evenings with his official obligations but he had forbidden Rani to socialize even among married couples who were stationed there like Raj and Rani. On his discovering that Rani socialized in his absence, Raj gave her a sound beating. Rani filed for judicial separation, complaining physical cruelty involving bodily injuries. In his written reply to the court, Raj admitted having beaten her but contended that Rani neglected her wifely duties, and led a Westernized mode of life not acceptable to him. Her partying and socializing were objectionable to him. The judge took note of the fact that other officers and friends had failed to reconcile the marital differences, and that it would be harmful to the health of the petitioner-wife to live with her husband. Raj had not made any allegatkni of unchastity against Rani. The judge granted the decree of judicial separation, and later on the divorce. Rani's kinsmen prevailed on her to agree to Raj's demand to keep the child as it would give her more time for her university education and also enhance her prospects 91 of a second marriage. Rani is now an instructor in a women's college in New Delhi, and has chosen not to remarry. Raj's parents arranged another marriage for him, and he is reported to be leading a satisfactory marital life. His parents had made it certain that his second wife did ngt come from a home of a higher socio- economic background than their own. Social class differences which left Raj violently opposed to recOgnizing the needs of Rani under the conditions of neolocality were eliminated in his second marriage. Demanding traditional behavior from a wife such as Rani whose earlier upbringing was in cosmopolitan upper-class society, was like expecting her to act as a wind-up doll, taken out of the closet to be modern when needed and put back between times. Strangly enough to Western eyes, many women continue to live in this type of marriage. Even where divorce is not threatened or precipitated, households of such men - quite numerous in the two cities, are divided into mother and children on the one side and the father on the other as a powerful outsider - almost omnipotent but a stranger to the family. What this creates is a potential for marital discord and disruption at a far larger scale than presently exists. What prevents an increased incidence of divorce at the instance of wives are two factors: one is the belief system of ascriptive pollution which stigmatizes every divorced 92 woman rendering her ideologically unsuitable for marriage; the other - the economic non-viaibility of most women to be occupationally or financially autonomous. From the evidence, the latter is a stronger deterrent. Resultantly, women seek divorce only rarely for a reason of their own. Only the professionally educated or other women capable of supporting themselves can afford to seek a divorce for a reason other than to literally save their lives. The case of Yogin vs. Yogesh is illustrative of the reason why many such marital discord Situations are reconciled. Case No.14. YOGIN VS. YOGESH At the time of her marriage, Yogin was 20 and had passed her B.A. She was the daughter of a retired civil servant of a junior rank. Her father had negotiated a caste endogamous marriage with Yogesh, a senior engineer who was 40. The class difference was very pronounced in the backgrounds of the two spouses. Yogin came from the lower middle class while Yogesh was not only highly placed but belonged to a very prominent and distinguished family of the region. For both of them it was their first marriage. For a forty year old man, like Yogesh, a young attractive virgin wife could be found only in a lower social class. Such a great age disparity is looked at with concern in the social ethos of the region. Yogin's parents considered that they had made an excellent match for their daughter with such a well established man especially because they provided very little dowry since none was requested from the groom's parents. After the marriage, the couple lived neolocally. Yogin's father lived in the Same city not too far away from her conjugal home. Yogesh's parents lived in another city 93 fifty miles away. Yogin maintained close ties with her natal family. Her two older brothers were in state employment in far away towns of the state, but her youngest brother was a junior college student and lived with his parents. Yogin maintained close ties with her family. ' Yogin bore two daughters about a year and a half apart followed by a son three years later.- It seems that around the time of their son's birth, problems of marital discord began to appear. Yogesh had taken to heavy drinking and wife beating. He was alleged to mistreat servants who ran away. All the chores of the household fell on Yogin's shoulders. Apparently after the birth of the son, Yogesh never resumed sexual relations with his wife, claiming that he had a disease for which he was undergoing treatment. When Yogesh suSpected that his wife knew of his impotency he restricted her movements, confining her to the house, and preventing her from ever visiting her natal home or any other relative all by herself. When she threatened to disclose his impotency, he displayed a revolver and threatened to Shoot her the day he learned that she had exposed him to gossip. Yogin became very frightened. Soon thereafter, she quietly slipped away to her father taking the children with her and petitioned the court to grant her judicial separation on the ground of threats to her life and physical and mental cruelty. The disclosures made in her court petition were so done largely to enlist the support of the state agencies in order that her life might not ever again fall in danger at the hands of Yogesh. It may be mentioned that there is no newspaper reporting of trial court divorce filings in any city in India quite unlike small town U.S.A. where an incident of a traffic ticket or a minor cold is usually written up in the town's daily newspaper. Hence, such filings do not Spread rumors as extensively in Indian cities. Yogesh's counsel requested the court for time to file a written reply in reSponse to Yogin's petition on the ground that reconciliation efforts were under way, and delay in court action was, therefore, required. Yogesh's friends acted as go-betweens with Yogin's father to reconcile the Spouses. Yogin's father counseled her on the wisdom of maintaining the marriage and becoming a better wife of a more traditional mould. The future of a divorced woman with three children would be too 94 bleak fOr her to COpe with especially as the children grew older. Faced with that harsh reality, Yogin agreed to reconcile with her husband and promised to behave more circumspectly in the future. It seems, however, strange that the strain in Yogin's marriage Should have occurred after the son's birth since that birth is traditionally supposed to cement the relationship of husband and wife. Two conflicting viewpoints on the nature of involvement that generated the marital discord were gathered in the interviews with the friends and kin of the spouses. One version had it that Yogesh's drinking and impotency did not arise after the birth of the son but before, the son then being born of an adulterous relationship by Yogin. There is support for the version in Yogesh's demand in the reconciliation negotiations that Yogin cease running around. In that case, however, Yogesh would be as reluctant to publicly admit his impotency as Yogin would be to admit to her adultery. Nor would it serve Yogesh's legal interest as he would lose in court because of therule of irrebuttable presumption of legitimacy of a child born during wedlock especially when Yogesh could not prove beyond doubt his sexual non-access to his wife. Thus, if he pursued the matter, he would be losing the case as well as setting himself up for public ridicule for all times. Yogin's family would want to avoid the social stigma of divorce and not lose such a highly placed son-in-law, whereas Yogesh's patri-kin would not like to see the nascent family extending and perpetuating their lineal line destroyed. He, therefore, rightly concluded it to be entirely pointless to raise the issue publicly in the legal proceedings. Another possibility more likely in India than elsewhene is that having obtained a son, thus fulfilling his religious obligations, Yogesh ceased to have sexual interest. If one considers that he was 46 at the time of cessation of interest, living on a vegetarian diet and not having had sexual outlets prior to the age of 40, one need not be very surprised thatlfis degree of sexual drive was never highly develOped. It is not at all unusual in India for a man at that age to be sexually inactive. Moreover, traditionally men of his age would have become fathers-in-law at which time social pressures demand a stOpping of sexual activity with the idea that the parents-in-law have fulfilled their householder duties. In India, for a couple to have a 95 child after the marriage of one of their children is considered very crass except in the martial castes. With a young wife as Yogin was at the age of 26, retaining her sexual interest, it is small wonder that Yogesh became jealous and possessive. Yogesh would probably not want servants around the house while he was away at work for fear that his wife's eye might wander. Whatever the suspicion about his origins, the son was pivotal in the reconciliation and bringing the family unit together saving the marriage from disrupting. Contrary to popular assumption of the low status of Hindu wives, and in contrast with the cases of dominant husbands such as Tarun, Raj, and Yogesh, the next case of Sarla as well as that of Rupa which is included in the following section of this chapter Show that in some neolocal households, the wife rather than the husband may hold the dominant status network. Sarla was the center of the social relationships-network dependent upon the status derived from her father, which was so much greater than that derivable from her husband that She looked to the former. Her maintaining an intense interaction in her closed network precipitated the divorce, as is shown in the following narrative. 96 Case No.15. SARLA vs. SATPAL Sarla, the daughter of a state Cabinet Minister, was married traditionally to Satpal, a young engineer. Satpal's father was a small town lawyer of good standing. Satpal's patriékin though well educated were traditional in orientation, as was he. After their marriage, the young couple lived neolocally in a city where Satpal had been employed for over two years as an assistant works manager of a factory. The city also happened to be the political constituency of Sarla's Minister-father. Sarla made it a practice after her marriage to Spend her evenings meeting the people who called on her in an effort to gain access to her father, or socializing with civil service officers' families stationed in the city. Sarla's filling her husband's home with hangers- on and acting as a go-between for her father was much resented to by her husband. Furthermore, Sarla accompanied as frequently as possible not only her father on his state tours but also the family of another cabinet minister - an old family friend of her father. Probably, she secretly entertained political ambition of her own but did not admit it to her husband. Within six months a quarrel occurred between the two Spouses on the issue of Sarla's accompanying her father on a state tour. Sarla's father interfered in the dispute, and took his daughter to his residence in the state capital. Sarla refused to return to her husband despite the requests he made in his letters as well as in person. A voluminous exchange of letters between the two sets of parents also took place, each father dwelling upon the duties of the other and the role of the newly-weds. However, the two fathers did not encourage the involved Spouses to seek a reconciliation on their own. Meanwhile Sarla's father helped her obtain a teaching position in a women's college in the city. In his disgust, Satpal wrote letters to his brothers-in- law accusing Sarla of vanity, and denouncing their Minister-father for the disgraceful act of taking his married daughter on state tours against the wishes of his son-in-law. Thereupon Sarla sued for divorce on the ground of mental and physical cruelty, and a decree of divorce was entered on the basis of her plea. 97 Satpal migrated to the U.S.A. and was not available for an interview but his letters in the court file and the interviews with his kin make his position very clear. He felt himself well rid of Sarla and her family and the constant injury to his self-esteem. Smia remains single. She has completed her Ph.D. and teaches at a University college. She had adopted on her divorce the third child of her older Sister. The adoptee is a girl. Sarla maintains a busy schedule and has avoided remarriage despite her family's urgings. Her parents help her maintain a comfortable house with a servant. Her younger brother who is a student also lives with her. Her parents and other relatives exchange frequent visits with her. A few years ago, she had accompanied her father on a visit to the U.S.A. where her oldest sister and her engineer husband live. Thus, Sarla maintains as before a close network of kin relationships. It is obvious that in the interests of her marital relationship, it was essential for Sarla to include her husband in her social network of relationships. But she found the attractiveness of being the daughter of a Cabinet Minister with all the flattering attentions from his minions and hangers-on too great to adequately take care of this aSpect of marital life. Her husband felt continually downgraded by her social behavior and her father's attitude. Thus, the necessary emotional repertoire with her husband was never established to strengthen Sarla's marital relationship even in the neolocal household where the eclipse of parental ties was expected to occur. The marital bond did not sustain itself under the circumstances. 98 The remarriage of a widower with children is not much approved in Hindu society. The following case of Rohini vs. Rohan in which the close relationship of the husband to a child of the first marriage prevented the develOpment of emotional dependence and companion- ship between the spouses, demonstrates one reason for the disapproval. Rohan's employment involving frequent moves, his stinginess in entertaining, and his denying his second wife a place in any social network of relationships precipitated the divorce. Case No.16. ROHINI vs. ROHAN Rohan, Khatri by caste, M.A.LL.B., a senior officer in state civil service earning Rs.1,500/—was 42 years of age when he married Rohini, a member of his own caste. Rohan was a widower and had two daughters from his previous marriage. The older daughter was 13 and the younger 9 at the time of Rohan's second marriage. He kept his older daughter with him while the younger one was raised in the family of his younger brother who had a child of his own and was professionally well-placed like Rohan. Rohini was 29 and a college professor when She married Rohan. It was the first marriage for her. Neither of them had parents living at the time of their marriage. The marital match was negotiated through Rohini's first cousin who was a colleague of Rohan. Since she was crossing the marriageable age for women, and Rohan was a high ranking officer and her senior by 13 years, Rohini felt that their life styles would be compatible. Hence, she agreed to marry him. Rohan, however, greatly cherished the memory of his first wife, and was exceptionally devoted in his love 99 of his older daughter who symbolized his love for the deceased woman. The daughter obtained from her father whatever her heart desired for. The girl was inordinately Spoiled by her doting father by the time of his second marriage. Rohan was, otherwise, given to an unusually austere life style so far as he personally was concerned and very frugal in his household affairs and entertaining his friends. Very soon after the marriage, the daughter Showed no effort to conceal her resentment of her step mother, making life merable for her. Rohini was given to much more independence both in her budget and life style than Rohan was prepared to concede. Each accused the other of being strongly Opinionated, and set rigidly in his or her life styles. A year after her marriage, a son was born to Rohini out of this marriage. It is reported that the son and his mother could not gain any affectionate attention from Rohan. Naturally, the mother would want to give her son the luxuries granted to the favored daughter. She was .denied these lest it deprive the favoured child any small attention. The lack of money and social life led Rohini to . miss her professional life because Rohan held a transferable government job that took him from one large city to another every three years. Rohini filed a suit for judicial separation and child support three years after her marriage on grounds of mental and physical cruelty, and later she obtained divorce. On leaving Rohan, Rohini relocated herself as a college instructor in a new city keeping their son with her. She plans to remarry if a suitable Opportunity arises. Rohan is once again by himself as his daughter is a graduate student in a national university. He does not entertain the idea to remarry for the third time. Further, caste matrimonial offers are not made to a man above 45 years of age. The case highlighted a lack of meaningful interspousal relationship in a common social network of kin and friends - so very essential for marital happiness in a neolocal household. In the upper-middle class Hindus, the caste ethos tend to weaken and are unable to keep a hold over people as they admirably do in the traditional situation. To strongly discourage socialization for a wife who was already 29 years of age at the time of her marriage and who had taught college for six years, caused 100 Rohan the loss of the most important possession of a Hindu father, his son. This is the only case where a divorce occurred with a son. The economic variable of a woman potentially able to support herself and her son as well, entailing no loss of inheritance from the father to his son - coupled with father's unwillingness to provide for the child of his second marriage in the Same manner as he did for those of his first, seem to be the deciding factors for Rohini to seek divorce. SECTION II. ON STATUS DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN SPOUSES ARISING DURING THEIR POST-MARITAL PERIOD: A phenomenon commonly noted among American universfiy students where student marriages involve "putting husband through", the status differential created between the two spouses as the husband becomes professionally placed, frequently results in divorce. The common complaint in such American divorces is that "she didn't keep up with me", concerning the wife who worked long hours at a relatively menial job to support the complainer through the education required to achieve his present status. In India, the tradition of early marriage before the young men and women have completed their education often creates similar kinds of situations although it is the 101 parents of the husband who finance his education after marriage. The marriage of Savitri, as seen in the next case, was quite stable as lOng as she and her husband lived patrilocally. However, the Shift to neolocality augmented the process of conjugal separation as Sohan's professional achievements created between the spouses a status differential which could not sustain the marriage when Sohan had the opportunity to develop a relationship with a woman of his new social class. Case No.17. SAVITRI vs. SOHAN Savitri was married caste endogamously in the traditional manner at 14 to Sohan who was 16, a high school graduate, at the time of his marriage. Savitri was barely literate having gone to her village primary school up to the 4th grade. Both of them were Thakurs by caste and came from the agricultural community of the districts of Basti and Gorakhpur in the eastern wing of the state of U.P. After their marriage, Savitri and Sohan were patrilocany resident for six years living in Gorakhpur where Sohan continued his education up to his M.A. During this period two daughters were born to Savitri. After completing his M.A., Sohan obtained a teaching position in an out-of-state university 800 miles away where he migrated with ris wife and two children, and lived in a nuclear-neolocal household. They lived thus for another four years after which Sohan developed intimate relationship with a woman graduate student. Savitri resented it but could do little to prevent it, and was told to keep quiet. Sohan started to find his adulterous living inconvenient in that city as he had lived there for four years and had become known both in his neighborhood and the university community. In order to be able to live with his mistress, he found a job in another university 200 miles away, and abandoned his family altogether. For the first few months, Sohan 102 provided a bare subsistence to Savitri.- In reply to one of the last few letters of his wife, Sohan wrote back to say: "Savitri - Your rather filthy and unfortunate letter was received last month. Before I reply, let me mention that (1) please do not ever write to me again, (2) your threat of legal action against me is most unfortunate and would not lead you anywhere. The fact is that you are now at liberty to lead your life anyway you like, as I do. I have severed all my relationship with you. To tell lies, I believe, is cowardice and to own up truth is proper. I wish to tell you that Lalita and I live together and it is also true that our mutual relationship cannot be changed either by any man, or custom, or God himself. Lalita and I shall live like this forever now. I had been attempting ~all these years while married with you to suppress my individuality and personal emotions and to compromise my ideas and style of life with the circumstances I was placed in. But finally I find it impossible to live like that any further. To keep you as my wife and to provide you with a wifely status is the most strenous of all jobs whereby I find myself completely lost. I have now realized that I too have a right to live. You should know that the earlier efforts of mine have resulted in the two children that we have. I attempted seriously to make a go of the marriage but now I find it impossible to carry on the yoke. You are a sinker around my neck and you just do not let me develop. In Lalita I find idealism and inspiration that help me develop and go forward. I have no answer as to why I was at all educated. They could have let me live in the village as usual but now I find that I am destined for something else of which you are not a part. I will not express myself any further, but what you should now know is that Lalita is my consciousness, future, and life itself. Goodbye, and please do not write to me ever again. - Sohan." Either by persuasion or coercion, Savitri filed for divorce on the ground that her husband was habitually living in adultery. Living in adultery is a ground for divorce whereas a mere act of adultery is a ground only for judicial separation which after two years of the decree entitles the parties to file for divorce. 103 The reason for suspecting undue pressure on Savitri is that she was to gain very little, if any thing at all, by filing for divorce instead of a judicial separation and maintenance; whereas, Sohan would stand to gain his freedom to marry his mistress, whiflu he wanted rather desperately. Perhaps, Savitri, a mother of two children and semi-literate, did not even entertain a notion of remarrying in her circumstances. In his testimony, Sohan admitted to be living in adultery, and stated substantially the Same things he had earlier written in the letter. He was accompanied into the court by his mistress who volunteered her appearance without having been formally summoned. She volunteered a deposition in the open court corroborating Sohan's testimony. During the proceedings, Savitri was examined in the private chambers of the presiding judge who wanted to assure himself of the genuine nature of Sohan's "living in adultery". The court awarded both alimony and child support equal to one fifth of Sohan's monthly take home salary, and granted the requested divorce. Even though Sohan had an agricultural land in his name valued at Rs.4,000/- which was equivalent to his 8 months' salary, no part of the land was ordered by the court to go to either his children or to his wife because the law does not provide for a wife's Share in the community prOperty. However, Sohan arranged with Savitri to let her take over the land during her lifetime and that she was to go there to manage it, in lieu of alimony and child support. Savitri went back to her native state to live with her parents-in-law with whom she still lives along with her children. Sohan married his mistress, severing all connection with his patri-kin. He lives a thousand miles away from them, which involves a railway journey of two days and two nights each way. Ostensibly, he has no trappings left of his village background, and hates to admit even to belong to that region of the state of U.P. With his second wife working as a teacher, he is counted as a well-established member of the professional citizenry of the town. In so far as a loss of status is concerned, it is the staus of Sohan as a son of the household, that has apparently considerably diminished in the eyes of his parents. He has not visited with them for the last many years. He remains quite conscious of alienating his. parents and other kin, and may work out some strategy 104 to patch up with his parental family when and if a real need arises for him so to do. Probably the event of an important marriage or death in the patrilineage would be seized by him to renew his ties with his kin. However, the professional status of Lalita and his own as well as their network of social relationships may come in the way of such a develOpment to occur. In agricultural land-owning families, the only way a man can obtain a divorce appears to be by cutting himself off from his patri-kin completely since they are ideologically committed to the first wife for whose marriage they had negotiated on the basis of family honor and their word. The males in martial communities like Thakurs, Jats and some Rajputs have a reputation for extra-marital affairs. Often, they married more than one wife before the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. Their ideological commitment toward monogamy is known to be the weakest among the Hindus of the region. There were similar situations as that of Savitri even in recent past, where men in Sohan's position maintained their first wife on the agricultural estate they held and lived with their second and educated wife in towns where they found state employment or a profession. In many ways, this was a more satisfactory arrangement. The first wife retained her position as a wife having been left with some standing in the community around her, which as a divorcee she would not have had. And in the event she subsequently became a widow, she and her children 105 would inherit, 'while a divorced woman such as Savitri was i.e. in purda with two daughters to take care of, would not stand a chance of remarriage anyway. Retaining the wifely status, she and her children would be entitled to maintenance on the agricultural land of her husband or his patrilineage, and could at the same time handle the management of his estate. This would give her. a sense of usefulness and purpose even if, as was often the case, she hated him for deserting her. The second wife had a status of wife and favorite, without being a concubine or a mistress in the eyes of others to persuade her to force a divorce on the first wife, causing suffering and hardship for the children, the first wife and the two sets of parents of the spouses. In the former days, the first wife looked after her parents-in-law or the ancestral patrilineal household which appears to be still the case for Savitri. Despite her loss of legal status as wife, her parents-in-law are continuing to recognize Savitri as their daughter-in-law according to the old tradition. Sohan was so conscious of the attitudes of his parents and afraid of their wrath upon him that he did not even write them to inform of the event of his remarriage, much less asking them to participate or send their blessings for the occasion. 106 The situation of husbands such as Sohan with wives 0 like Savitri who "do not socialize" because they are uneducated and traditional shows how the old system of early marriage can divide the social networks of the two spouses. However, it is not only husbands who find the develOpment of a post-marital status differential to create marital problems, but wives who excel their husbands face a similar dilemma. We see in the next case that Rupa distinguished herself in the legal profession outdoing her husband in socio-economic achievements, but precipitated a disruption of her marriage. Case No.18 RUPA vs. RAM Rupa, a high caste woman of 20 years after passing her B.A., was married by traditional rites caste endogamously to a 23 year old police officer employed in a city of her neighboring state, about 150 miles away from her natal home. Rupa's father was a civil service officer of medium rank but his two brothers were judges in the state judiciary. Rupa had no brothers and only one younger sister. After her marriage, she lived with her husband in a neolocal household. Her parents-in-law lived in another adjacent town 50 miles away from her conjugal home. Her husband, Ram, had only one younger brother who lived with his parents and looked after the agricultural lands that the family owned. Rupa with the full consent of her husband went to the city law school and obtained her LL.B. Before starting to practise law, Rupa had already borne two daughters and the couple had decided to exercise birth control - an indicator of the modernized tendencies of the spouses. By this time, Rupa's younger sister had passed her high school and wanted six years of college education. Rupaks natal home town did not have a university but only a 107 junior college for women. Rupa herself had completed the last two years of her B.A. in a university town where her father's brother was posted as a judge. Rupa with the approval of her hquand invited her younger sister to stay with her and attend the city university for her graduate work. That way Rupa had her sister to lend a helping hand in taking care of the children while Rupa concentrated on her law practice. This arrangement worked out well for six years when the ‘younger sister completed her M.A. While doing her M.A., Rupa‘s younger sister develOped a romance with an assistant professor living in the same apartment building. DeSpite the fact that the young professor belonged to another caste, Rupa and her husband approved of the romance. Soon the professor was offered a higher ranking position in another state. But before he moved, Rupa and Ram helped him marry their sister. The caste- exogamous marriage displeased Rupa's extended kin though her parents reluctantly accepted the situation, and performed the ritual of 'Kanya-daan' of their daughter. By this time Rupa had established herself in a flouriShhx; law practice. The couple built a very nice bungalow for themselves in the best neighborhood of the city by the 10th anniversary of their wedding. It was thereafter that the prssures on Rupa's time both by the profession and her social network started to cause marital stress. Rupa had been admitted to practise in the state high court, which frequently necessitated traveling to the city where the high court was located. For another four years,she did extremely well but her husband's career seemed to have reached its peak in a deadend job. Her new network of social relationships among her professional peers fUrther strained her marriage. The husband revenged himself by entering into sexual relationships with other women. That brought a.head-on clash. The husband had already lost interest in his marital life and, since he was father to two daughters lacked ideological commitment to the marital bond that a son would have given him. During his marital life, Ram did not maintain a close relationship with any of his patri- kin, and none had ever lived with him. No member of Rupa's natal kin-group lived in the city of her conjugal home. Since the respective extended family relationships of both Ram and Rupa had ceased to be relevant and meaningful to their nuclear-neolocal household, there was little pressure from any common source upon them to keep their marriage going. Their quarrels turned into fights and Ram beat Rupa in front of the two 108 grown up daughters. Rupa left her conjugal home with her daughters, rented another home in the city, and filed for divorce. Since Rupa's divorce proceedings were contested, her divorce took six years to finalize after her defacto separation from Ram. It appears that being in the government employ, Ram felt.obliged to contest the divorce lest he look bad in the light of the minimal moral standards expected of government officers. Ram initiated a separate litigation claiming exclusive ownership right over the bungalow that the couple had acquired in the name of Rupa alone. Ram's plea was that the bungalow was his personal prOperty but was held by him in accord with the practice known as a 'Benami transaction' by which husband holds a property in the name of his wife to save himself from his creditors. Often the Indian courts have examined such transactions and demolished the myth of this artificially created barrier in favor of a husband's creditors, holding that a debtor's wife was a mere name lender without consideration. In Ram's case, however, the court decided against him, holding Rupa to be the true owner of the bungalow not because she earned more money but because she was the prObable source of the money used to acquire it. Rupa met her second husband before her divorce was finalized. During the course of her law practice, she had met him as a client whose several cases she had successfully represented. The man had the title of a Raja but did not belong to Rupa's caste. As soon as her divorce was final, Rupa married him caste-exogamously in a civil ceremony. The Raja's widowed mother lived with him. Rupa's new mother-in-law accepted her as the most welcome bride who could manage the extensive land holdings and handle the rather recurrent litigation of the estate. Rupa's daughters live in a residential graduate school and are being supported wholly by her. Rupa had not claimed any alimony or child support from Ram. The two daughters maintain more cordial relations with her and her new husband than with their father. Rupa's parents often visit with her and stay in her new conjugal home. They did not do so in her previous marital home. Now they have completely cast away the formal in-law avoidance rules. They maintain a very close and warm relationship with their two married daughters. Rupa maintains contacts with her other consanguines. Some of her kin have not looked with 109 favor her remarriage. However, as Rupa pointed out, several of her nieces are going to law schools and graduate education in different universities. Rupa in her middle forties looks much younger and very attractive unlike most Indian women of that age. She maintains her law practice, and is very happy in both her professional and her marital life. Ram remains unmarried, and maintains his job. Rupa discovered, as did Sohan who had shaken off completely his village background and found his b§§§¥ literate wife a handicap, that neolocality freed them from traditional restraints. Neolocality made flexible both the degree of structuring of the. marital role and the range of permissible behavior e.g. socializing in mixed company, for the new status achievers. Ram's ego could not accept a social network in which his wife was the dominant link. The changes in the socio-economic statuses both of Rupa and Sohan tended to produce a set of network of relationships different from that of their spouses. However, so long as a husband and his wife continued to evaluate each other in the same terms as earlier, to that extent divorce was less likely to occur. But in the circumstances where a spouse, either a husband or a wife, became a higher occupational achiever, developing along with a new directions of relationships in which new kinds of conceptions of self were anchored, the social support that such spouse used as a base to evaluate 'self' 110 became increasingly differentiated from the one employed by the other spouse. Consequently, the two Spouses in such a situation grew apart from each other both in terms of the ways in which they started to evaluate+ each other, and also in terms of the development of the respective social networks to support differing kinds of patterns of self-investment and self evaluation. The different sets of values emerging among a couple are to be seen in the ways in which the spouses evaluated themselves and also in their developing differing kind of views on marriage itself. Commensurate with the increase of attitudinal modernity of a spouse like Rupa or Sohan living neolocally, the acceptability of divorce is accentuated. And, because modernity is related to the occupational status-levels of the spouse involved, we do find an increased probability of divorce in the circumstances of neolocality as we see happening in the two cases of Sohan and Rupa. This process creates an equal impact on other kin relationships just the same as is discussed in the next section. 111 SECTION III ATTENUATION 0F KIN-GROUP TIES 0F NEOLOCALLY RESIDENT MEN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS: The phenomenon of status differential which creates conjugal distance, also manifests itself in the diminish- ing dyadic relationship of a married man with his father and siblings where he had attained superior educational and professional status than his father and brothers, and lived away from parental home in a distant city as is seen in the following case of Saroj vs. Sanjay. After his training in Germany and living neolocally there, Sanjay's patrikin had little to do with his subsequent marital problems and divorce. Case No.19. SAROJ vs. SANJAY Saroj, the only daughter of a famous and wealthy jurist, \nas married after she had passed her B.A. Her groom, Sanjay, was a promising young student who had completed 111s M.Sc. in physics with the highest grade point average in his class. Their marriage was caste «endogamous and traditionally ceremonialized. Sanjay's :father had some real estate holdings, a small money- Zlending business, and was little known in his caste. Iiis other patri-kin were petty shOp-keepers. Despite 'the great disparity of socio-economic and educational ilevels and differences of life style of the two :families, Saroj's father conducted the matrimonial :negotiations of his very plain daughter on the ‘understanding that he would support Sanjay's further studies abroad in lieu of dowry. 112 After a few months of his marriage, Sajay went to Germany for his doctoral degree. Since Saroj's brothers are prominent attorneys and scientists in India and the U.S., funding was made available to Sanjay for his education. After a year, Saroj joined her husband in Germany. After a year and half of marital living with Sanjay, Saroj returned to India complaining of mistreatment by Sanjay. In the meantime, Sanjay immigrated to the U.S. to work at a good paying job. After a year, Sanjay visited a with his parents in India, and he boldly announced that his affines had always looked down their noses at him and did not treat him with the respect due a son-in-law. Now that he had a good job, they could keep their daughter for good. Sanjay's parents and his other kin adOpted an air of non-concern about the marital break-up largely because Saroj did not live patrilocally and they did not receive any dowry in their hands. Hence they did not feel obligated to take a stance against Sanjay. When Saroj's father discovered that a reconciliation with Sanjay was not possible and that his kinsmen were wholly indifferent on the issue, he quickly filed a suit for judicial separation on the ground of cruelty in the name of his daughter, and arranged to have Sanjay's passport cancelled for his alleged delinquency of abandoning and refusing to prOperly maintain his wife. Unable to leave the country, Sanjay quickly bowed to the inevitable and humbled himself. He begged his affines to forgive him, and on their doing so he resumed cohabitation with Saroj as a decent husband. 0n.the reconciliation having been made, the legal proceedings were terminated against Sanjay and the passport was restored to him. After a month, he took Saroj with him to the US. to live and work on his job. However, as soon as returned to the U.S., Sanjay deserted Saroj in a New York hotel and disappeared for good. The woman had to seek out her brother who was a U.S. resident and arranged to return to India. Meanwhile, Sanjay took his divorce from a Nevada court in the U.S., and stayed there. Sanjay will stay out of India until he becomes a U.S. citizen whose passport cannot be cancelled at the instance of a vengeful father-in-law. As a peer of his father-in-law put, '"Contrary to the old idea that - if you get them young, you can raise them right, you cannot these days build a better spouse for your daughter by doing it yourself." Undoubtedly, the final revenge was Sanjay's. After completing her Ph.D., Saroj teaches in a girls' college. If she ever remarries, she will do on her own. 113 Just as Sohan, after branching out to live neolocally and taking up a college teaching position in a state other than the one where his parents lived, could behave in defiance of his parents' wishes against the divorce,Sanjay's own patrikin showed a lack of concern because he lived neolocally far away from them. Dr.Tarun too with his high educational and professional status combined with neolocality, nullified all influence upon him from his parents and siblings who did not involve themselves in his marital conflict and divorce. This phenomenon is also manifested in the next case of Ritu vs. Ramesh. Although Dr.Ramesh had accepted an arranged marriage negotiated by his parents - congruent with the expectations derived from his upbringing, once he decided soon after his marriage that his bride did not suit him, not even his parents making the trip all the way to Canada to dissuade him from his decision to divorce could succeed. Case No.20. RITU vs. RAMESH Ritu, the eldest daughter of a highly placed senior civil service officer had her marriage arranged after her B.A. with Ramesh who was a medical doctor of her own caste practising in Canada for ten years. On his two week vacation, Ramesh returned home via New Delhi just for the ceremonilization of his marriage. He met Ritu for the first time at the airport in New Delhi where his and Ritu's kinsmen had gathered to welcome him. As Ritu was undeniably beautiful, the young groom was probably favourably inclined by that as much as by his 114 parents' emphasis on her excellent family background. After confirming the date of marriage for the third day, Ramesh and his parents proceeded to their home town and so did Ritu and her kinsmen to theirs. On the wedding dat, the groom's party of fifty members came to the bride's home town and was accommodated in a five star hotel for two nights. At the time of reception however, the groom's party had increased to 100 as the locally resident relatives and friends of the groom and and his kin were also invited to join the occasion all the expense of the bride's family. The wedding reception was a very festive and elaborate affair. The relatives and friends of the parents and unCles of the bride and her own female friends numbered over two hundred at the reception. The bride's kinsmen were given to pretentious displays of their wealth at the slightest excuse and the wedding of their eldest daughter must be particularly lavish. During the wedding reception, the bride while receiving and meeting guests did her best to impress her groom with her SOphistication and the glamorous life which she led. The contrasts of the wasteful-pomp and show of the wedding and the abject poverty seen since his arrival in India appeared to have caused culture shock for the groom. Moreover, contrary to the traditional marital custom, the bride stayed with her groom on the wedding night at the hotel even before the ritualized farewell and other rituals were concluded. Next day, the groom's party was shown the tourist attractions of the city and given a hearty send off. The groom's party returned by rail on a day and a night's journey while the groom and bride, accompanied by the bride's uncle, went by air to New Delhi to see the city and initiate the paper work for a visa for the bride to go to Canada. They had a small reception waiting for them in an elegant hotel attended by local friends of the uncle and the bride. The groom and the bride, however, did not stay in New Delhi for long, and joined the marriage party in transit so as to proceed en-masse to the groom's home. His kin folk noted that the groom was depressed and gloomy. The day after the return of the marriage party, the groom's parents arranged a big reception - an "At Home", and invited 200 local guests to meet their son and the new bride. The groom was astonished at his young bride's boldness and flirtatiousness with the male guests. Ritu saw her marriage as an escape from her own family's 115 strict chaperonage and wanted to impress her groom as to how outgoing and modern she was in the American style which she had learned through Hollywood movies. The groom, however, reared on Western marriages for ten years, considered her behavior to be shocking. After all, at least on her honeymoon, the bride concentrates on her groom. It appears that his decision to divorce Ritu was made within a week of his marriage because, while in New Delhi before leaving for Canada, Ramesh found excuses to not complete the necessary paper work for his bride to follow him to Canada. However, he gave no indication to either his parents or anybody else before leaving for Canada that he had made up his mind to divorce her. Neither to his bride nor to his parents did he write a letter for the next few months. However, several letters were written to him by the bride, her parents, and his own father. Finally, he wrote to his father of his intention to break off the marriage and wrote to his bride the following short note: My dear Ritu : Please refer to my letter to your mother dated the same. I am sorry to break off this relation- ship but I have no choice. I do not want you to unnecessarily keep harboring false hOpes for we are not husband and wife any more. I will be glad to discuss any financial arrangements if you so wish. If you would care to see a lawyer who, I am afraid, will unfortunately be a person of lower social status than your own, he might explain how to proceed in the matter if you want to dissolve the marriage in accordance with the great Hindu laws. However, these do not necessarily apply to me under the present circumstances, so suit yourself. You may answer only if you wish a dissolution of the marriage. Your idea whether it is right or wrong must be kept to yourself - I want no part of it. God bless you. Ramesh. Ramesh in his letter addressed to his mother-in-law accused her of being presumptuous and ostentatious and said, "It is a shame to note your ideas about the different strata of peOple. No wonder India is going to pieces, and you have done your bit very well. Good bye and good luck to your way of life - I have nothing more to do with it." . In an attempt for a marital reconciliation, the younger brother of the bride's father went to Canada. Ramesh refused to discuss with the bride's uncle the reasons behind his decision to divorce, saying that he did not 116 consider himself good enough for his niece. Ramesh's parents who had kept Ritu in their home for several months after marriage in all comfort and honor, also went to Canada to persuade their son to change his decision but failed in their mission. On their return, they suggested to Ritu's father that they be allowed to treat Ritu as their own daughter and marry her off from their own resources. The proposition, however, was too insulting for Ritu's parents to agree, and they broke off all their connections with Ritu's affines. Ritu's parents processed the divorce petition in the Indian courts and Ritu did not ask for alimony. Ramesh divorced her through a Canadian court earlier. On looking back upon the situation now, one must conclude that the sharp contrast in life styles was the prime cause of marital collapse. Ramesh practised medicine in a bleak though wealthy community in Northern Canada. After ten years, he had absorbed the 'Protestant Ethic' nearly totally lacking in the Indian upper classes. He had found Ritu's boasting disgusting, and her family's excess of pride, ostentation and waste appalling amidst the general poverty of the land. The mannerisms of Ritu and her family were quite unacceptable to him. He knew of no way whereby she could be made to fit into his life style with his long and erratic hours in surgery and in his medical practice. Yet his reasons for his desertion after only a week of marriage would never be completely clear to his own kindred and impossible for the girl to understand. How could this beautiful daughter of wealth and power see what had disgusted him in her? She who had always been the subject of flattery and admiration had been deserted by her husband within ten days of he marriage. The girl herself,for all her modern education, retreated from her social elite plateau and turned inward to long hours of meditation and recitations of hymns and 'Mantras', becoming an emaciated hermit. Only after two years, could she attain a minimal normalcy when she was successfully persuaded to work as an assistant librarian in the capital city of another state where her parents were stationed in the government job. Six years after the marital break-up when the decree of divorce was finally granted, Ritu's parents attempted to arrange her marriage within their caste but failed to persuade anyone to agree to marry a divorcee. Convinced of the impracticality of such a negotiated marriage, they encouraged Ritu to try to choose a new husband for herself. Being stationed in a metropolitan area, they were able to create through parties and 117 dinners a situation in which their daughter could have opportunities to meet someone from among the families of her father's professional peers. Eight years after her first marriage, Ritu found love with a professionally well-placed son of one of her father's senior colleagues. The man was not a member of her caste and neither he nor his relatives had lived in her state. They were married in a brief ceremony attended by her parents and only one uncle. Ritu's other relatives were not informed, nor invited for the marriage ceremony, and only subsequently were they informed of the solemnization of the marriage. Some sent their blessings by mail and others acted as if they had not known about it. From all reports, Ritu is happily married and has a son born to her. Ritu lives with her husband a thousand miles away from her natal home in an affluent sector of an industrial city. The doctor has not remarried. However, Ritu's parents have spread the report among their relatives that he was married to a Canadian girl at the time of his marriage to Ritu and that he had succumbed to parental pressure to marry Ritu in a rush, without having the courage to tell his parents that he was already married. They could not accept that there was any flaw in their daughter which led to the young man refusing to continue the marriage after only ten days in her company. At present the doctor's parents are putting pressure on him to remarry a girl of his choice. He says that he is Open for marriage with a Hindu girl of any caste from his state. He realizes that his practice puts tremendous pressures on his time making the possibility of courting a Canadian girl for the purpose of marriage very remote. The ten year stay of Dr.Ramesh in Canada had acculturated him into a value system which was at variance with that of kin and affines. Dr.Ramesh like many anthrOpologists suffered a reverse culture shock upon returning to his own society after a prolonged stay in another culture. Memories of one's own culture tend to become romanticized by a prolonged absence, while 118 experiences in another culture make one more sensitively aware of nuances which one formerly accepted without question. Furthermore, the case situation shows that the network of kin-relationships had lost its effective- ness inasmuch as his kin. could not prevail on Dr.Ramesh to remain married. SECTION IV. "LOVE MARRIAGE" AND NEOLOCALITY. In view of the earlier discussion of 'love matches' and their frailty in the milieu of patrilocal residence, it is pertinent here to examine a case of marital failure of a 'love match' in neolocal household. Case No.21. TRIVENI vs. TIKAM Triveni and Tikam who belonged to different castes met each other in a graduate school during the late forties when they became romantically involved with each other. After his graduation, Tikam was employed in an executive position with a national corporation. His father was a chief engineer in the state government, and his family was well known in his caste. After becoming economically independent , Tikam married Triveni against the wishes of his parents under a statute known as Special Marriages Act of 1927 wherein any two adults regardless of their religious background can marry in a court of law and have their marriage registered. This statute permits easy divorce only for those spouses who were married under its provisions. After their marriage, the couple lived neolocally. 119 After a couple of years of marriage, a daughter was born to Triveni. A year after the birth, Triveni went to England on a university scholarship for a year taking the child with her with the consent of her husband. Unfortunately, she had to extend her stay by one more year. While she was so gone, Tikam divorced her. He selected a girl of his own caste with the approval and blessings of his parents. This time the marriage was solemnized in traditional style with all its rituals and extensive participation of all the kin group and a large number of friends. Triveni learnt about the divorce and the second marriage of her husband only after her return to India. Having a career of her own, she did not view the developments as the end of the world for herself. Tikam, after one year of his second marriage, discovered that his new wife could not bear a child. Being himself extremely well placed as well as having a wealthy family background, he attempted to gain custody of the daughter born to Triveni. Triveni,of course,resented and did not agree to his attempts. Litigation followed. Tikam lost his case not only in the trial court but also in the appellate courts. Finally, he went to the Supreme Court of India in appeal. At that time, correctional surgery enabled his second wife to bear a child. Thereupon, Tikam withdrew his appeal, conceding to ‘ Triveni her right to the custody over their daughter. Tikam not only had the good fortune of becoming a father of two sons, but maintained good relations with his own parents, and leads a life of high standing in his community. Triveni, after the end of the custody litigation, met a professionally well placed person whom she married. Her second marriage was outside her caste. She also leads a happy marital and professional life. It may be emphasized that love matches under neolocality are not particularly fragile. There is no doubt that a source of marital strength exists in the very factor that the young couple are together against opposition. However, the marriage of Tikam fell apart 120 because the spousal companionship in his case had not developed strong roots before Triveni left for her educational experience in England. Neither the birth of a daughter nor the spousal separation allowed Tikam to overcome his parents' objection to his marriage with Triveni. Distance, despite the old proverb, rarely makes the heart grow fonder. It is more common to see the adage - "Out of sight, out of mind", come true. Obviously, the marriage of Tikam and Triveni fell into the latter category. The interest of Tikam's parents in the marital breakdown in neolocality was only minimal. Not too different is the situation of Omlata's second husband - a military officer whose father and patrikin had little to do with him and his wife once they started to live neolocally after their marriage. His case of parental defiance and that of Tikam for his marrying Triveni, are at par with several others noted during the field work where after their love marriages the couples had established themselves in neolocal households. All these cases suggest that once the variable of higher socio-professional status of a son is combined with neolocality, parental authority over married sons is neutralized. Thus, in order to prevail against the wishes of one's parents, a man has not only to out-do his father at socio-economic levels but has to live-out as well. 121 The aforementioned case-narratives reveal that the failure of a couple to develop overlapping networks of social relationships for both spouses in a neolocal household gives rise to marital stress. The neolocally resident wives such as Tara — the physician's wife, Sarla - the Cabinet Minister's daughter, and Rupa - the attorney, could have contributed to marital solidarity if they made visiting with their kin and friends a joint leisure activity with their husbands. Alternatively, any natal home kin, or a professional colleague eSpecially in the case of Rupa the attor could have cultivated friendship with the left-out man to make his social relationships overlap with that of his wife. If a wife wished to go to her parents as Sarla and Tara did more often than was customary, or move with peers and personal friends as wives engaged in professions have to do, she could have also insisted that at least one of her close kin, perhaps her father or brother or an uncle, develop a close friendship with the left-out husband. Nor did the wife's kin cared for the inclusion of the husband in their social network by asking the husband to join them at dinner the day their daughter came to visit with them. Thus, the interaction in the network closed to the other Spouse continued in a manner that a shared and companionate 122 marriage did not evolve for any of these women. Instead, such closed networks segregated one spouse from the other where each looked for emotional reliance outside conjugal bond to an extent that meaningful communcation between the two spouses either did not develop or vanished completely. Thus, applying Bott's mode of analysis to the data of marital crisis in neolocal households, refines our understanding of the relationship between kinship and marriage as both are classic forms of primary relations which compete for primacy in the domain of emotional- dependence satisfactions. Although Hindu society is traditionally referred to as a kinship oriented society, it is much more so for women than for men. Neolocally resident men though presumably not in close physical proximity to their kin, let their companionship-universe be dominated by their peer group of outside males, nevertheless. These characteristics are the remnants of a strong patrilineal society which have their parallel in the Western world in men's social clubs and in the sex segregation in rural American socializing. However, the women's sewing bees and other socializing groups in rural America have no parallel in India. The inhibiting notions of purity and pollution act to limit a woman's socializing to her natal and affinal kin, 123 and the caste women. Without them, a neolocally resident wife is dependent upon her husband's network of social relationships. The cases show the husbands whose parental households were joint-extended, to be ambivalent about developing an intense conjugal relationship in their nucleated households. Having had no experience with the life style of professionally oriented families, these husbands could not recognize that the need of their educated Spouses raised in nuclear-parental households were rather Similar to their own male needs. They did not have any appropriate role models to teach them because their fathers and uncles in their extended- households did not interact with their spouses in a manner appropriate to the new situation of neolocal living. Furthermore, whenever a wife was able to make friends on her own in the neighborhood, her husband automatically became suspicious of the virtues or motives of his wife. Tarun suspected his wife of an illicit connection though he did not expressly allege an adulterous liason to have actually occurred. Raj had admittedly beaten his wife for her demanding evening socials. Satpal did not suggest to Sarla a plan that 124 would occupy her youthful energies though he strongly resented her socializing and accompanying her father on his state tours. His suggestion that Sarla obtain a job was not acceptable to her as She thought that her seeking employment in her father's political constituency would compromise her high natal home status. Shankar would go out to late night movies with his male friends leaving Shanti all by herself in the household. Yogesh completely forbade his wife from stepping out of the premises of the house. Despite living away from their kinsmen, these men did not make serious effort to stimulate a growth of intensity in their conjugal relationship. In absence of doing things together e.g. meeting people socially and developing the area of mutual friendly interaction, the aspects of emotional dependence and companionship between the spouses becomes more difficult to cultivate than their other kinship bonds to attenuate in spite of neolocal living. CHAPTER III DIVORCE IN AN UXORILOCAL HOUSEHOLD A Definitional Framework: The term 'uxorilocal' signifies the mode of residence of a married couple who share the domicile ‘with the family of the wife (Adam 1948:12). However, S.C. Dube (1955:133) without explaining any reason, uses the term 'matrilocal' for this type of residence. .Adrian Mayer (1960:222) notes the phenomenon of resident son-in-law but does not assign any nomenclature to it. Shah (1974:64) on the other hand calls it 'uxorilocal' without giving any reason. For the reasons as following, matrilocality is not the proper term to explain the phenomenon of resident son-in-law in North India. Matrilocality being the direct opposite of patrilocality implies a societal form. Indeed,the two fundamental principles of social organization - the reckoning of descent only in patrilineal line and the jural severance of a married woman's natal home tie, become inapplicable in uxorilocal living as practised in the region. But the children born to the daughter carry the lineage name of their mother's father rather than mother's mother. The children inherit not only to their father and mother 125 126 but additionally to the estate of their mother's father as well. Furthermore, a resident son-in-law is required to break all jural and social connections with his own parents and other consanguines. For the children born of such a couple, their mother's brother or a classificatory one does not come any closer as regards authority structure or intensity of relationship with them because there is no mother's brother in the first place, which was the primary and sole reason for their father having to acquire the status of a 'Ghar-Jamai' - the term of reference used for a resident son-in-law. Unlike matrilocality, neither the mother-in-law nor one's wife becomes the focal point of authority or power relationships either in the internal or external domain of a uxorilocal household. Even though on the death of his father-in-law, the wife and children of the man so-resident inherit the legacy and not he, the headship of the household devolves upon the resident son-in—law to exercise full control over all the relationships concerning the household. The children are subject to their father's authority as in other households. Thus, the authority system in a uxorilocal household after the death of the wife's father does not differ in any way from any other household structure of 127 the region, with the exception that the children extend the line of descent of their mother's father. These children do not develop any differently devised relationship with any of their matri-kin except that they have no interaction with their father's consanguines because of the cultural rule of jural severance of all kin bonds on his marriage. In the net result, there is an extensive carry-over of rules, norms, and expectation-pattern in an uxorilocal household from the. patriarchal tradition of the society. Uxorilocality, therefore, does not create even a semblance of matrifocal and/or matriarchal family life for the man's children who remain steeped in the basic principles of the patriarchal system of the traditional society. Furthermore, a clear advantage of using this term rather than 'matrilocal', is that 'uxorilocal' does not imply either a Specific mode of laterality or kinship. More importantly, the fact that residence form is seen as having no effect on the traditional patrilineal system is confirmed by the use of the term 'Ghar Jamai' - the only changed kin term which is used for purposes of reference and not for address. A 'Ghar Jamai' is the term of local usage meaning literally a reSident son-in-law. When a man marries a woman with a clear commitment that he would live for life 128 in the home of his wife's parents, he is referred to by that term. Such a man obtains a formal membership of his affinal home with a public declaration from his father-in-law to that effect. Such a married man renounces his connections with his parental home and patri-kin with reference to his worldly and ritual obligations to them. For his own parents, such a son is an emigree of sorts with whom they maintain no connection after his marriage. The uxorilocal mode of living with its associated practice of affiliation of a daughter's progeny to the descent group of the mother's father, reveals, as does the situation of children of divorcees living mostly with their matri-kin, some of the more dramatic departures from the traditional scheme of society. These phenomena require a brief comment to elucidate the theoretical organizational scheme of the society in the region, and the contrast 'uxorilocality' presents in that context. COMPLEMENTARY FILIATION - A CONTRAST : In the system of unilineal descent in patri-line practised by the North Indian society, the progeny of a daughter, or Sister, or niece is non-agnatic though 129 though consanguineally related kin. This non-agnatic descending generation often enjoys a close emotional relationship with the mother's home kin. A popular custom in the region is that the delivery of the first child of a married daughter takes place in her natal home as is seen in the case of Deomal vs. Deepa (#25) included in Chapter IV. Moreover, unidirectional ritual prestations flow both to a married daughter and her progeny on all ceremonial occasions including the marriage of a daughhafls son or daughter's daughter. This uterine linearity, however, remains secondary in Hindu patrilineal society because a daughter's progeny maintains a differential relationship when compared to their primary bond with their father's lineage. In inter—group relations, agnatic kin have structural primacy over the ties with kin related through mother. To give recognition to the phenomenon that ties of affinity with matri-kin have great importance, even though not as much as the ties of descent, the term 'complementary filiation' was first used by Meyer Fortes who develOped the term during the 19505 to describe the Tallensi social structure (Leach 1957:54 and 1973:53; Fortes 1959). Jack Goody (1969:99) uses the term complementary filiation to refer to the ties with the unilineal descent group of the parent residual to the reckoning of descent. 130 Uxorilocality exemplifies a situation where matrilateral ties supercede the bonds of the patrilineal descent group, creating a Sharp contrast to the traditional social system. The deviant situations implied by uxorilocality and the children of divorced parents living with their matrikin demonstrate that complementary filiation has more than a mere analytical value for understanding the structural framework of the Hindu family based on the unilineal descent system and the marital model premised on severance-inforporation mechanism. The emergent phenomenon of matrilateral ties gaining new significance in urban milieu, augments bilateral trends that tend to diffuse the ideological differentiation between the ties of descent and affinity, as is discussed in detail in Chapter X of this dissertation. The new bilateral trends convert matrikin ties into bonds of great support and strength that often excel the relationships with patrikin. Thus the concept of complementary filiation helps us to bring in focus the deviant implications of uxorilocality as well as the post-divorce life of women whose children have a shared identity with their matrikin. The following case of Ugrasen vs. Udaivati highlights the ramifications of uxorilocality for those who contract it without knowing what it entails. 131 Case No.22. UGRASEN vs. UDAIVATI Ugrasen was 18 years of age when he completed his junior college. His parents lived in a village fifty miles away from the city where he went to college. His father was a 'Patwari' - state record-keeper of agricultural lands and land revenue of the village he lived in. Since Ugrasen had one older brother and two younger brothers and a sister, his parents had no means to finance his attending college. For his junior college education, he was helped to some extent by his maternal uncle. Also, he earned some money on his own working at a part- time job of an office clerk. Faced with the problem of wanting to continue his studies for his B.A. but not having financial support to do so, Ugrasen agreed on being approached by a caste relative to become a_resident son-in-law of a widowed Shop-keeper in the old part of the city . The shOp-keeper had a pretty sixteen year old daughter. His father-in-law assured him that he would finance Ugrasen's education for the next two years upto his B.A. for majoring in accountancy. Eager for his education and impressed by the attractive girl whom he had seen only once, Ugrasen agreed to the proposal of becoming uxorilocally resident. His parents and older brother were opposed to such a marriage. They refused to have anything to do with his marriage or with him in future. Ugrasen's marriage was solemnized in the city without the participation of any of his patri-kin. After his marriage, Ugrasen lived uxorilocally as per earlier agreement. However, he was not allowed by his father-in- law any sexual access to Udaivati who was chaperoned by her father and a live-in maid. His father-in-law told Ugrasen that he would allow conjugal cohabitation only after he passed his B.A. and took over the business responsibilities from his shoulders. During the next two years, Ugrasen studied for his B.A. and also helped his father-in-law at his shop. He soon realized that in the shop-keeping business, his evenings were occupied by shop-work, and he had no time for the evening promenade with his male friends, as is a customary practice specially among the young men of the city. He started to resent the constraints on his time and the Shop-keeping life-style. 132 When the final examination was over, Ugrasen worked for the next two months full-time at the shop till the university results were published. Once, he was declared successful at the examination, he suggested to his father-in-law that he be helped to do his M.A. For making such an irresponsible request, Ugrasen was harshly reprimanded. Sometime thereafter, Ugrasen picked up a job as an accounting clerk in a bank without informing his father— in-law. On learning about Ugrasen's outside employment, his father-in-law was so furious that he barred the young man from his home. Thereupon, Ugrasen started to live with a friend. Within the next couple of months, Ugrasen secretly persuaded Udaivati to elope with him and live in another town. Udaivati's father somehow learned of their plans to escape. He hired four 'Goondahs' (tough hoodlums) to confront the couple during their escape in the dark lane which the two were supposed to pass through for their escape. The couple's attempted escape was foiled and Ugrasen was so severely beaten that he required three months hospitalization. It was a miracle that he survived his broken neck and head injuries. On tOp of all that, the father-in-law filed a police report accusing Ugrasen of having commited a theft in his house to further harass him. The young man's lawyer managed to straighten out his legal troubles in the criminal matter and filed a suit for judicial separation from Udaivati. The father-in-law filed a counter-suit in the name of his daughter claiming that Ugrasen had abandoned the petitioner-wife without cause and that he was liable to give her separate maintenance. The old man's patrikin, as the litigation progressed, were successful in prevailing upon him that he better let his son-in-law alone. He had wrecked his daughter's marital life already, and made a mess of his plans to have a resident son-in-law. His unbecoming conduct had become so widely known in the caste that there was no chance for Udaivati to be remarried at all, much less to a man who would agree to live uxorilocally. In due course, Ugrasen obtained his divorce. Udaivati wrote several love letters to Ugrasen both during the legal proceedings and after the divorce. She remained torn between the loyalty to her father and love for her husband. Ugrasen ignored her letters since he was reluctant to have further to do with his former father- in-law. Finally, Udaivati was taken to another city by her father's first cousin and his family, where she was 133 married off with a substantial dowry concealing the fact of her earlier marriage and divorce. Ugrasen concentrated on his bank job and earned several promotions in the next five years after which he married a lovely orphan girl, a protege of a Rani of his own caste. Only after the birth of a son did his parents and patrikin agree to re- include Ugrasen in their group, and resumed visitations. Though the old man gained his revenge on his recalcitrant son-in-law, he made it impossible for himself to ever have a resident son-in-law. He is now all by himself in his old age. It appears that everyone was punished in this case, but the young husband after nearly losing his life, perhaps, came out better with a more satisfactory second wife. Ugrasen is very happy both with his second wife and the job he holds in the bank. He also has a great satisfaction of proving to be a good son to his father, though he did so in a rather tortuous way. Ugrasen has promised his parents a substantial contri- bution toward the marriage expenses of his youngest Sister. And that made his parents very proud of him and his second wife. The phenomenon of a resident son-in-law in Lucknow and Jaipur occurs rarely. Only when there is no son or an adepted son, and just one daughter to marry, do the parents think of having a resident son-in-law in their household to keep their line of descent alive, and also to have a caretaker of their prOperties and business in their old age and after their death. A resident son-in- law enjoys many of the attributes of an adOpted son. On his becoming a permanent resident in the household of his father-in-law, a permanently resident-son-in-law ceases to observe mutual avoidance relationship that traditionally exists between a son-in-law and his father- in-law, and enters into a freer and a working relationsfip 134 with him. However, the teknonymous relationship between the two does not change. A son-in-law refers to and addresses his wife's father in the uxorilocal household as his father-in-law and not as his 'father'. In the patrilineal society of the region, the status of a 'Ghar Jamai' suffers with a serious blemish. Such a person is regarded as less than a man. It requires a good deal of brasenness in a man to live out such a role, for often he is exposed to a mild social ridicule. A man, naive and very young, 18 or 19, unencumbered by a large peer group and of a poor family background, is generally chosen to be such a son—in-law, and to live as a protege of his father-in-law for life. In return for agreeing to live uxorilocally, the man gains a measure of financial stability in life for which he saw no prospect from his own patrilineage. Uxorilocal mode of living is a very infrequent occurrence in a city because it is difficult to find a semi-educated man to agree to live in this manner. Its incidence is greater in the rural countryside where the Opportunity to obtain land provides a stronger motivation, and the prospects of a stable gainful employment are almost non-existent. A uxorilocal mode of post-marital residence is negotiated and agreed to well in advance of a marriage, 135 as was done by Udaivati's father with Ugrasen. A prospective groom is clearly given to understand the desires of his parents-in-law to keep their daughter after her marriage with them and that he would be required to live in their household all his life. By his agreeing to uxorilocality, Ugrasen automatically became subject to the authority of his father-in-law. .The case situation reveals that the new authority-subordination relationship in which Ugrasen found himself in his uxorilocal household brought about many troubles in his familial relationships. But that was not all. Ugrasen discovered that the authority of his father—in-law extended not only over the mode of his marital life but also the nature of occupation he could pursue. Also, he could not maintain the same old interaction with his earlier peer group. If as a resident son-in-law Ugrasen had quietly submitted himself to such an arrangement of overriding authority-relationship, there would have been no reason for a conflict to arise betwaai him and his father-in-law. He obviously did not know his prOper role model and remained unaware of the situa- tion into which he had landed himself. Udaivati found herself under the continuing parental authority despite her wanting to conform to the role of a traditional wife. Her dual allegiance created insurmountable problems for her as well. 136 Raised to obey one's parents without demurring, a conflict between obeying the husband and the father must prove to be a difficult experience for a woman whose husband agrees to become uxorilocally resident. The situation in the case became unfortunate for all concerned. The young man's patri-kin cut off all relationship with him. The bride's father in trying to manipulate his daughter and son-in-law to his own advantage hurt everyone especially himself in the process. The role conflict for the young husband was also very severe. He was forced into changing his whole life style and the mode of his livelihood. The fact that he found himself capable of supporting both himself and his wife by obtaining the bank job with opportunities for advancement and thus an escape from the domination of his father-in-law, led Ugrasen and Udaivati to the attempted flight. Not only was the position he found for himself more prestigious though probably not as lucrative as the shopkeeping his father-in—law had dangled before him, but he need no longer be a 'Ghar Jamai' and subject to its humiliations. In an uxorilocal household, the groom is placed in the position of an incoming bride reversing the usual high status of a son-in-law vis-a-vis his bride's natal home. Except that he is a necessary instrumentality to 137 to extend the lineage of his father-in-law, his position in the uxorilocal household remains anomalous in a structural sense. A resident son-in-law loses his place in his own kin-group without gaining a new one in the kin-group of his wife to balance the loss. He remains engulfed by structural anonymity. Even though he is regarded to be the head of the household after the death of his father-in-law, he never quite attains the position of a patriarch because of his structurally anomalous presence in the uxorilocal environment. It is for this reason that a teen-age boy of a very poor family of one's own caste is approached for this kind of marriage, as the implications of uxorilocal living are structurally serious to his own patrilineage as well as to the groom in so far as his structural position in the domain of kinship is concerned. In net result, an uxorilocal residence is basically an unequal pairing Since the standardized role of the husband as an 'economic provider' is substantially reduced, if not wholly eliminated. And such a role runs counter to the conventional scheme of patrilineal and patrilocal society of the region. The Significance of the structurally anomalous position of a uxorilocally-resident son-in-law would become all the more relevant if we keep in mind that 138 a person in the society relates himself to another in relation to his structural position. People deal with one another more as categories and less as individuals. Hence, the extreme importance of one's personal position to be a part of a regular and well-recognized category in the system serves to make the position of a resident son-in-hnv much more than merely awkward or embarasSing. His posflflon is humiliating and requires sensitive handling by his- affines. Since each is gaining something of importance: the young man - a wife and some financial security; and the father-in—law - the young man's procreative services and perpetuation of lineage name; whereas the patriarch's daughter - a husband and the retention of her natal home residence without having to face any of the affinal responsibilities, mutual courtesies are necessary to make the uxorilocal household-interaction a smooth one. This analysis suggests a fairly consistent picture of all the three household structural types inasmuch as each type displays fixed patterns of authoritarian social structure. This fixity - or rather the structural inflexibility in interactional behavior, common to all the three types of households, is often largely responsible for disrupting a marriage. CHAPTER IV DIVORCES AND THE RITUAL COMPLEX OF PURITY3 THE FATHER-DAUGHTER DYAD. Certain of the divorce cases compel us to focus not on the types of post-marital residence, but on the related. aSpects of marital and family life of the society in the region. These cases more than others have their frame' of reference in the system of domestic institutions and the particular concepts that create and sustain the caste based social organization. These cases are of particular importance in displaying Hindu concerns with their ritual concepts of purity and virginity. The situations of divorce and dissolution of marriages included in this chapter shed light on various inter-relationships, the authority structure of domestic institutions, and the cultural beliefs regulating such relationships. In the following case of Asha, we see a judicial non-recognition of a marriage at the instance of her father who despite his daughter's earlier elOpement with her lover and allegedly marrying him, succeeded in marrying her off in a traditional manner to a groom later selected by him. 139 140 Case No.23. AMAR vs. ASHA Asha, a high caste Brahman woman of twenty, elOped with Amar, a ritually lower ranking Brahman of twenty five, whom her father had hired to give her music lessons for an hour each evening in her home. A secret marriage ceremony for Amar and Asha was conducted in a Hindu temple by a Brahman priest who normally did not preside over marriage rituals. No kinsman of either spouse was present as witness. Such a marriage by elopement is legal though frowned upon socially and ritually disapproved. On learning of their marriage by elopement, Asha's father was enraged. Amar's parents and relatives were not particularly pleased for his choosing a bride all by himself. ‘ After a month of conjugal living, Asha went to briefly visit with her natal family on their invitation. However, she did not return to her husband. In a legal action against Asha's father, Amar contended that his father-in-law was maintaining an illegal custody over his wife and prayed the court for restituting his conjugal rights. The father-in-law asserted that the alleged marriage was invalid. Asha testified in open court that she had never known Amar, denied writing letters to him presented in the court and the photographs with him as well as the ceremony of marriage itself. The judge expressly disbelieved her. But, he managed to scrape up a discrepancy in the statements of the priest and the petitioner-husband to Show that the ritual of invokation of the sacred fire was improperly performed, which vitiated the whole ceremony. The judge declared the alleged marriage to be void ab—initio i.e. a complete nullity as if it never came in legal existence, and restored the dominion of the father over his daughter, dismissing Amar's petition. The case was notappealed and the decision was acquiesced to by the parties. Shortly after the legal proceedings were over, Asha was married off in a distant town by her patri-kin with a handsome dowry to a young man gainfully employed in a manner befitting the traditional prestige and caste connections of her natal family. Amar was reconciled with his parents by accepting a marriage arranged by them. He was last reported to be leading a quiet married life. 141 Asha by eloping and marrying Amar, even though he was a member of her own caste, outraged her parents by' flouting their parental authority. Even\the caste endogamy made her sin no less. It is difficult to know if She was forced by fear into her second position of. denying the marriage, or if the harsh economic realities of life with Amar - a very lower-middle class man, had dashed ice water on her romantic ideals. The flaw found by the judge in the impugned ritual of marriage appears to be more in the nature of judicial smokescreen for legally enforcing parental authority which is culturally pre-eminent over the matters of marriage of a daughter even if she is an adult. Amar too had displeased his parents by disregarding their right to arrange his marriage. In any case, Asha finally submitted herself like a dutiful daughter to a parentally negotiated matrimony in an economically more suitable setting in her own social class. Parents forcibly marry off their daughters not simply to show parental authority but to conform to their conception of parental 'dharma'. Both an unmarried state of an adult daughter as well as a caste-exogamous marriage of a daughter do violence to a father's 'dharma' because the situation reflects that a father is not conforming to traditional prescriptions in arranging a marriage for his grown—up daughter. This ritual 142 obligation of parents, which provides the rationale for imposing matrimony on an unwilling daughter, is discussed in greater details later in this Chapter. In the following case of Gita, we see a professionally educated woman being forced to marry a man of her own caste despite her making known her wish to marry a man She greatly liked. Case No.24. GYAN vs. GITA Gita, a young school teacher was forced by parental pressure to marry Gyan, a young engineer of her own caste living in another city, although she wished to marry a man of another caste who taught in a local college. Her father believed that Gita's marriage outside their caste group would be a grave sin , and such an occurrence would deny him salvation. Gita's patri-kin were also strongly of the opinion that Gita like every other mature virgin should be processed through the marital ritual in the traditional form believing that her new sexual experience would make Gita forget her earlier infatuation. Her kinsmen knew of her involvement with another man outside their caste but wanted to see her properly married according to custom in her own caste. In response to the great pressure brought to bear upon Gita, she told her father, "If all you want to see is that my palms are dyed in yellow, then you can do it", implying that her marriage would be nothing more than a mere ritual exercise. Anyhow, she was married as arranged. After her marriage, Gita made it known to her new husband that she was in love with a man of another caste whom she had been prevented from marrying. On discover- ing that Gita would continue to maintain her love for the man She wanted to marry, Gyan allowed her to live in her natal city and maintain herself in her teaching job. As soon as Gita's father died, which was shortly after her marriage, Gyan filed for judicial separation for Gita's desertion and finally for divorce. After her divorce, Gita and her sweetheart were married. 143 Gita's compromising her stance under kin-group pressure by agreeing to marry Gyan, is explanable both in terms of her overwhelming sense of obligation to her father as well as a self-imposed expiation for imprOpeL-Imr falling in love with a non-caste fellow. Several comparable instances came to light during my field work in the region where girls had written letters to the men with whom their domineering fathers were in the process of negotiating their marriages, to inform them that they already had sweethearts whom they were not being allowed to marry. Such letters brought the desired results for the girls who by this means succeeded in marrying the men they liked. Gita was not alone in representing an extreme example of the orthodox concept of marriage as a rite of passage. As the earlier cases of Dr.Hemlata and Shanti show that both those women were married off by their fathers with no consideration for their wishes. Their fathers believed that once a couple is married caste endogamously - the parental role completed and 'dharma' satisfied, the young couple will accept each other as Spouses. Such marriages, however infrequent, show some concensus on values that motivate the social actors to embark on the implementation of them. The completion of ritual obligation is clearly the most 144 important consideration for the parents in these cases. Perhaps even more clearly demonstrative of the attitude which makes marriage a mere ritual to be necessarily performed arises in the following cases of Deepa and Farima. Both these young women were pre- maritally pregnant at the time of their caste endogamous marriages by men other than their grooms. Their parents were prompted by their pre-marital pregnancy to rush these women into marriage as in five other cases seen in the court record but not included here. Case No.25 DEOMAL VS. DEEPA. Deepa, a high caste girl of 19 years of age, was a high school graduate, when she was married caste endogamously in a traditional manner to Deomal who was 20 and a student in his junior year for his B.A. Deepa's father was a senior teacher in a high school 150 miles away from Deomal's home town. Deomal's father was a petty civil servant. After her marriage, Deepa stayed for Six weeks in her patrilocal home, which is a customary period of a bride's first stay in her conjugal home. After Six weeks, her father sent Deepa's older brother to escort her back to her natal home. After coming to her natal home, the young bride continued to write love letters to her husband in a conventional manner. A married daughter is usually supposed to return to her conjugal home after staying with her parents for three to six months on her first visit. Deomal's father received a letter from Deepa's father to the effect that a child was born to Deepa on the 179th day of her marriage and died after ten days of its birth. The news shocked 145 Deomal and his father as they had not had any news of Deepa having been pregnant. Deomal's father had some relatives in Deepa's home town from whom he would have eventually learned of the news if Deepa's father would not have written to inform him about the new born and his subsequent death. Soon thereafter Deomal filed for a decree of nullity of his marriage on the ground that Deepa was pregnant at the time of her marriage and the child was of an adulterous conception. In the legal proceedings both the parties agreed that if it was Deomal's child, its gestation period could not exceed 177 days. The court held that such a child on birth could not be so viable as to survive for 10 days without any life-support facilities of a hospital. Coupled with this finding was the proven fact that the young wife's love letters during her first pregnancy did not make any mention whatever of her being in the family way, which was viewed by the court as most unusual. Deepa's plea that her shyness prevented her writing about her being pregnant was disbelieved by the court, and a decree of nullity was granted to the husband. Deomal's parents arranged another marriage for him, making sure of the chaste background of their incoming daughter-in—law. Deepa was reported to have been married off to a middle-aged widower in a distant town. Case No.26 FAKIR CHAND vs. FARIMA Farima, an upper caste woman, aged 25, a high school graduate, was married within her caste to Fakir Chand aged 26. Fakir Chand and his parents lived 100 miles away from Farima's home town, where he was a clerk in a government office. As Farima's parents had deceased long before her marriage, the marriage was negotiated and solemnized through the efforts of her oldest brother who was married and had a family of his own. The new couple lived patrilocally after their marriage. Farima appeared to be in advanced state of pregnancy after three months of her conjugal living. The midwife who attended her confirmed that she was due to deliver a child in the next Six weeks. On learning the news, Fakir Chand escorted her back to the home of his brother-in-law where he abandoned her. Farima gave birth to a male child of normal health exactly five months after her marriage. 146 Fakir Chand filed a suit for nullity of his marriage. Farima did not contest the legal proceedings. She, however, wrote to her husband begging his forgiveness She said for her lapse of virtue before her marriage. that she had already been thrown out by her father's brother and her patri—kin. Her brother and his wife were good enough to marry her off but they were not the legal guardians of her child and she did not belong to' them for life. She asserted love for her husband, making promises of future chastity. She also reminded her husband of the marital vows he had taken before the sacred fire and the commitment he had made to accept her as his wife for life. Fakir Chand remained unmoved. He produced the letter in the court and obtained a decree of nullity of his The biological father of the child remained marriage. Farima and her child continue to remain unknown. dependent on her brother for support, and there are no prospects of her remarriage. Fakir Chand married again in a negotiated manner, and leads a satisfactory marital life. The kinsmen of these premaritally pregnant women married them off, Spending money and resources, largely to maintain the ritual standing of all concerned in the scheme of caste ranking. Unwed motherhood destroys the ritual integrity not only of such a mother and child, but also of her kin-group. It was immaterial that such a marriage would cause serious emotional trauma to the groom and his kin on their learning about the pre- narital conception of the bride. A father or the senior nale agnate is bound in 'dharma' to see his daughter u: sister duly initiated in marriage without exception n the pain of ritual blemish and loss of his caste tanding. Another facet of the absolute importance E the marital rite is illustrated in the next two cases. 147 Case No.27 BINA vs. BINOD After completing her B.A., Bina at the age of twenty two was married to Binod, a thirty year old research scientist with an M.Sc. The marriage was caste endoga mous and traditionally arranged. The couple lived patrilocally for three years, but the husband did not consummate the marriage. At the annulment trial, Bina testified that after three years she could find an opportunity to be alone with her husband in a room of her father's house. This time the room was bolted from the outside by her mother's connivance. There was only one bed on which her husband was resting. Since it was summer time, She took off her clothes and suggested her husband to do likewise. With great ' hesitation, he awkwardly did so. In graphic detail, she described her efforts to seduce him into sexual relations. Although her efforts were such as to follow the instructions of a good sex manual, her amorous efforts left her husband piteously gaSping and unc00perative. He not only showed no sexual emotion in his countenance but failed to achieve an erection. Her husband possessed only a rudimentary penis about an inch in length, incapable of function. Ultimately, her husband escaped from the bed and pleaded with folded hands for the return of his clothes. Later, She narrated the whole episode to her mother. Her parents then advised her to seek annulment of her marriage. The court granted the annulment. The massive detail in which the case is described in the record is not unusual and testifies to the very different format used to substantiate such facts on ;hniicial record. However, there was no requirement that she prove her virginity. Binod did not contest the case. He migrated to another state where he had been employed in a research laboratory, and lived by himself. Bina during the period of divorce litigation joined a diploma course for junior school teaching and found a job as a girls' school teacher. She is likely to marry on me]: own if she found a suitable person. 148 Case No.28 CHARAN vs. CHAMPA. Charan had married Champa in 1949 within his own caste in a traditional manner when he was 23 and she was 18. In 1959, he filed a suit for the dissolution of marriage under the 1955 divorce statute on the ground of his wife's impotency as provided in the statute though it was a case of sterility. Apparently, it was only in 1959, four years after the enactment of: the statute, that Charan learned of his legal right to seek a remedy. Before her marriage, Champa had obtained medical treat- ment for her condition and those medical reports of the treating physicians were produced to Show that Champa had no uterus, no palpable ovaries and her vagina was only 1/3rd present. Champa was a Turner Syndrome, an XO female. Champa accepted all the allegations in the petition for annulment of marriage but requested time for continued treatment even though a correction of the problem was admittedly not possible. On the witness stand, Champa admitted to the malformatflmi of her genitalia, the fact of her continued treatment after her puberty, and admitted that the treatment The judge declared the marriage a did not help her. nullity. Neither alimony nor maintenance was claimed at any stage of the legal proceedings. Champa went back to live in her natal home. Charan remarried again in the traditional marital manner. The case of Binod discussed in detail under 'Father-son Dyadic Relationship" in the next Chapter, 5 included here primarily to illustrate the strong ense of obligation imposed by parental dharma to llfil the ritual obligation to maintain caste purity. 1e unmarried state of an adult daughter to a large tent and, to a smaller extent that of an unmarried son, 149 do violence to a father's dharma. The cases like that of Champa were bound to remain sexually dysfunctional. Such marital solemnizations exemplify the othodox conceptualization of marriage as a rite of passage. The seven cases of the marriages of women with congenital problems of defective genital organs found in the two cities indicate that the parents despite knowing the Situation married them off to unsuspecting caste men. The cost of performing this ritual despite the impossibility of creating a real marriage, did not deter them. These cases point to universality of marriage as a basic Hindu tenet of the traditional system. All these cases reveal the importance of the Hindu father-daughter relationship. But some of the cases would puzzle the Western reader. The cases of Dr.Hemlata, Shanti and Gita Show the imposition of undesired marriage on professionally educated women of nearly independent economic means. It is conceivable that young teenagers may act on the dictates of their fathers regardless of their personal choice, but why would women with professional careers succumb to parental pressures for a matrimony they did not desire, and fall victim to the tradition that negates individuality? Ihy did ritual obligation force these women to act out 150 the expected role model of a daughter's relationship with her father? This leads us to briefly examine the nature of the Hindu belief system pertaining to purity, virginity and the caste systemic structure. THE RITUAL COMPLEX 92 PURITY AND VIRGINITY: Although father's say that the 'Kanya daan' (ritual prestation of a virgin daughter in marriage) is necessary for parental salvation, in actual fact it is the ideological pressure of the principle of the 'purity' of caste, kin-group, and finally the virgin herself, which makes for the necessity. While concepts of purity and pollution have nowhere been exhaustively defined, they have been extensively referred to in South Asian ethnographic descriptions in the context of puberty rituals (Nur Yalman 1962:25-57), religious worship (Edward Harper 1964:151-196), and commensality and caste ranking (McKim Marriott 1968:133). Purity in the Hindu system is not equated with hygiene. Purity is an essential part of the domain of ethical conduct in Hindu thought (Louis Dumont 1970:46-64). ‘Whatever is against the ideological structure must be viewed as offensive to it. A function of purity rules is to eliminate the elements offensive to the structure. This function is not negative in nature, but a positive 151 effort to organize the cultural environment. Correlating purity of females with the level of purity of their caste, Yalman (opp.cit.) discusses puberty rituals among the women of Ceylon and Malabar, describing how they are geared to protect their virginity till marriage. To show the correlation, Yalman finds an elegant structural explanation of an individual's caste membership and the general concern to maintain the caste integ ity. To keep the caste integrity in order, virginity must be preserved, and a virgin be married 0 only to a person of equal or higher caste ranking. To protect female purity, the 'blood' of the genitor must be equal or higher than the caste of the mother. In order to maintain the level of purity of kin-group and her caste, a woman must maintain her virginity till She is properly married. The notions of female purity are conceived in religious context, and are emphatically tied through rituals into religious ideology. PeOple Show a great concern about the performance of complex rituals to preserve individual female purity. In this context, Yalman argues that, 'wherever we find the caste phenomenon, we may also expect to find preoccupations with 'danger' to pure omen. " (Yalman 1962:54). His argument is equally valid or analysing divorce and remarriage data. Even though 1 the region of my study, puberty is not ceremonialized, 152 the concern in the society to control and regulate chastity and virginity among unmarried women is intense and extreme. In the behaVioral context, the concept of purity provides a moral order with its attendant constraints and sanctions. The observance of purity rules by a pubescent girl during her growing years until she is married off and the parental enforcement of measures to guard her purity serve to lay out an ordered dyadic relationship between her father and herself. A contra- vention of that structured relationship imperils her purity and diminishes her prospects for a suitable marriage. Such a structuring of the father-daughter dyad involves a rejection of all unrelated male contacts with his young unmarried daughter. A daughter's lack of contacts with unrelated males of any caste or group and her avoidance of a close interaction of a commensal nature with either a low caste woman or a non-Hindu woman is symbolic of her maintenance of the purity rules imposed upon her or expected to be observed by her. The dissolution of marriage cases involving women without normal genitalia, or those who were pregnant at the time of their marriage by a male other than the groom, exemplify the great ritual importance of marriage in their lives. Marriage for a woman is 153 viewed as the most essential rite of passage, overriding the considerations of physically feasible or potentially Satisfactory conjugal life. Parents owe it to their daughters to process them into the coveted status change from their maidenhood to becoming married women. Such a marking of status is one of the essential functions of a rite of passage. Once a daughter becomes a married woman, She is deemed to extend a ritual legitimacy, if not necessarily legal, to a child conceived out of welock through a man other than her groom, when a child is born after marriage. Out of the several cases in trial courts, two were taken in appeal to state high courts and another to the Supreme Court of India precisely on this issue, which amply show the strength and pervasiveness of such a belief, though all courts consistently decided against the legitimacy of such a child. Custom and ideology are either silent or support the claim of legitimacy of such a child, while the courts consider that the requirements of equity and fairplay must prevail over any ideological dogma to the contrary. THE CONCEPT _O_F_ VIRGINITY — A CORRELATE Q}: PURITY: The concept of purity and practice of sex- :egregation impose upon society harsh and severe ehavioral requirements for all its members. 154 The ideology has to be logically consistent in the severity of its own rules in order for them to work. If females are severely restricted by the rigor of purity and required to maintain virginity, it is all the more essential for them, compared to men, to be initiated into the marital rite of passage. Required to maintain virginity, they remain under protective chaperoning after puberty until marriage. For a woman to compromise her virginity prior to marriage is the gravest of all Sins that a daughter can commit against her own father, as her action not only undermines his authority but also disables him from fulfilling his ritual obligation both to her and in religion. Virginity is thus conceptualized as a correlate of purity. It is not burdened with a physical proof like the Middle Eastern custom on her wedding night. The Hindu concept of virginity is more in the nature of a demand that a girl shall not bring into her marriage a meory of sexual relations with another. This norm is a logical continuation of a groom's right to exclusivity of sexual relations with his bride, and covers her past as well. It should be mentioned that a cultural consequence of the requirement of virginity is to bind a woman lastingly to one husband for life. Thus, rirginity is more in the nature of a socio-structural and the case data also suggest that virginity :oncept, Every unmarried s culturally and biologically viewed. 15S woman is culturally regarded as a virgin and virginity is not coterminous with hyman _ifl-tacta. No informant mentioned that virginity was either made a precondition of marriage or even talked about in matrimonial negotiations. No case revealed the cause of marital discord to have originated in a husband's discovery of non-virginity of his bride. With increase of age of marriage for girls in cities coupled with their going to college, male expectations toward their absolute chastity are not as high as before. Nevertheless, as long as the marital ritual has not taken place, a woman has the benefit of a strong cultural presumption of virginity. Behavioral conformity in itself is ritually meritorious for a virgin and her parents alike, and is regarded in society as absolutely fundamental to 'dharmah Discussing conformity as a moral ideal, von Furer-Haimen- dorf (1967:151-172) has observed that conformity to the caste rules regulating caste members' lives in every possible situation is made essential by the fact that a breach of certain of these rules carries with it a pollution that is both automatic and contagious. The individual is seen as a member of a tightly organized community whose actions affect not only his or her own status but also the status of those closest to him or 156 her (see Harper 1964:151-196). For this reason, the purity position of the entire kin group is at stake whenever a woman compromises her virginity. However, iizis only through public knowledge of such a violation that the ritual standing of the kin group is degraded. This makes the necessity of concealing it, and ignoring it, vital. The parental actions in such cases were obviously self-serving and hypocritical, as they were geared to maintain their own ritual standing, glossing over a daughter's deviance. Furthermore, the absolute nature of parental authority over their daughter is a necessary concomitant of the parental obligation to maintain caste purity, and the culture makes demands upon them for behavioral conformity as part of their parental 'dharma' i.e. "the way of life or that which is right" (S.C.Dube 1955:92). Hemlata, Shanti and Gita accepted, as did Asha after the judicial non-recognition of marriage by elopement, that it was their ritual (obligation to conform to the culturally prescribed role for virgins. In order to maintain their family honor, kin-group and taste purity, the parents of these women initiated them into the necessary rite of passage to confer ritual benefits on their daughters as well as upon themselves,and to reciprocate social obligations to relatives and to others in the larger network of caste. 157 Dr.Hemlata had to agree to her father's choice because She had been raised to obey him and to yield to his wishes and to trust his judgment as well, as it was the traditional Hindu thing to do. She had no chance to reconsider even if she had wanted to. It is difficult for us to realize that a Hindu woman can become a doctor, even intern, and never really have any experience j X in developing social relationships. The protection of the Hindu girl is all aimed to prevent her from doing this. Only by this means can a virgin be turned over to the groom, as the father is ritually required to do among the Hindus. The necessary result of this is that the period of legal and social incompetence which is generally elsewhere limited to adolescence, extends far into adult life in matters of marriage among the Hindus of the region. Should an infringement of a purity rule occur, rituals exist for the removal of pollution so long as it is external pollution. Out of the three ways in which pollution is transmitted - interdining, commensal living, and sexual intercourse, the first two are removable for 30th sexes. It is only the sexual intercourse of a roman which creates a permanent defilement for which here is no ritual of purification. Sex pollution does ot apply to males with the same rigor as it does to 158 females. For the males, there is a purificatory bathing ritual, but not so for females. Their child-bearing prOperties make women the conduit of caste purity as it is through them that natural substance of purity is transmitted from one generation to another, conserving caste purity as well. In this ritual context, the dissolution of her unconsummated marriage puts the woman in the same category as any other divorcee, exposing her to the same severe pollution. The structure of father-daughter dyad involves a rejection of all unrelated male contacts for his young unmarried daughter, while she avoids at the same time close interaction of a commensal nature with either low caste or non-Hindu women. Because of the contagion of pollution, she must be guarded as a symbol of her maintenance of purity rules imposed upon her or expected to be observed by her. It is to ensure parental 'dharma' , the parental claim to continued caste standing, that ritual obligations like the parentally arranged marriages of virgins within their caste must be performed. Thus, this observance of purity, may idealistically make virgins goddesses, but at the same time it severely restricts their options in every aSpect of life, 159 including the choice of marriage-mate and post-marital life-style. The strong authoritarian element of 'dharma' implicit in negotiated match-making by the parents of of a man and a woman, and the validity of principles relative to purity both of a virgin and her caste, remain unquestioned. The need to conform with 'dharma' in order to maintain purity is regarded as axiomatic, and "justification for the various prescriptions is neither sought in intellectual argument nor is it traced to the commands of supernatural powers" (Furer Haimendorf 1967:155). It is in divorce, however, that the father-daughter dyad seems to assume a strange incongruous element. The daughter's jural severance from her natal home bonds on her marriage should preclude her permanent return to her natal home. Neither in ideology nor in law do a father and his daughter have any further rights or obligations viS-a-vis each other except affectional claims. For a daughter to demand protecthxl from natal home kin is the converse of her earlier severance. Nowhere in the traditional system is there a concept of a woman's re-incorporation into her natal home. Why then do fathers, in general, respond so vehemently upon the side of their daughters whether modern or traditional? 160 The reason which seems foremost if one interprets the voluminous correspondence between the fathers of the couple, relates to the fact that the rejection of the woman by her affines is a rejection of the 'kanya-daan' made by her father. This rejection is a severe assault on his 'dharma'. Much of the father's attitude bespeaks an attitude of vengeance. Criticism of the daughter is a criticism of the father and his values. There is a strong need to mediate the personal differences on values between the sets of parents in cases like that of Sarla and Satpal, where the correspondence waxed hot and heavy as the cabinet minister took personal affront at criticism of his daughter's behavior. Putting pressure on the spouses to reconcile was impossible in this case since nothing short of an abject surrender on the part of the young husband would have satisfied Sarla's Minister-father. In Tarafls case, her father helped her seize the contents of the safety deposit box and remove all her personal belongings from her conjugal home. Tarun's written accusations in the police report of Tara's immoral behavior and her father's collaboration with Tara in removing their personal effects in an unauthorized manner must have insulted Tara's father to an extent that one doubts if he would have permitted Tara ever to reconcile with her husband even if he had pleaded 161 with her to do so. The parental behavior seen in most Of the cases revealsma socially implied recognition of parental right, or indeed the obligation to conduct and structure the marital relationship of one's daughter. The Spectacle indicates a strong ritual context of father- daughter dyad. Obviously, the father's 'dharma' is in Operation in his daughter's divorce litigation. It is generally the father of the litigant woman, regardless of her being a plaintiff or a defendant, who is the most antagonized person in the whole episode. It is not merely a matter of his ego-involvement. The logic Of his intense involvement is explainable with reference to the fact that a divorce not only nullifies his ritual prestation but also creates a situation whereby the father would have an unmarried daughter in his household who would not be a virgin, thereby putting the patri-kin 'under an.eclipse of ritual blemish. The event of divorce in this way dishonors a woman's natal family iJ1:rts entirety. A woman's father and her agnatic kin go down in ritual ranking in their caste. Her patri-kin face rather drastically diminished prospects Of finding suitable caste mates for the other unmarried females of the kin-group. 162 It is worth mentioning that an observer can easily discern the degree of traditionalism the litigant spouses have by looking at their fathers' participation in the handling Of litigation. More often than not, the presence of fathers is more conspicuous than that of the litigant Spouses both in the Offices of the attorneys representing them and the law courts. Fathers are seen doing all the chores of litigation, the running around for lack of telephone facilities, the arranging of cOnferences with attorneys, escorting the daughter for court appearances excepting, of course, testifying in her place in the court. Such is the onorous nature of his obligation toward the purity of his daughter. The data from the cases strongly suggest that the rules of purity as they apply serve to maintain the cultural arrangements of the social system. However, the framework of purity engenders the low status of women not only prior to their marriage but also during their marital life, and even more so after their divorce. Because the female pOpulation is controlled by the framework of purity, a woman can find a husband only out of the schematically allocated segment, i.e. her own caste group. Purity acts as 163 cultural conditioner to inhibit a female from developing any relationship with a male outside her kin-group without compromising her level of purity. This ideological system has a built-in spiritual-moral obligation for every woman, which reinforces parental authority to direct and determine the character of her life. Thus, 'purity' perpetuates social and psychological constraints which are often quite oppressive for women in general. By making virgins reSponsible for kin-group, caste and 'Varna' purity, the traditional system has made ritual purity the greatest ploy devised and employedto make a woman conform at the risk of being socially and spiritually destroyed by pollution for non-conformance. Instead of the social reluctance seen in the West to recognize a woman's right to be different or not to conform under certain circumstances, the traditional Hindu system has produced a cultural mandate that totally and absolutely denies such a privilege to a woman in any circumstances whatever. Yet at the same time it permits her to attain economic, political and professional statuses in so far as she inIno way challenges or transcends the culturally institutionalized purity constraints. 164 The whole spectrum of female socialization practices has its roots in the fundamental concept of ritual purity. The concept provides a unified theory of'overall marital practices, authority-structures, and the related social behavioral modes, gearing the psychological processes and corresponding behavior to validate the logic of the conceptual scheme. It thus becomes natural for parents to make ritual prestation of their daughter in marriage irrespective of her physical condition or willingness to marry, in order to keep up with the scheme of ritual purity. The parents know that an infraction of the norm would not only put the purity of the daughter in peril but also their own as well as of their kin. This makes the marriage of every daughter a necessary concomitant of purity, channeling social experience into logical categories of non-contradiction, regardless of the prospect of success of the enterprise of marriage. DOWRY AND THE RITUAL PURITY §_____OMPLEX: It appears from the aforementioned analysis that under the regime of ritual purity women are not only the carriers of its burden but also have a low status, and on their marriage the principle of jural severance unburdens the parents completely. There are, however, certain aspects that offset such an imbalance. The 165 ideology that provides for jural severance of married women from their parents, also creates a mechanism whereby not only the material welfare of women during their marriage is protected but a corresponding obligation is put on the parents to provide some means to promote this material welfare. Dowry giving is one such mechanism that not only demonstrates parental concern with their daughter's material welfare and their expression of affinity to her, but also makes their daughter a more attractive marital prospect. Because denial of inheritance to daughters is part of the traditional system, the dowry is generally looked upon as a pre-mortem inheritance. It is, however, given regardless whether any estate exists at all for the sons to inherit. Dowry giving is, therefore, also viewed as a ritually meritorious and pious act that enhances the status of the parents in the community. The practice of dowry giving has acquired this dimension of ritual merit to new prOportions that led Vander Veen (1972:263) to observe "Dowries are paid with a very economic and utilitarian aim: status increase and status confirmation", presumably both of the * father and his daughter. The dowry giving is currently found to be "flourishing rather than declining in Indian urban middle class" (Vatuk 1972:103) 166 for at least two reasons: first, large dowries are given for educated salaried employees particularly by those who have higher class aspirations for their daughters, as the case of Tara - the daughter of a physician married to a physician also suggests. Secondly, the persistence of negotiated marriages required by the ritual-purity-complex engenders and sustains the practice of dowry giving. The cases of Asha and Udaivati Show how the variable of dowry helps in finding a desirable groom. The parents with no daughters are regarded as singularly fortunate. It is generally remarked to them that they must have done some good deeds in their previous life to escape the onorous ritual obligations. The divorce cases of Jyoti, Kamla and Lila show that they were virtually driven out of their marital homes because they could not meet the extortionist dowry demands of their affines. My analysis of divorce situations suggests that the equation of dowry in social reality works like this. A father in the discharge of his dharma obligations toward his daughter has to marry her off while she is a virgin. Typically, he faces a potential suitor who maintains a strong father-son dyad with father dominating the relationship. 167 Since a groom's father is not under any pressure to protect the purity of his son, he is no rush to see his son married, as is the father of a daughter. In this system, therefore, a woman's father has little option except to meet the demands of a groom's father for dowry if he wants to see his daughter married within a few years after her puberty. The Situation is only compounded with the social phenomenon of universality of marriage for women irrespective whether they are pretty, physically fit, or otherwise desirable. This cultural configuration in which a daughter does not inherit from her father, tends to promote extortionist demands of dowry from a groom's father. Often, the fathers,like that Of Lila, in the urban middle class find themselves under the double obligation of providing their daughters with the same education as their sons as well as a dowry on their marriage. Little consideration is given of the expenditures made by parents of daughters to see to their education or to the earning potential of the educated woman. Regardless of the evils of dowry, the attrac- tiveness of the manipulatory dimension of dowry keeps the custom going. In Saroj vs. Sanjay, we see that Saroj's father regardless of his personal attitude of the nobility of purpose involved in providing educatflon 168 to Sanjay in Germany, did so in lieu of dowry. The dowry became self defeating in that case because of the snobbishness of his wife to his kin and the arrogance of his affines towards him. Nevertheless, the case situation substantiates that a bride's father by giving a large dowry not only secures for his daughter a desirable mate of higher economic status of his own caste, but the well-being and security of her progeny as well. A daughter's upward movement through a well-placed groom would be more conducive of improved health and future of her children. They would more likely have an upward mobility, bringing a good measure of satisfaction to their maternal grand- father who gains thereby prestige in his community. The parental investment through dowry is inextricably woven into the marital system as a crucial link between society and a daughter's reproductive success. After all, this is what a successful marriage is all about. Thus arranging a prOper marriage and giving dowry are geared toward making life easier for a daughter and her children. And the father who does so, is duly allowed to earn ritual merit. The custom becomes all the more persistent in view of negotiated marriages through parents only to buttress the requirement to maintain one's kin-group and caste purity. 169 THE ADOPTION AND THE RITUAL PURITY COMPLEX: It is in the aforementioned perspective of purity maintenance that the case of the adoption of her niece made by Sarla - the Minister's daughter, requires a comment to Show the essential correlation of adoption with the beliefs of purity in the system of Hindu kinship. The only modern-day evidence on Hindu attitudes toward adoption is contained in less than two pages of Rama Mehta's (1970:128-130) account where she discusses the attitudes of her fifty respondents who are among "The Western Educated Hindu Women" - also the title of her book.' According to Mehta, a great majority of her respondents made it clear that they would not prefer to adOpt, but if they did so, it would have to be a child from their kin-group as it would lessen the artificiality of adoption, and also because they were against giving their family name to a child who initially had no right to it (ibid:129). Mehta sees in the responses against adOption outside one's kin-group the impact of Hindu notions of 'predestination' and 'karma' which remain unelaborated in her book. Her interpretation is that Open adoption practised in the Western societies is due to the lack Of 'intimacy' that Westerners have with their extended kin, hence it is easier for them to raise a child 170 unrelated by blood. What, however, remains unstated in her discussion is the concept of 'intimacy‘ in the Hindu view, which in fact is a direct correlate of the rules of purity - the rules of caste and kin commensahty that create and sustain such 'intimacy'. Whatever the rationalization of Mehta's reSpondents or her own interpretation of the phenomenon, it is the more basic concepts of purity and pollution which govern the choice of adoption of a child by a Hindu parent. And the adOption made by Sarla is no exception, as is evident from the following analysis. The teknonymous relationship of Sarla with her sister's daughter both at the level of reference and the mode of address, is "Mausi" which literally means "the same as mother". This adoption was, therefore, not considered too hard on either the little girl or her natural parents who had a son and another daughter. Childless couples are often given a child, usually a male, by the husband's kindred. This way the kin-group of the adOptee does not change. However, in the case of Sarla - a Single woman after her divorce, her elder sister and her husband showed to her the same concern and generosity that one's closest kin would normally show. 171 Giving up a daughter to the divorced childless sister-in-law did not offend the man's patrilineage since a daughter on her marriage goes to her groom and belongs then to his parental family in some far Off city anyway. A daughter is not considered a permanent member of her natal home since she does not contribute to it either through her offspring or economically. Sarla has the companionship of the child and in return will provide for her education and dowry. Her adopting the child of her own married sister yielded some econmic advantage to the adOptee's natural parents without disrupting their daughter's emotional bond too severely. Adoption is viewed in the society as a jural fiction accompanied by a social fiction of affinity. Jural fiction refers to the legal right of maintenance, inheritance, citizenship that arise in favor of the adoptee. The social fiction of affinity encompasses moral claims and Obligations upon each other - the adopter and the adOptee. The claims of affinity thus arise through acquiring filial status over the adOptee who was not naturally born to the adoptor. As Julian Pitt-Rivers (1973:95) while describing real and fictive relationships among the kith and the kin succinctly Observes, "the adOpted kin is a surrogate, a make-shift 172 kin, born not of flesh and blood but of necessity." This necessity in the North Indian society, however, is regulated by certain culture-specific notions. The social acceptance of the fiction of adOption is restricted by the consideration of both the purity of caste of the adOptee's natual parents and the ritual legitimacy of his or her birth. It is fOr this reason that adOption in the region is not as widely and commonly practised as in the Western world, and the children in Indian orphanages face very meager prOSpect for adoption. Moreover, children whose parents die are supposed to be taken in by the fathergkin and are not the type of orphans found in orphanages. Mostly, the children in such institutions are of illegitimate birth or abandoned by their parents. In place of empathy for the unfortunate circumstances of orphans, superordinate concerns with caste purity remain dominant in the minds of potential and actual adoptors. An outside caste adoption is incompatible with the notion of caste purity, as such an adOption brings in a different level of purity of blood in the adOptor's caste group. An adoption, therefore, is placed by the society in the wider framework of purity and pollution. The necessity to do this becomes evident when the issue of adOptee's 173 matrimony arises as she grows up. An adoptee of unknown parentage would face a great difficulty in Obtaining a family of the caste of the adOptor-parent to agree for a marital alliance, necessitating a caste exogamous marriage contrary to the traditional 'structure. The adoption of her niece by Sarla dramatizes the concern among Sarla's kindred to maintain their personal purity level intact. Not only by giving to Sarla their daughter in adOption, have her Sister and her husband, as well as Sarla's parents and brothers, emphasized afresh their kinship solidary bond with her so as not to let her feel rejected by her own kindred upon her divorce, but also they have averted future difficulties from arising by not letting Sarla adOpt a girl or a boy from an orphanage. Had she done so, the adOptee would have further pulled down Sarla's purity level. In that event, the only recourse Open to her kindred would have been to permanently stop close interaction with her. Since they themselves had supported her in obtaining divorce, they could not bring themselves about to sever relationship with her, hence giving to her the child in adOption. Sarla's divorced status is indeed likely to prejudice the adOptee's future matrimonial prospects. 174 However, with their high socio-economic and political status Sarla's parents and her kin are fighting her ritually lowered position in the hOpe that by the time the child grows up to be married, the caste attitudes toward divorcees will have changed. It is, in fact, likely that only the more traditional elements will reject her adOptee in the future as a bride, although an adoptee of unknown parentage is likely to continue as unmarriageable by all but the most liberated caste or individuals. Social values are changing, albeit slowly, in the region. Many informants pointed out that in their parental generation the purity of blood of both parents was important for arranging marriage. Now a days, in certain castes like the Kayasthas and some Vaishya castes, the evidence of the father's purity level is viewed as sufficient for such purposes. By letting Sarla adopt her niece, we see the attempt of her kin-group to keep her in their close interactional proximity. With the class variable favoring them, the parents and her kin hOpe to have a place for Sarla within their caste fold. This process of class variable creating 'layering system' within a caste in the urban milieu, is discussed at length in Chapter X of this dissertation. CHAPTER V THE FATHER-SON DYAD: Analogous in many ways to a father's dharma toward his daughter, is the structure of the dyadic relationship between a father and son. The hierar- chized authority structure creates a relationship whereby a father is not only obligated to procure all the necessities of life for his sons, but also to arrange for their education, career, and matrimony as is seen in all the traditionally arranged marriages in the case narratives. This instrumental role,full of responsibilities, makes the father an authority figure to his children. The role relationship between father and son is more in the nature of an instrumental than an expressive role. Such elements as emotional closeness, friendship, joking or teasing which characterize expressive roles, are not found in the father-son relationship in the region. Generally,a father raises his first son to be his confidant in order that the son may become his surrogate on his death in relation to the younger sons and daughters. As the eldest son is saddled with the 175 176 responsibilities of providing for their education, preparing them for career Opportunities, and arranging their matrimony, he is Often closer to his father and is shown preferential treatment in terms of gifts and other favors compared to his siblings. The eldest son is abnost never disciplined in front of his junior Siblings to whom he acts as monitor, and in the absence of his father, as disciplinarian. An older brother being parental surrogate is both addressed and referred to with formality rather than informality and friendship. None of these men — Kumar, Onkar, Tikam or Umrao, ever talked to his siblings about his romantic inclinations toward the woman he finally married. The siblings learned of the matrimony of their brother only after it was approved by their parents. Also, the marriage of Farima, negotiated and solemnized through the efforts of her brother, shows her brother's instrumental role toward her. Similarly, Shanti's brother arranged her re-marriage after her divorce acting as a parental surrogate when their father had retired from his civil service position. In contrast to the instrumental relationships between Siblings, is the expressive role which exists traditionally between an Older brother's wife and her husband's younger brother, discussed fully in Chapter VII. For an expressive interaction, a person generally relies 177 on age mates of his or her sex, or remote cousins outside the immediate family, rather than one's siblings. This phenomenon leads many foreign visitors to Indian families to remark that the co-resident members of an Indian household do not have 'fun' among themselves in their relationships. This hierarchic involution in family structure indeed has little provision for relaxed relationships where elements of comraderie could exist among the members of a family group. Child rearing practices tend to promote dependence of a son upon his father as such a dependence is congruent with patriarchal authority, and a son's subjection to his father's authority. This dependence- cum-authority format dominates the whole domain of domestic relationships such that nearly all aSpects Of one's marital life are subsumed by it from mate selection to the termination of a marriage. A man,while residing with his father, does not view himself as simply a co— resident and a member of his father's household but as an indivisible part of his father's household and identfly; A son is co-owner by birth of all the assets, properties and business goodwill of the joint family. Thus, a son is raised in a very close and dependent relationship by his father as the socio-ritual and economic interests of both are inter-twined. The actions of a son, good or bad, 178 affect the community standing, as well as the social and business prestige of his father. And this fact is well understood by a son in his social interaction as well as in his educational and economic achievements. Invariably, therefore, a son has a strong sense of belonging to his parental househOld. It is in accord with the norm that a father may Spend nearly all his income on the education and career-placement of his sons, even exhausting his retirement funds while doing so. It is this social perception of parental obligation that in its turn places the parents in a position to make all kinds of demands on their married sons and daughters-in-law. A son learns early and well not merely to subordinate but to eff ce himself before his father. A father befiewas that in the domestic sphere of his family including that of the sons, it is his whims and fancies that would prevail. A son joins his father in offering ancestor worship in the male line during the 'Kanagat' fortnight, the time of mourning rite and fasting for families once every year which culminates in the 'Patri-Amavas'. His co-ownership by birth of the ancestral prOperties in the hands of his father, his being father's surrogate to his Siblings, and his extending the father's line of descent, tend to reinforce a son's closeness to his father. 179 This phenomenon inevitably draws the son into conceiving his identity, his self-image, through his father. Such a Situation subordinates not only the son but his wife as well to the authority of the‘patriarch of the household, making "dependence" an adaptive strategy actively employed to preserve the coparcenary unit. As'a result, no value attaches to the independence of a son from his father even long after his marriage. However, this direction of dependence is reversed upon one's father nearing retirement age, by which time a son has entered his thirties. After this, it is a son's moral obligation, supported by public Opinion, to take care of his old parents and unmarried siblings. An aging father, therefore, rightfully expects to be provided with board, lodging and care in his Old age. 'All the myths, rituals, and inheritance system reinforce such a dyadic arrangement. The refusals of the husbands like Ishwar, Kumar, Onkar, Umrao and Vidur to establish neolocal homes at the request of their wives, were congruent with the ideology. Ishwar was not only ill- prepared to establish a neolocal home but did not think that he should have to do so. Clearly, his father and older brother and older brother's wife were against the idea of Ishwar and Indira establishing themselves neolocally. Kumar clearly had an instrumental role to 180 play relative to his junior siblings. For Onkar, the economic variable involved was the ancestral home and lands in which he had co-ownership, an attractive enough prOposition to maintain patrilocality where the rent, utilities and food were free. Both Umrao and Vidur had aging parents Who required the services not only of their son but of his wife as well. Obviously, in all these cases, neolocality did not necessarily provide the ideal solution. For his parents, a son brings in a daughter-in-law to serve them and to extend the family line of male descent. Even Binod whose congenital defect rendered him sexually dysfunctional, could bring his parents the services of his wife. Although Binod's parents were aware that he would be unable to consummate the marriage, his marriage did not run against the grain of the ideological format. In ideology, the aims of a Hindu marriage are said to be 'Dharma (religion), 'Praja' (progeny), and 'Rati' (pleasure). Marital pairing for the performance of 'Dharma' is the essential norm and the required social mode of life. Moreover, his marriage would permit Binod to adopt a male child to continue the lineage descent line, meeting the requirement of 'Praja' (progeny) in a marriage. And sex is relegated in ideology to the last position, anyway. Thus, Binod 181 in such an ideological context was not entirely at fault. Consummation of marriage is not a criterion for its validity in the traditional system. In the event of a diSpute between his new bride and his parents, a husband must either take the side of his parents or abstain from involving himself in the acrimony of domestic conflict. Such a stance of a married man is congruent with parent-son relationship which is the basis of the continuance of a household. We find both Kumar and Lachman prevaricating and unable to take sides, to the extent that they let their wives go. A son is suppOsed to espouse ambivalence which also matches with his real dilemma of his head and heart, between his Old kin Obligations and his wife. A husband through his inaction or ambivalence only mirrors the structured uncertainty of his role model. A new wife has no power base with her husband to persuade him to comply with her wishes. With time, however, the bonds of conjugal affection especially through children are developed. The data on divorce and reconciliation cases provide consistent evidence to show that the birth of a son acts as stabilizer of the marriage-bond of his parents. The cases of Umrao, Vidur, and Yogesh clearly demonstrate that the presence of a son was the crucial variable saving their marriages. 182 On the other hand, the birth of a daughter or two, as in the cases of Omlata, Rani, Rupa, Savitri, Tara,anxi Triveni - total of six divorce cases, shows that a daughter does not engender commitment in her father toward his marital bond. Why are the data pertaining to sex differences of children born to litigant couples, so nearly uniform in giving us consistent results in the situations of marital discord? What causes this apparent dichotomy? What is the source of the significant differences in the conception of a son as contrasted with a daughter in the cultural reality Of the region? RATIONALE FOR THE DYADIC PRIMACY: The Sanskrit saying "Putrarthe Kriate Bharya" - (to beget a son one procures a wife), epitomizes the basic maxim of marital and familial institutions of the society. The statement reduces a wife to a means to an end - the son being the purpose of marriage and family. The saying is not a mere idealization either. T. Poffenberger (1969) in his demographic study of husband-wife communication and motivational aSpects of population control in an Indian village in the culture region, reports that men asked to state the benefits of having a wife made a common response "so that our descent 183 would continue". The descent in the region is continued only through a son. It is a common folk belief that immortality is achieved by Obtaining a son. There exists between a father and son an ideological commitment to a continuing relationship from birth to death. Their role expectations are structured in the dyad. Even though the large corporate patrilineages of African type patrilineal societies do not exist in the two cities where I did the field work, a Hindu family essentially is partially corporate in the sense that devolution of property takes place jointly upon a father and his existing sons on the death of the father's father. Thus a family is corporate for purposes of inheritance which is jointly taken by a father, father's brothers, and their sons. Any one of these co-owners can demand a partition of such prOperties or business any time he wants. As ancestral prOperties devolve and remain with the c0parcenary comprised of male agnates only, a transaction of dowry comprising of immovable prOperty like a parcel of land or a house or a building or a share in business is unheard of in the region. The kinship bond, which a man experiences as a father to his son, draws in his wife bringing about a greater stability to his marital bond. "Mother of my man" 184 is the usual teknonymous form of address and reference for one's wife. This commitment level is not quite the same when only a daughter or daughters are born to a couple. By the use of teknonymy, the marital relationship is cast into the idiom of kinship. The visiting friends are drawn into the network by fictive kin relationship of "Bhabhi-Devar" discussed in Chapter VII. Similarly, the friends of one's father are always addressed and referred to an 'uncles' and their wives as 'aunties'. It is as mother of one's closest agnate i.e. son, that one's wife becomes a member of the kin-group, tightening the kin network between the pair of Spouses. For, one interacts with kin not with outsiders. This differential significance in the dynamics of kinship and conjugal relations is the most common feature of the intersecting kin and affinal relationships in the region. This Structure of kinship reflects a system of thought and behavior of far-reaching socio-cultural relevance both for marriage and family. In such a conned; then, it becomes ideologically incomprehensible to the social actors to see a mother and her son leaving the parental family-household, a situation which a divorce necessarily creates. It is in this manner that the father-son dyad Operates to the enduring benefit of 'mother-wife' in the family unit. 185 A family unit is usually maintained deSpite discord between husband and wife if the cOuple have a son. This ideological primacy of the father-son dyad serves to dramatically reduce the chances of parental divorce. It is for this reason that we encounter in case after case a dominant father dictating to his son, or conversely, a son becoming dominant upon a father reaching his fifties, dictating whom he shall marry as we see with Umrao, Omlata's first and second husbands, and Tikam. Nevertheless, the dyad keeps the two together with no escape, maintaing thereby the unity of the lineage. In this perspective, the case of Rohini vs. Rohan would be correctly assumed to be contradictory inasmuch as the birth of a son failed to stabilize the parental marital bond. In that case, several factors induced divorce. First, theirs was a second marriage for Rohan, and his jealous daughter of the first marriage drove a further wedge between the couple. The age difference between the two spouses was thirteen years, which was on the abnormal side in a traditional marital context. The lack of patri-kin on both sides made their neolocal household completely independent of the traditional pressures of their extended kindred. Most of all, Rohini's five years of teaching in college prior to her marriage, the early death of her parents, and her own 186 decision to marry Rohan, had made her less traditional to start with. With the several years of earlier experience of sociO-economic autonomy, Rohini was willing and ready to support herself and her child. The ready availability of a professional career was a very viable alternative to the impecunious and lonely existence with Rohan. Furthermore, her son was notlosing any chances of inheriting prOperties as none existed. Since Rohan appeared to have nothing to give his son - neither affection nor the luxuries and the attention which he bestowed upon his daughter, Rohini and the son had nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain by leaving. Rohan's invidious and discriminatory treatment pushed Rohini to divorce him. IMPLICATIONS 9}; LOVE MATCH 93 FATHER-SON DYAD: Several cases such as Kamla vs. Kumar, Omlata vs. Onkar, Umrao vs. Usha highlight the flow of negative results on combining a 'love marriage' with patrilocality. The Indian phrase 'love marriage' bears little relation- ship to the mental picture conjured up in the western mind by the term. That, which in the region is called a 'love affair' in most cases can be designated no more than infatuation, since segregation of the sexes is so nearly complete that a couple would have little Opporunfity 187 to know each other well before their marriage. A 'love match' i.e. self-selection of mate undermines the status of parents of both the spouses. The 'individual' by himself or herself is not the basic unit of the society in the context of marriage especially in the traditional situation. The 'love marriage' as a matter of rule is discouraged because it could often compromise kin-group and caste purity if it is caste exogamous. Further, a 'love marriage' would inherently lack the commitment to maintain the interests of the husband's parents and kin. Such marriages are, therefore, frowned upon in the society for their cutting across the coveted father-son dyad. FATHER—SON DYAD AND SON'S AUTONOMY THROUGH NEOLOCALITY: The data reflect that with the socio-economic autonomy of a son combined with neolocality, his father's domineering role on his marital life comes to an end. Class differential between father and son as seen in the cases of Dr.Tarun, Omlata's second husband, Sanjay and Sohan made it impossible for their fathers to weild authority over them, and impose their cOncept of marriage and marital life style. The inter-generational differences in the concept of marriage also undermined the traditional patri-centered self-identity of sons, 188 weakening the mutual inter-generational claims between a father and his son in their cultural universe. Dr.Ramesh's living in Canada, and Sajay's going to Germany took them out of the pale of influence of their kin. We find Vidur to be symbolizing a man's traditional Obligations as a son to his father, over-riding his obligations asha husband to his_wife and as a father to his infant son. By keeping Vimla not with but in his father's household to take care of his aging father and college-going Siblings, Vidur nearly risked a disruption of his marital bond. It was his attitudinal change as regards his filial obligations, combined with neolocality, that salvaged his marriage. By way of conclusion, it should be stated that by maintaining caste endogamy to sustain the ideology of purity, a father's authority emerges as superordinate over his sons and daughters alike even after their adulthood regarding their marriages which must be parentally arranged. The extended adolescence of young peOple in the Hindu system is designed to prevent the process of individuation or formation of nuclear identflfin This active suppression of self-identity formation is sustained by the ideology to support the multi-generatflxufl household - the ideal way of the Hindu mode of living. 189 The incoming bride then is forced to seek the approval and attention of her parents-in-law for her household chores and daily interaction in her conjugal home. Implicit in this quasi-institutionalized dependence behavior is the expectation that with the passage of time the son-husband and his wife become in turn recipients of similar deference and approval seeking behavior through the built-in superordinate and subordinate relationships of the hierarchized system. Only when a son attains sociO-economic autonomy and lives away from his parents, does he sometimes succeed in neutralizing his father's dominance over him. CHAPTER‘ VI MOTHER-DAUGHTER AND MOTHER-SON DYADS: Adrian Mayer (1960:217) discussing interpersonal relations between kin refers to the mother as the "center of affection for her children" amplifies the background of the mother-daughter and mother-son dyads, and at the same time points to the element missing in the relationship of a father with his children. It is unmanly in the eyes of the traditional society to Show affection or to concentrate too much on one's own son(s). The traditional father child relationship is more instrumental than emotional, leaving emotional closeness for mother to express. At the same time Mayer (ibid) finds that the mother acts as 'disciplinarian of her daughters'. It is seen in the case of Rupa vs. Ram that their two grown-up daughters had developed no relationship with their father. Similarly, neither Dr.Tarun, nor Sohan maintain any connection with their daughters. Thus, the burden of discipling a daughter has to fall on the mother. Since the daughters-in-law traditionally come under the discipline of the mothers-in-law, S.C.Dube (1955:137) finds that "any failure or reluctance on the 190 191 part of a daughter-in-law to carry out the wishes of her mother-in-law leads toconstant quarrels and complications." A quarreling daughter-in-law can expect problems including tension in her marital bond , as her quarrels tend to put strain on the mother-son dyadic relationship. Such a situation can be resolved only by nucleation or divorce, as were the Options open to the husbands of Kamla and Omlata. These men, however, decided against nucleating, and chose to divorce their wives. In Usha's situation, the problem remains still unresolved and affinal discord continues in a subdued fashion, with relations between Usha and Umrao ranging from cold to lukewarm. In the case of Madan vs. Maya, what brought about the marital break-up despite mother's charm, dignity and excellent family background, was her insistence upon running her son's marital life. The pre-eminence of mother's right over her son was ever present throughout the span of the unfortunate marriage. For a son to forsake his widowed mother is to commit the most heinous. Sin against one's own creator, a violation of a son's dharma. ‘A show of love for one's wife when a kin is present is traditionally disapproved. Such a non-showing is congruent with the cultural norm whereby a husband should not appear wrapped up in his bride. 192 ' Madan's mother by overplaying her ideological pre-eminence and retaining hold over her son, left no room for the new bride to fill in Madan's life. He in turn remained uninitiated into the role of a husband, because the continued presence of his mother prevented him from needing any other woman except for sex. In such a Situation, it should not come as a surprise to find a mother-in-law, who perceived her son's wife to be a threat, acting to retard the growth of affection between her son and her daughter-in-law. In three years, Maya realized that Madan had no place whatever for her in his life. In a traditional marriage, the intensity of mother-son bond is not disturbed - a phenomenon that is congruent with the system of loveless marital arrangement within one's own caste. But Maya was not that much tradition-oriented so as to continue to live as a non-entity for whole of her life. She, therefore, quit the household forever. Commenting upon the nature of a son's dharma at the behavioral level, a well-known North Indian jurist1 recounted the case of a young chief Of a Small princely state in Western India, who was married to a princess of a far larger kingdom in the North Indian region several years before the enactment of the divorce statute which made monogamy a legal rule for all Hindus. 193 The Chief's widowed mother lived with him. As the ill-luck Of the patrilocally resident couple would have it, shortly after the marriage it so happened that the young princess inadvertantly broke an earthen flower pot by tipping it over in the palace compound within the watchful eye of her mother-in-law who spoke a harsh word to her for her careless movement. The princess answered that she would have it replaced with a golden one, implying the riches of her natal home. The remark infuriated the mother-in-law so much that she demanded her son abandon her. The son did so but refused to remarry ever again. After leaving her marital home, the princess entered a retreat, and became a Sanyasan - a renouncer. After a few years, the princess died leaving behind a large legacy. The husband refused to inherit from his princess-wife. His mother, however, insisted that he must accept whatever was his as her husband. The son replied that he had already committed a sin at the asking of his mother because that was in the domestic domain of the household. But no second sin would he commit at his mother's behest especially when the matter of inheritance was unrelated to her, and exclusively between a husband and his wife. The Chief renounced all his rights to the legacy in writing, and let it be inherited by his wife's consanguineal kin. 194 Although both men - the Chief of Doongri and Madan, committed the sin of separating from their wives, they did so largely to abide by the wishes of their widowed mothers. In the Hindu cultural context, the sin of separating from one's wife is viewed more as an actcfi? self denial voluntarily imposed on oneself, an acceptance of challenge to one's manliness, and less a sin towards one's marital obligations. A further question, however, arises as to why such obedient sons, as the Chief and Madan, refused to be dictated by their mother on the issue of remarriage. According to the native reasoning, a mother has a dominion over the physical precincts of the household but no farther. As a son has to go outside to get married, a mother's command is not viewed as controlling the son's behavior outside the household. Hence, those sons who never marry at all do not in ideology commit any sin against their mothers. The Chief and Madan, as well as their wives, are clearly living out the ideals as laid out in the Ramayana - the most sacred, comprehensive and ideal code of conduct for the Hindus. The dynamics of behavior in that religio-cultural account of the Hindu epic, answers every potential domestic interaction by having 195 the actors respond to each and every conceivable situation. The princess lived upto the ideal norm of her 'dharma' by not returning to her natal home and by becoming a renouncer. Hers is a demonstration to her mother-in-law as well as her husband that if a wife ceases to belong to her husband's home, then she does not belong to any other; and if she is denied protection by her husband, she can only seek it from God. Maya returned to her natal home but makes no effort to remarry, and manages the business affairs of a temple as her service to God. The two gestures Of the Chief of Doongri, his refusal to remarry and his further refusal to inherit from his deceased wife, acted to ameliorate the insult to the rather well-known natal home of the princess, and showed that he too was a man of sound character and good breeding, and fully capable Of living by the ideals and 'dharma' as he knew best. Madan, by refusing, to remarry, was in fact denying his inseparable mother the pleasure of enjoying the services of a daughter-in- law in the household and the precious chance to see her grandchild during her life time. This was Madan's way of punishing his intransigent mother. And he seemed to have prepared himself to pay the price for being a too obedient son. CHAPTER VII "DEVAR-BHABHI" DYAD: The teknonymous mode of reference and address used by a married woman for her husband's younger brothers - real, classificatory, ritual or fictive, is "Devar". Its direct converse, the teknonymous term employed byia man's younger brothers of all types for his wife is "Bhabhi". This dyadic relationship of "Devar-Bhabhi" is structured on the basis of informality and friendliness - the direct opposite of the formal- avoidance and deference rule Observed by a woman in her routine and normal interaction in the household with all senior male affines including the older brothers of the her husband. Among the domestic relationships, the "Devar- Bhabhi" dyad is the only one between a male and female unrelated by blood and having no conjugal bond. Because it is known for its intimacy and expressiveness, which plays a central role in keeping the younger generation bound to the patri-collateral household, an analysis of this dyad becomes essential in understand- ing the internal workings of the patrilocal households where a younger brother of a married man is a co-resident. 196 197 This dyad which lies at the core of interaction inside this type of household has thus far remained elusive to the analysts of familial institutions in North India because Indian social anthropologists are too close to it and outsiders are limited by the sex segregation practised inside extended households in the region. The conspicuous omission of the 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad from ethnographic descriptions of patrilocal households or extended lineal or collateral families in North India (e.g. McKim Marriott 1955:106-121; Minturn and Hitchcock 1966:20-36; Sylvia Vatuk 1972: 112-148) makes a new bride's life around the formal relationships with her affines appear extremely constrained and circumscribed. These descriptions of bridal interaction with her co-resident senior affines leave a reader with an impression that she is always amidst formal and demanding affines without ever having anyone with whom to develop a friendly emotive relationship. The 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad which an incoming bride has with her husband's younger brothers of all types is a built-in safety valve for her in an otherwise tension-ridden and authoritarian patrilocal environment - a structural fact that has so far gone entirely unrecognized. Without this lighter kind of interaction which a bride has with her junior male 198 affines in her marital household, the lives of these brides would make them truly 'the most miserable of all peOple' as one critic pointed out to Leigh Minturn. . (1975) who readily conceded this without pointing to this lighter side of a wife's relationships with her husband's younger brothers - which alleviates and softens the shock of life with strangers of her conjugal household. Moreover, though Minturn and Hitcock (1966:58) describe the final and most important factor that weighs with parents on the suitability of a match for their daughter, "as to whether the girl would be well taken care of, both as a wife and a widow", they offer no comment on the elements involved in the parental evaluation of this most important factor determining the selection of mate for her. Sylvia Vatuk (1972:44) describes a case of a Brahmin professor who lived with his elder brother's family from the age of 14 until he was 30, both before and after he was married. Although Sibling relationship is indexed in her book, this Sixteen years of joint living during adolescent and adult life has not been analysed either from the view- point of the relationships between two brothers or the 'Devar—Bhabhi' dyad. Though Shah (1974:42-43) casually mentions that 'Devar-Bhabhi' is a joking relationship that exists along side a respect relationshiplxnwealthem, 199 he completely misses the crucial implications of the dyad in the developmental cycle of the 'Complex households' that he finds structured on the 'principle of residential unity of patri-kin and their wives' (Shah 1974:58). Adrian Mayer (1960:220-221) briefly outlines the dyad as an informal relatiOnShip with the possibility of mild joking, though others of his informants said that a 'Bhabhi' was to be considered to be a mother requiring a relationship of informal respect. Mayer coments further on'joking' suggesting that the interpretation must be cautious as it is certainly not-as broad a type of jesting as is found among groups who practice the levirate, but giving no explanation for the peculiar nature of the dyad. The consistent neglect of a detailed analysis of this 'Devar Bhabhi' dyad in the patrilocal household seems the more surprising when one realizes the formal reserve and instrumental nature of the roles between the males of the patri-kin group. The father-son dyad is not such as to engender warmth and affection and the mother-son dyad has been cited for its importance in providing a tender counterpart. Because the Older brother is the Surrogate of the father toward his sibling, their relationship is also an instrumental one marked by formality and reserve. This seems to be 200 counter-balanced by the expressive role taken by the wife of the older brother. This in turn makes possible for closer relationship between the brothers. Also, the joint prOperty-holding agnatic group, known as the coparcenary to which all brothers belong by birth, creates the need for the younger ones to be closely held in the group as well. The system provides for this by promoting the 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad. The foregoing discussion emphasizes that the 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad is not only in absolute harmony with but a structural prerequisite for bridal absorption and the failure of the former has a direct correlation with tension in the marital bond of a patrilocally resident couple. And moreover, such a relationship is an essential aspect of the bride becoming a permanent member of the group. Because of the senior affines such as parents-in-law are generally advanced in age, a bride builds enduring and close relationships with her husband's junior male sib or the classificatory ones and their future wives, ensuring the continuance of the coparcenary. While the integrative aSpect of the dyad has been neglected, the psycho-analytical aSpect has been examined for upper-middle class families of Bengal where the dyad is also intense. Manisha Roy (1975:120) 201 suggests such a relationship has a great potential to become sexual by citing a situation in which, while other co-resident members including the husband were away on a family errand for a week, the Devar and his Bhabhi had a love affair during the time they were unchaperoned. Though Roy's explanation of the close relationship in the dyad is interesting, it is wholly psycho-analytic without any structural element, and demands further examination to determine why a relationship which Roy considers so potentially disruptive of the marital bond itself is at all maintained in the society. Young girls, according to Roy (1975) bring a romantic attitude into their arranged marriages, an attitude derived from reading popular romantic novels. Marriage, however, finds her in a family of strangers with whom she generally has a formal relationship. Between the spouses, a formal relationship during the day in a patrilocal household permits little but nightly sexual relations for intimacy. Although the bride is called the 'parrot of the pillow' for using the night for talking to her husband, she rarely satisfies her romantic ideals. Her husband's younger brothers, real or classificatory, who are generally students and around the house most of the time, do not come under the formal avoidance rule in their interaction with her. A Devar, 202 therefore, has a greater Opportunity for a more gallant kind of relationship and to develop a warm and close affinity with her. Not only are his sisters shortly destined to leave the family household on their marriages, but his Bhabhi is the first young woman from outside his family with whom he has a chance to freely interact because of the strict sex segregation practices of the society as regards unrelated females. His attitude is protective, eager, and curious to try out his own adolescent romantic ideas. She acts as a surrogate mother in mending his clothes and sewing on his buttons. She becomes his confidant as she lavishes on him all the affections of her loneliness arising out of her Spatial removal from her natal kindred, and dresses him with a romantic aura to satisfy that need. Roy's implication that the relationship necessarily involves a potential for sex, which only the presence of other affines in the household precludes, does not explain why the close relationship is ideologically promoted and is a 'structural given' in the society. She gives no ideological context or any social structural reason for the close relationship which the system itself consciously provides. For her, the psychoanalytic reason remains dominant in giving rise to the intensity in the dyad. The structural given of the closeness in 203 the dyad in the North Indian system is indeed firmly related to the preservation of the coparcenary unit, and it must be conceded to her that Bengal's traditional Dayabhag law does not make the son a co-owner by birth in the ancestral prOperties as the Mitakshra does for the rest of India, but makes him only an inheritor on the father's death. The non—existence of coparcenary in Bengal, perhaps, may not reinforce the dyadic intensity in the same way as its existence in North India does. Nevertheless, extended households are just the same in Bengal as in the region of this study, observing similar formal avoidance and close 'Devar- Bhabhi' dyadic relationships. One would fail to perceive the full import Of the dyad and its function in the Hindu marriage and family system in North India, unless social structural features that encourage the intensity are also taken fully into account. If Roy is right, why do parents and tradition agree that a bride is lucky to possess Devars to provide companionship in early marital relations, support, and protection if their daughter were later to become widow? In fact, in a given situatiOn of several matrimonial match possibilities for their daughter, parents give clear preference to a family where she will have Devars - calling these the real treasures for her to find in the family of her groom. 204 A groom himself not only sanctions the development of a close relationship between his bride and his younger brothers, he actually encourages it. Roy's concept of romantic needs as a basis of the dyadic relationship is more Freudian than necessary. Laid out in the ideal model set by Sita and Lakshman in the Ramayana of a protective cherishing of the Older brother's wife by the younger brother, the potential for sexual elements implied by Roy as always existent in the dyad undermines the traditional source of 'insurance' parents seek to provide for their daughter by giving her into a family where younger males will be present to replace Older ones as a source of support and protection not only to her but to her children as well. The most important patrilineal uncle likely to survive one's father is not any of the father's senior and older brothers but his younger brothers, real and classificatory, who are the Devars of one's mother. It is, therefore, with Devars and their wives as they come that a Bhabhi establishes both for her future welfare and that of her children an enduring and satisfying bond congruent with the bridal absorptive model. The Ramayana model of the dyadic relationship very clearly establishes a more reverential protective relationship which fits into Nur Yalman's (1962:45) 205 analysis as a manifestation of the anxiety about preserving female purity to maintain the purity level of one's own kin and caste group. With no god-parent or compadre system in India, the Devar is the most readily available prOtector and provider of his Bhabhi and the guardian of her children in the absence of her husband. The dyadic closeness is a viable response to the socio-economic, business and succession needs of a family business or other ancestral holdings and estate held in common. Despite the minor difference that Bengal under Dayabhag law has with the rest of India, in both systems sons have always inherited to the exclusion of daughters for well over a thousand years. In such a system of inheritance, the male agnates do have a very clear and ever-present incentive to remain close to one another with the ideology promoting a close relationship between their spouses as well. The formal nature of both the sibling and father-son dyad is congruent with the earlier reported findings of Charles Morrison (1972:100-125) that the formality deference pattern of agnatic relationship impedes the development of close, friendly, peer-group type professional bond between agnates in the practice of law in the Punjab region of North India. The analysis of marital discord in the cases of Umrao vs. Usha, and 206 Omlata vs. Onkar suggests that male agnates merely by acquiring either the potential of or the existence of a common profession, or a joint business enterprise, do not hold themselves together in an extended household without the added emotive Devar-Bhabhi_ties. Normally, the dyad is complementary Sustaining the closeness among her hquand's brothers and her parents-in-law. Wherever, the relationship of a wife with her parents- in-law is not good, the Devar-Bhabhi relationship becomes compensatory, reinforcing the jointness of the household relatiOnShips. Furthermore, this model of 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad is extensively employed by husbands both in Bengal and North India to create relationships of brotherhood with trusted friends and age mates. Without addressing such a person as brother, a man invariably uses the mode of reference for his own wife as 'your Bhabhi' rather than 'my wife' implying a much closer-warmer relationship not merely between his friend and himself but also between his wife and the other man. Such a mode Of reference i.e. 'your Bhabhi' draws the other man into a network more intimate and closer. If the 'Devar Bhabhi' dyad were a disguised 'sex' or 'romantic' relationship as Roy implies (1975:120), there would be no common use of the expression 'your Bhabhi' for one's own wife, as in 207 "What do you mean you cannot stay for dinner? Your Bhabhi (has already prepared dinner for you." A more rigorous analytical framework would have shown Roy that the 'Devar-Bhabhi' closeness is an essential facet of the social structure of the traditional familial system. The 'Devar Bhabhi' dyad serves publicly to exhibit the differentiated pattern of behavior between the formal avoidance-cum-deference relationship and the one characterized by informality-cum-friendliness, that a bride must follow in her normal and ordinary inter- action in the patrilocal household. These contrasting modes of behavior to be observed by wives converge upon an incoming bride in her patrilocal residence largely to regulate and mould her interaction with the co-resident affines, requiring her to distinguish both by her speech and behavior those who are older in age than her husband from those that are younger to him. The function of these two sets of rules is to create boundaries for normal and routine interpersonal interaction, organizing the modes of interaction both inside and outside the household, and separating the members of the household as well as bringing them together. This is done by defining identity for individuals and categories to which they belong, and prescribing the ideal modes of behavior appropriate to social actors assigned to them. 208 The formal avoidance-cum-deference rules ensure that the older male affines who control the resources of the household do not take advantage of the youthful innocence of the bride. And the two sets of rules do not leave any room at all for the play of personal inclinations in the matter. In this way we see not only why this dyad is appropriate but also why this kind of structured relationship makes functional sense. In the perspective of the foregoing discussion, the relationship of 'Devar Bhabhi' as it impinged upon marital discord in the divorce situations may be examined. In the case of Ishwar whose mother had died long time before his marriage, the Bhabhi had arranged the match. After his marriage with Indira, Ishwar's Bhabhi became Indira's Bhabhi also for the purposes of teknonymy. Indira's refusal to take orders from her Bhabhi, started to adversely reflect upon her husband's relationship with his Bhabhi in the extended household. Raised in a nuclear-neolocal type household, the university-educated Indira who had not seen the dyad in operation in the family of her orientation, soon became maladjusted in the large household where the maintenance of affinal relationships including that of her husband's 'Devar Bhabhi' dyad were crucial for her continued stay in the household. Indira's demand 209 for an egalitarian marriage based on sharing was doomed to failure as much because the system could not tolerate her challenge as that she herself could not brook discipline. A little flexibility, perhaps, on the part of all concerned might have saved the marriage, but none was prepared to yield. The patrilocal household was authoritarian, Indira a rebel to be crushed. The social attitudes were and are on the Side of Ishwar and his Bhabhi. In the case of Kumar vs. Kamla, Kamla complained that her Devar made explicit sexual advances as part of a ploy to discredit her completely in everybody's eyes because of her affines' opposition to the 'love marriage' which brought a meager dowry into her conjugal household. In their eyes, her image was already low and they thought that if Kamla could take a fancy for their elder son, she wOuld probably be open to enticement by another man as well. In the traditional Indian attitude toward a love match, nOt only is a woman perceived as the seducer but she is believed potentially available sexually which only strict chaperonage prevents. Kamla's rebuffing her Devar and complaining against him to his mother only yielded more insults to the effect that she was a temptress and her Devar,an 210 innocent boy, who would not dare make the alleged overtures to her. However, this negative development proved to be a harbinger of the eventual disruption of her marriage. Similarly, Omlata who had contracted a caste- exogamous love marriage with Onkar, reported that she did not have a meaningful relationship with her two cO-resident Devars. Because Onkar's mother remained hostile to her daughter-in—law, her younger sons refrained from developing a close relationship with their Bhabhi.‘ Secondly, Omlata's more sophisticated socio-economic background, her belonging to a different caste, and the circumstances of her love marriage were not the kind of variables that would have helped the development of a close dyadic relationship with her Devars anyway. The non-existence of a positive dyadic relationship diminished her prospects of a stable marriage. A very different situation existed for Usha whose marital troubles did not finally end in divorce but were patched up largely due to the birth of a son. However, Umrao's younger brothers both real and classi- ficatory, despite their best efforts, failed to develop any relationship with Usha. Her attitude towards her 211 love marriage was that of a highly privatized relation- ship of a nuclear-neolocal family type in which her Devars did not really enter. Usha had nOt seen a real life model of Devar-Bhabhi since her father having married caste-exogamously raised his family in a nuclear-neolocal household severing all connections both with his own lineage as well as that of his wife. Usha's failure to comprehend the necessary relationships in the patrilocal household caused great grief to all concerned including her husband. Umrao's brothers withdrew from the household and found employment elsewhere. Usha as a Bhabhi had destroyed the ties which bound the brothers together and she foredooms a joint family household which had continued for three previous generations. Thus, in the four cases examined so far, the Devar-Bhabhi dyad was also negative when the marital bond was tension-ridden. Sometimes, a negative dyad would threaten to imperil the marital relationship itself. The four cases support the argument that the closeness of the 'Devar-Bhabhi dyad is a built-in feature of the dynamics of patrilocality, and its prOper operation promotes the intensity of kin relationships - the bulwark of a large joint household. The case situations of Indira and Usha also suggest the difficulty of those raised in 212 nuclear parental family households to either recognize or even desire to maintain the 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyadic relationships. I The dyad is the least onorous of all affinal relationships of an incoming bride and effectively serves an integrative function for her. The dyad is a singularly vital component of kinship and affinity in the triadic relationship of one's older brother and his wife, having normally the longest span of life among all the affinal relationships of an incoming bride in her generation. On its intensity depends the strength of relationship which the children of one's brother would have with their father's brother - a relationship which is culturally viewed only next to father—son relationship. The role of the Devar continues into the next generation. AS the surrogate father of his nieces and nephews, he Often looks after the brother's family in his absence. The divorce data of Ritu vs. Ramesh amply demonstrate the position and trust which the junior uncle enjoyed in arranging the matrimony of Ritu. In that case, it was the father's younger brOther who arranged Ritu's marriage. It was he who made the arrangements for lodging and entertainment of the groom's party during the two days of the wedding. 213 It was he who took the couple twice for a visa for Ritu to go to Canada with her husband. On Ramesh's announcing six months later in his letter of his intention to divorce Ritu, it was he who went to Canada to have a face to face meeting with the young husband to attempt a marital reconciliation. And finally, his failure led him to announce his withdrawal from match-making for any of his other nephews and nieces. Moreover, if children have negative feelings toward some of their father's orders, it is better for them to express them to their junior uncle. He, depending upon his closeness to his elder brother, either speaks to him directly or more likely utilizes the 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad and lets his Bhabhi deal with the situation as She thinks fit. Traditional social segregation of the sexes and prescribed respect and avoidance relationships encourage husband and wife to have distinct though overlapping and effective networks in terms of social and recreational activities within the household. This is particularly pertinent with respect to the structure of the 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad. Such a dyadic relationship between a Bhabhi and her husband's real, classificatory, ritual and fictive brothers younger 214 to him in age are a prime example of such a network in which relationships remain distinctly different yet overlapping and effective. Both the formal sibling dyad and the affectionate 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad overlap and serve to strengthen the triadic relationship between the three individuals involved in the two dyads. These aspects increased the odds against Dr.Hemlata for her continuing to live patrilocally after her marriage with her husband - a pharmacist's assistant. The instrumental role that Hari was supposed to have relative tolhis siblings was demeaned by their singing "Bhabhi is a doctor and Bhaiya (brother) is her compounder". The sibling conduct brought aown the traditional authority structure for the couple, making the whlle situation rather ridiculous in the context of the hierarchic cultural environment of the society, rendering Hari's position untenable in his own home. This made Dr.Hemlata self-conscious, uncomfortable, and unhappy to a degree that she unilaterllly decided, on Hari's refusal to live neolocally, to call off such a marital arrangement. The 'Devar-Bhabhi' dyad holds the key to understanding the idiom of Hindu kinship in the midst of which a new bride finds herself after her marriage in her patrilocal household. For a bride, the structure 215 does not provide that her groom be the only and exclusive source of happiness in her marital home. The husband-wife relationship is only one among several in the household because others as well as her husband Should be providing emotional support to the new wife. Thus, in its simplest and most fundamental form, this dyadic relationship of a bride with her young affines is a way of life-enduring satisfaction of her emotional needs. Furthermore, the intensity of the dyad is supportive not only of the stability of her marriage but the integrity of the patrilocal household itself. The dyad inures to the benefit of both the present generation as well as the next. The analysis of this dyad reveals also the rationale of the sharp distinction between 'formal avoidance' and 'informal intimate' kinship rules in the narrow focus of patrilocal household interaction. CHAPTER VIII THE HUSBAND-WIFE DYAD: In the traditional system of arranged marriage, the develOpment of a husband-wife dyad is necessarily a slow process. Furthermore, because a marital life starts with patrilocality, the develOpment of the new dyad involves a wide range of problems. Under the circumstances of their arranged marriage, newly married spouses know very little about each other until a couple of years of their marriage have passed. In a sense, the courtship period of the Western type begins for the Hindu couple after the completion of marriage-rituals. Typically, a patrilocally resident husband finds himself situated amidst the same dyadic relationships as before his marriage, and conceives of his wife.more as a member of familial dyads - like a daughter-in-law to his parents, a 'Bhabhi' to his junior siblings, and eventuauy the mother of his Child. He does not see her as a person he could freely interact or joke with, or with whom he could have a trusted relationship at the very start of his marital career. These latter elements which are important to create intensity in husband-wife dyad in.the West, do not ordinarily develop for a patrilocally resident couple in the early years of marriage. 216 217 Because a patrilocally resident husband continues to obtain protective tender love from the other women of the household just as before his marriage, his wife's services other than sexual are only in addition to and not a substitute for the care Of the other women of the household. Hence in some situations, a wife's care being merely additive, remains inadequately appreciated by her husband as would be the case in a neolocal home. It is, therefore, no surprise that a young bride finds herself left out in the patrilocal household interaction. A young husband often fights shy of approaching her to do small casual things for him. It is much easier for him to let the other women of the household do the job as they did before his marriage. Usually, an understand- ing mother sees to it that all the needs of her married son are taken care of by his bride rather than by somebody else. It did not, however, occur that way in the marital discord situations ending in divorce. All a young husband obtained from his wife was plain physical sex which no other female in the household could offer. Except for that, such a husband did not really need a wife, though his parents acquired the services of a daughter-in-law. .His conjugal relationship with his wife was not characterized by mutual understanding, affection and reSpect at any given moment of the span of his marital life, nor was the development of such elements 218 encouraged by his parents or other members of the household. In such Situations, a husband can hardly, and does not ordinarily, protect his bride from a harsh and rough treatment that she may receive from her affines. A new bride cannot draw strength and security from her husband as a matter of course in her every day routine interaction with the co-resident female affines. In cases such as those of Jagan, Kumar, Onkar, and Lachman, a patrilocally resident husband never quite realized that his new bride had left her parents and family primarily for him and he could have found a way to fill in the void of affectional relationships, which she felt in the new environment. A husband was typically ambivalent about his attitude toward his wife, not being clear when and how he was supposed to Show her whatever was expected of him. Nonetheless, while he was the only man the young woman had to whom she could look to for love, romance and support, she was forced to settle for much less. However, she secretly resented the mode of household interaction, though in the initial stages she did not quite have the courage to adequately express herself to her husband without causing misunderstanding in his mind about her intentions. Also, she felt it useless to dwell on the subject sensing the futility of doing so in face of the close and intense ties that 219 her husband had with his family. A woman like Kamla or Omlata consoled herself with the thought that her husband's Sisters would go away on their own marriages. Hence for quite some time the wives chose to put up with the irksome problems, without making their feelings known to their husbands. Meanwhile as the months passed by, whatever infatuation the young husbands had for their spouses vanished under pressure of the antagonism of the co-resident kin. 'Love marriages' whethercaste exogamous as for Omlata, or caste endogamous as for Kamla, were soon destroyed by hostile co—residents. In a traditional marital situation, the only check on hostile affines is that they could possibly be shamed by their peers, the neighbors and the kin— group, which explains the reason for the match-makers adopting investigative attitudes and for a bride's kinsmen to meet with a prOSpective groom's kinsmen prior to announcing engagement. A prOper investigation of the social background of a man's lineal and collateral relatives ensures that excesses are not committed on a bride in her conjugal home by her affines In the early days of a marriage, a husband remains a mere reference point for a bride in the midst of her affines. 220 AS her husband starts to provide companionship, life for a bride becomes easier to face. A united front . put up against a co-resident kin would tone down further hostility. If such unity does not emerge, and the show of hostility continues unabated, a marriage is pushed into an early ruin. In the divorce data, the husband's father, mother and sister usually kept a tight rein on the bride and did not hesitate to derrogate her in the presence of her husband whenever they wanted to and had an excuse for doing so. They greeted her with threats ' if She did not obey them quietly and without remonstrance. These wives knew that there were no Options Open to them unless their husbands were willing and capable of supporting a household of their own away from the husband's patri-kin. Divorces in patrilocal households Show that an intensity in conjugal relationship had not developed for a husband to go to the length of saving his wife and his marriage. Thus, according to the divorce data, a patrilocaUy' resident husband in almost every case viewed his wife during the short tenure of marital life as a mere sex object and not as a total person having the attributes of mother, wife, lover, friend and a companion. The concept of a wife as a total person is inconsistent with patrilocality. The wife is seen more as 221 "mother of my children", one who is a provider of nurturance, to be protected and supported. She is viewed by her husband as a dependent rather than‘bver as an equal. If she is not a mother, the husband-wife dyad remains weak, although in some cases spouses who do not have children do develop a companionate relation- ship. These cases are notworthy more for their rarity than for being part of tradition. According to divorce data on neolocal households contained in Chapter II, the neolocally resident husband retains bachelor-like behavioral characteristics and lacks concern for his spouse. Here the problem is more serious because the wife in the circumstances has no other source of adult companionship. The universe of neolocally resident women is also traditionally bound by kinship. If the husband will not give the necessary companionship, the wife seeks it with her own kindred if they are in close proximity. However, if she attempts to establish a network of interacting friends, as Rani did, she invites the wrath of her husband who does not recognize the wife's need for social interaction. The wives such as Rani, Rohini, Sarla, Shanti, Tara, and Yogin faced a predicament common to all of them - how to spend the whole day, often evenings when 222 their husbands were not at home. These women had completed their B.A.s and were 21 years of age or more when they were married. Still their socializing was distressful to their husbands, potentially threatening conjugal relationships. Because of their having been raised in professional nuclear households of their parents, these women had developed personal initiative and an achievement orientation. Raised in such house- holds, they had acquired independence from the larger domestic structures of joint households and caste members, not only because that was the way they were raised but also by their education. Hence, their attitudes and also their pace of life differed from those raised in patrilocal-cum-small business oriented households. As education is the same for both the sexes, the females are exposed to substantially the same intellectual stimulation and environment as males. And Often, women students make better scholars than men students because they do not spend as much time on extra-curricular and socializing activities as male students do. In the years immediately prior to their marriages, the women go through the process of intellectual stimulation via the educational system and kin interaction. Their educational environment and their 223 family orientation to which these women become used in their parental households, comes to a sudden halt on their marriages. There is, therefore, little surprise that a clash of two value systems erupts and misgivings about the worth of marriage arises in their minds. For a couple in a neolocal household, their marriage because of the arranged marital system amounts to obtaining a room-mate on a random assignment that .puts the two in close togetherness without their having a chance to become acquainted prior to their marriage. Without having had a prior chance to develop any commonalities between them, or anyone else present in the household to blunt the edge of potentially irritating habits, the spouses are stuck with each other for ever. There being no other adult in the household to talk to except one's spouse, the transition to this mode of life is rather sudden. The situation is worse fOr a wife because a husband goes outside to his occupation and is not limited for his needs of communication to only one person as she is. She is also worse Off than her counterpart - the patrilocally resident traditional bride who always has adult companionship of other females in the household and often the younger brothers of her husband as well. And a traditional woman is generally limited in her range of interests as well as 224 in her expectations of conjugal companionship because of her being little educated. Even in a neolocal residence, such women though lonely concentrate on their children, their households, on eating and reading cheap novels in the native language, expending their mental capabilities worrying about the Indian equivalent of "waxy build-up". . The profile of husbands that emerges in neolocality is that while the mode of marital living for them had changed cOmpared to the earlier generation, their own values remained unchanged. Many husbands stflfl held on to traditional values, faulting their wives for non-traditional conduct when they had married these women precisely because they were non-traditional and capable of providing them with a hostess and non- traditional companionship as required. The mode of marital living in the context Of neolocality could only be as mature as the two persons involved in it. A brief reference here may be made to the macro-level scenario which is congruent with the aforementioned social reality. Only high ranking career officers of civil service, military and corporate sectors - the social elite, seem to adOpt the conceptual model of wife as a companion, a friend and \ 225 an equal Sharer. Such wives Often participate or preside over public functiOns, most typically the prize distribution ceremonies in schools, flower Shows, and other cultural activities. Furthermore, such wives are seen accompanying their husbands on all social 8 occasions, or even substituting for their husbands. However, the wives of the elected members of parliament, state legislatures, municipalities, or even many of the cabinet ministers do not do so; and, instead maintain a very low-keyed domestic profile. They seldom appear in public with their husbands, much less substitute for them in public functions. The same is largely true of male school teachers and the large mass Of state employees. The household interaction in such homes does not reflect a warm friendship of a wife towards her husband or the possibility that a wife could tease or joke with her husband if it comes to her mind. Thus, the macro-level image of a wife approximates very closely to what we Obtain from the micro-analysis of divorce situations. The concept of wife as a total person-does not spring from the cultural environment. It is of foreign import, a product of modernity, and is Only slowly gaining roots in the region. The analysis raises the question of why do men 226 agree to marry when they have no pressures placed on them comparable to the purity pressures on females by their fathers? Marriage given man the adult status, signalling his social maturity. It acts like a rite of passage comparable to the JewiSh Bar Mitzveh. Secondly, a man is burdened by the ideology to extend his line of descent. Proverbially, a grandson is the greatest delight to a grand-father. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, heterosexual experience without marriage, if not nearly impossible, is extremely difficult for a man to have in Hindu society. Thus, the factors like parental pressure to obtain a wife to obtain a son, the temptation of sexual services of a woman along with the dowry she will bring, the attraction for the potential for extending one's sphere of relationships are the more important reasons whiCh compel even the recalcitrant males to agree to an arranged marital alliance. The case of Vimla vs. Vidur provides us also the reason for Vidur's marriage. Vidur's mother had died leaving his father with two yOunger children to raise. Since it is customary for widowers with grown- up children not to remarry, Vidur was obliged to marry to provide his father with a household where his father's needs could be taken care of. Although 227 such is customary, Vidur did not take his father into the household he was supposed to be creating for himself by marrying Vimla. Instead, he left Vimla in his parental hOuSehold to take care of his father as well as the college-going siblings. His concept of marriage was at oddswith Vimla's. He saw his wife as a necessary vehicle to obtain a son for extending his lineage line, but otherwise her services were to be predominantly utilized in the running of his parental household. His letting Vimla remain a full time housekeeper for his parental household reflects the primacy of other claims over his conjugal relationship. Other than his having occasional sexual relationship and her company whenever he visited once every two or three months, Vidur did not relate himself to Vimla as one on whom She could depend for emotional support and conjugal companionship. Despite his father being a difficult and miserable person for Vimla to live with, Vidur did not establish a neolocal household even when he could. It is against such affinal attitudes, which though permitting her the title of wife,‘ imposed household slavery without empathy from any quarters, that Vimla rebelled. However, for Vidur the responsibilities Of a husband at the emotional and companionate levels were not a part of marital relationship. 228 It is clear that out of the Hindu concept of marriage, the idea Of husbandhood only gradually emerges as the role of fatherhood in relation to the children develops. The potentially attenuated conjugal tie in patrilocality which provides the dominant motif to Hindu family life, is an essential consequence of the social structure. A conjugal bond relatively weak in its intensity is positively functional in maintaining close parental relationship and sustaining the institutionalized peremptory nature of father-son dyad fundamental to the patriarchal family structure. All in all, the Western idea of a husband-wife dyad is culturally inappropriate in the region. CHAPTER IX DIVORCEES: ASCRIPTIVE RITUAL POLLUTION AND MODES gr; REMARRIAGE. Faced with a worsening marital crisis, Indira in her letter to her husband states, "I can never entertain a thought of remarriage. I am not a prostitute". A pure married woman becomes transformed through divorce and remarriage into a whore not only in the society but also in her own mind. Just as the marriage of virgins reveals purity as the basic premise of the social organization, so the data on divorces and remarriages delineate the necessary counter- balancing facet of pollution. The holistic view of the Hindu cosmology is laid out, clarified by the equilibrium-creating concepts of pure and impure. It is in the analysis of the concept of pollution as it operates on divorced women that the nature of the internal composition of familial and marital institutions is truly reflected.» 229 230 ASCRIPTIVE RITUAL POLLUTION - ITS CONCEPTUAL FORMAT: In her discussion of purity and danger, Mary Douglas (1966:95) adds an important nuance to our understanding of ritual and ritual statuses of purity and pollution by suggesting the crucial manner in which rituals play on the articulate and inarticulate forms of a social system. She advances the view that the concept of pollution is a reaction to protect culturally cherished principles and categories from contradiction. Pollution ensues because of the crossing of a line that should not have been crossed and this displacement of a person unleashes danger for others in society (Douglas 1966:113). In effect, she holds that whatever is unclear and contradictory in a partflaflar culture is viewed to be ritually polluting. The social structural position of Hindu virgins as well as divorcees confirms her hypothesis. As the social system explicitly recognizes the crucial position of virgins in the total scheme of family authority structure and marital system, it confers upon the virgins a high ritual status. However, as the position of a divorcee in the society is inarticulate and ambiguous, such a woman is looked down upon with a great social disapproval and she automatically attracts the blemish of ritual pollution. 231 It is fully in accord with the logic of her argument that ascriptive pollution attaches to an unwed mother or her child, or an undisposed-of corpse. To reduce the negative effects of the presence of structural ambiguity, the culture brands the carriers of ambiguity with ascriptive pollution. A divorcee cannot be restored back to her original status in her natal home because to do so would reverse the finality of jural severance of the natal bond that occurred at the time of marriage. By divorce, she is out of her affinal group too. Thus, the rule of jural severance which implies a prohibition of re-entry and re-incorporation in natal kin-group, renders the position of a divorced woman ambiguous in the social system. A divorcee, by stepping out of the category of married women, renders both the marital and familial systems anomalous, diffusing the internal lines of authority of the traditional social System. AS her action makes the traditional system dysfunctional, she is a source of disorder, hence she is attributed a ritually polluting status as are all foreigners to the traditional culture. Furthermore, by self-selection of marriage-mate outside her caste group, a divorcee through her remarriage not only decreases the purity level of her progeny, but also augments the process 232 of emergence of the individual to be the full and complete unit of social organization, undermining the traditional status of the family as the basic social unit. It is difficult to assess which danger from a divorcee is more feared in the society, i.e. her threat to caste purity or her threat to the family by making herself a unit of social organization. Even though she poses a great threat to the purity of the caste of her second husband, her threat as an agent of individuation is more Significant in its repercussions. The case of Rupa - the attorney who after fifteen years of marriage and being a mother of two daughters, divorced her policeman-husband and married a Raja, reveals the real threat more clearly. Women in her profession look on her efforts and her successes favorably, while her male colleagues view her only as a threat. Her divorce and especially her successful suit to recover the joint property purchased with her earnings, threaen to weaken by example the males' hold over the females of their households. Her remarriage tO a man of wealth and influence whose status is above and beyond their own capabilities of achievement, makes her even a greater threat. Perhaps, the factor that makes her most difficult to forgive is her retention of physical attractiveness that few younger women can 233 match, at an age considered quite advanced for Indian women. Her successful challenge to the customs of the society has not been punished even by the gods, much to the dismay of the traditionalists. For them, she remains a menace to the family structure and to the system of patriarchal authority which in neolocality rests with the husband. Even worse is the fact that it was her pursuit of personal class mobility which destroyed her marriage. All of my informants on her case had tended to overlook the fact that she did not give birth to a son that would have given rise to a greater marital commitment particularly from her husband. They pointed out her achieved status to have engendered incompatibi- lity with her husband. Achieved status, because it is an individual thing, must be perceived as the greatest threat since it renders incongruent the achiever‘s ascriptive subordinate status in her family, and compromises the traditional dominance of a husband in the marital household. _NQ PERMANENT POLLUTION FOR MALES Because of the logic of the traditional marital mode, divorced men are not viewed as ritually polluting. In order that the essential transaction of marriage known as 'Kanya-daan', the ritual prestation of a virgin 234 daughter to her groom, be valid and proper, the subject of the prestation i.e. the maiden herself must be pure regardless of the levels of purity of the males at the two ends Of the transaction of giving and taking. The men at the two ends are not the subject but the beneficiaries of the transaction. The quasi-mystical state of purity and its converse must, therefore, logically attach only to the subject of the transaction i.e. to the gift itself - the maiden, and not to the gift-giver or the gift-taker. I Furthermore, if the concept of pollution were to apply to males i.e. the sons, brothers, and nephews on their divorce, it would jeopardize the whole fabric of familial institutions based on father-son dyad, coparcenary as a structural and legal unit in which . male agnates alone have a membership by birth, the custom of male ancestor worship, and the tracing of descent only in patrilineal line. The stability of the system would no longer remain absolute and the structural fabric of the society would indeed come to rest upon shifting sands of certain sets of circumstances, yielding to variants and anomalies. It is for this reason that women are singled out for special condi- tioning of the structural scheme. 235 RITUAL POLLUTION AND ITS VICTIMS The scheme of bridal absorption in her groom's lineage, the familial authority structure that a tradi- tional marital ritual renews and reaffirms, are set at naught by divorce. The rituals of separation from the natal home and integration into the conjugal home cannot be repeated for a woman, for doing so would confuse and contradict the social structure, rendering the system anomalous. The Hindu society in no way prepares a woman for divorce, but the society does make even the unmarried young women aware that ascriptive pollution will necessarily expose a woman to permanent ritual blemish in case of marital failure, whatever the circumstance and regardless of fault. Once a woman's marriage ends in divorce, nothing diminshes her ritual blemish even though she was a victim of parental error in match-making, or of unwarranted cruelty at the hands of her co-resident affines in her patrilocal household. Pollution ascription is, therefore, more directed toward ‘the divorced status of a woman, which speaks of the failure Of her marriage, rather than her particular fault or the part she played in such a failure. Ritually discredited, divorcees slip in social esteem even when blameless. Their chances of finding another marriage-mate are seriOusly restricted. 236 The ramifications of ritual pollution that are attached to them, makes theirs a plight which seems to feed on itself. The phenomenon Of ascriptive ritual pollution of divorcees has two distinct facets: first, it reflects the process of conditioning of their social roles; and secondly, it is a conceptual system, a system of ideas for cultural condemnation of those women who break an existing social unit and cross social boundaries. Pollution as a process of social conditioning does not allow women to have parallel claims with men in the sphere Of determining the prOpriety of their own social roles. If a power equal to men were to be conceded to women, it would compromise the hierarchic authority structure and male dominance. If a father's ritual right to make a prestation of his virgin daughter in marriage is Open to nullification at a later date by her, it would also modify her role relationship with her parents as well as with her affines. Such a power would enable her to escape at will the affinal dominance over her in the marital household, and would bring her to a position at par with her husband, undermining his traditional authority over her. Thus, by allowing a 237 woman equal claim with her husband to terminate their marriage, her roles as a daughter and later as a wife would tend to undermine the patriarchal authority not only of her natal home but also her marital home. Pollution is a mechanism par excellence to reinforce her subordinate position for all time and to keep all her roles in accord with male authority over her as she moves from her natal household dominated by her father to one dominated by her husband and his kin. The interplay of pollution as a system of ideas is seen in the operation of the marital system and the organization of caste. Pollution as a concept strengthens the marital system based on the bridal absorptive model and caste purity by putting pressures on women to conform. The mechanism of ascriptive pollution of divorcees obviates the problems with which the traditional social organizational scheme could not cope. The culture, therefore, has fashioned the conceptual framework of ascriptive pollution as a preventive of such situations from arising. The women who default on a marital bargain made by their parents regarding them, and blur the social boundaries by their divorce and remarriage are automatically ritually polluting. The system operates to keep the logic of the structural scheme straight and free of problems for the rest of the society. 238 An essential result of ascriptive pollution is the removal of divorcees, like widows, from the marriage pool. Their exclusion reduces the otherwise resulting excess of eligible females, and serves to;maintain and intensify the demand for virgins in marriage. The culturally induced polluted status creates life-long celibacy for divorcees and widows alike, and relegates them to the marginal position of domestics. This particular variant Of culturally imposed celibacy eliminates the problems of creating social responsibility of a kin to see such a woman remarry. Also, it preserves the principle of jural severance Of a married woman from her natal home. It is in this manner that ascriptive pollution puts an end to the structural anomaly that would be created if divorcees were to become a part of the marriage pool along with virgins. Thus, the significance of ascriptive pollution lies in its creating a Sharp disparity for 'divorcees by rendering them ineligible for marriage. In contrast then, ascriptive pollution makes the status of divorced women detestable, and that of virgins more culturally-honored. Ascriptive pollution of- divorcees supports the equating of purity with virginity as fundamental to marriage, preserving at the same time caste and kin purity which is essential for maintaining the ritual hierarchy of the social system. It is in Hus 239 context that we find some cases where run-away wives like Uma were accepted back by their husbands at the instance of judges despite their adulterous living, as the women did not create for themselves a new social category. An adulteress, when condoned, does not attract the same degree of ritual blemish as does a divorcee, since the former retains her assigned category unlike the latter. In villages, the situation of an adultress receiving a severe punishment rather than being divorced or deserted, is a response more in conformity with the traditional scheme of the marital and familial institutions of the society. The social interactional context in which a divorcee is automatically perceived to be without virtue may now briefly be described. In their own words, divorcees are fair targets for sex and are propositioned by single and married men alike. Indian periodicals for.women give detailed accounts of the encounters that divorcees experience. Such male behavhx: is not surprising since persons are looked upon more as categories and less as individuals. To every person is attached a cluster of values and norms of behavior appropriate to his or her category in the cultural schema. A divorcee being outside the structure, is culturally discounted. On her marriage, a woman severs 240 herself from her natal kin-group at jural level, and on her divorce, separates from her affinal group as well. Unlike widows who are not as frequently approached sexually since they remain part of their affinal group, divorcees are propositioned with impunity because such male attitudes do not commit any violence to the structure. A divorcee then must virtually exclude herself from socializing to protect herself from such presumptuous male-behavior. Unlike the American male approach to divorcee - that a divorcee is eager to resume her sex life and, therefore, presumably available - the Indian male typically assumes that a divorcee has no reason to deny him because she is already polluted and has nothing further to lose. Since she is no longer accountable to any man in terms of ideology, she should be available to any one who asks her. It is this type of male attitude that creates an untenable dituation for Hindu divorcees, making their remarriage extremely difficult. Pollution protects and keeps the system going, regardless of the consequences that flow to individual women. The system reduces women to pawns in order to maintain its integrity. women are both the crucial building blocks of the syStem and its scape goat on its malfunctioning, the inevitable result of a system 241 where people are viewed only as categories. Individual happiness is irrelevant to the system. In abSence of a model to identify with or learn from, women separated from their husbands face an anxiety provoking situation in which they feel it ideologically unfair to fall back upon their natal home for help for such a behavior is against the norms, whereas they find their affines to be indifferent, exploitive and cruel. Such a situation according to experience and general consensus in the region, drives them not to law courts for divorce but to homes for destitute women and'ashrams'(retreats), suicides, accidental deaths and mental derangements. In a recent epidemiological study of hysteria in Agra mental facility, located within.the culture region of this study, Dube and Kumar (1974:401) reported that the 250 female inmates constituted 96.1% Of the entire cases, and 92% of them were married. Of these married females, 55% were in the age range of 16 to 24, and 30% in 25 to 34 years. Although the cause of hysteria among the inmates is not discussed, 85% of the women were of an age bracket which provides some support for the Opinion expressed by many local informants that divorce is not a potential solution for many women having marital problems. With the loss of their network of relationships with extended kin-group, the divorcees are left withcxfly 242 two alternatives. They have either to remain content living with their natal kin, or gradually move out into the world and accomplish what they can on their own. The following table summarizes the two emergent patterns. 30% 30% 20% 20% TABLE II. EMERGENT PATTERNS QngEMARRIAGES QE’DIVORCEES: (60% were traditional women and 40% modern based on a sample of fifty actual cases.) TRADITIONAL remained unmarried:- 20% lived in parental homes after divorce. 5% lived in the household of the older brother or some other patri-kin. 5% lived in Ashrams and Homes for Destitute Women. were remarried by parentally arranged matches. 15% to widowers or to males of low socio-economic ranking compared to their natal home kin. 15% to bachelors by concealing the fact of divorce after their parents moved to a new city and negotiated a marriage there. MODERN married on their own outside their castes and on the basis of self-selection of marriage-mate for class compatibility and after the disclosure of their divorced status. maintained a single person or single parent house- hold, obtained education and occupational skills, and achieved socio-economic autonomy. 15% are preparing themselves to marry on their own. 5% are determined to lead single lives. 243 The remarriage of divorcees in the context of their ritual pollution has to distinct modes. Those who agree to a negotiated match have to marry either an old man, or a widower with children, or a man of a low caste or class. Those who contract a remarriage on their own, like many of the modern divorcees, do so outside their caste with class compatible mates for companionship and love. A brief account of remarriage of modern divorcees may now be given. CEREMONIAL 9g manor: A self-contracted remarriage is ceremonialized by a brief and skeletal ritual suggesting a strong self identity note of the spouses. Parental role in such remarriage is not only diminished but often completely eliminated. A divorcee's remarriage by self selection of a mate outside her caste group is symbolic of the new sense of her personhood which She has attained by getting rid of the grip of tradition. Such an individual views 'self' as a unit acting by herself, ceasing to regard 'self' as a part of some other social category of the system. The concern of the two kin-groups and castes in such a marriage is non-existent since a divorced woman, being under ritual blemish, is viewed to be structurally peripheral. The caste members scrupulously avoid participating in or taking notice of such an 244 occasion. Sometimes even parents or siblings do not attend its Solemnization. The reason suggested by social actors for their own negative feelings about the remarriage of their divorced female kin was their strong disapproval of the lack of traditional structure of such f a mating arrangement. Often, the relatives and acquaintances of the marrying couple feigned not to know that it was the second marriage for the bride. However, no informant either alluded to the ascriptive pollution of a divorcee or gave it as a reason for his or her non-participation in the remarriage ceremonial. MARRIAGE AND REMARRIAGE DIFFERENTIATED A highly abbreviated and personalized ceremony of remarriage is necessitated not only by the lack of participation of the bride's kin, but also to conceal the bride's blemished status in order to prevent lowering the status of the groom and his kin-group in his own caste and peer group. Furthermore, the absence of the bride's kin necessarily creates a Situation wherein a large groom's party cannot be properly received and at the same time the fact of the bride's earlier marriage and divorce concealed. The rite of remarriage lacks some of the ritual invokations customary for a tradi- tional marriage. Ordinarily, 'Kanya-daan' itself is not performed as the rite should not be duplicated in the 245 life of a woman, unless of course it is so insisted by a groom and agreed to by the bride's parents. Generally, the ceremonial of a remarriage consists only of exchanging marital vows followed by the blessings of the priest. A remarriage thus involves a clear shift of focus from what is public and ideological display of the most cherished mode of marriage to what is the most personal and individually suited arrangement for mating. By the definition of the situation, a remarriage is for the purpose of mating and not to seek and promote an alliance of kin groups to be brought about by the process of complimentary filiation through a daughter's progeny. A remarriage is, therefore, a consistent reaction of escape from the culturally prescribed constraining rules of the traditional marital system. The conjugal life in self-contracted remarriages is characterized by spousal friendship, mutual love and dependence upon each other for emotional support rather similar to the pattern of the successful marriages of the Western world. The conjugal life reveals a more egalitarian structural arrangement rather than the subservience of the wife seen in traditional marriages. She is not a ritual gift to her husband but an effective, contributing and equal participant in the marriage. 246 In remarriage, the conjugal home is always neolocal, since patrilocality in the context of remarriage Of a woman is wholly incompatible with the structural postuknes of the traditional marital system. A remarriage is neither a rite of passage nor an alliance of two sets of lineages. It admits of no dowry and renders patrilocality incongruous. Furthermore, a modernized divorcee generauy attains highersocial class in terms of education, professional position and income than the mother and sisters of her potential groom. However, her ritual impurity makes her unacceptable to the females Of the groom's lineage. Patrilocality would, therefore, result in an irreconcilable situation of friction from the beginning. The conception of marriage undergoes a transformation in the self-contracted remarriage situations. A remarriage signals conjugal compatibility and companionate marital life, signifying the primacy of conjugal bond over all other dyadic relationships. A comment made by a father to his divorced daughter clearly illustrates the phenomenon of changed views. He told her, "We don't care whom you marry, how you marry and where you marry. What would make us most happy is that you do marry and lead a conjugal life of your satisfaction". Implicit in this comment are both the new devolution of responsibility on her to select her mate, and the parental expectations 247 in that respect. "LOVE MARRIAGE" VERSUS REMARRIAGE: Unless differentiated, it may appear that a 'love marriage' accomplishes nearly all that a remarriage of a modern divorcee does. Though a 'love marriage' has a common denominator with remarriage, - the non-traditional mode of self-selection of mate, it does not thereby become one and the same. The cultural implications of each differ. A love match does not face the issue of a loss of ritual virginity and consequent pollution which is inseparably involved in a remarriage of a divorcee. In a 'love marriage', the spouses do not necessarily belong to two different castes. Even if they do, they are viewed as having only slightly differing purity levels. In a Situation of remarriage, a divOrcee because of her ritual pollution is viewed completely out of the structure, and not merely a woman with only a slightly different purity level. Furthermore, in a 'love marriage' the traditionally elaborate rituals are enacted with extensive kin-participation once the parents of the couple decide to go along with the marriage. Its great flaw of compromising parental authority is remedied once parents participate in or approve it afterwards. 248 A 'love marriage' thus regularized does not negate the larger scheme of domestic and caste organization. However, no degree of parental support, participation, or approval regularizes a divorcee's remarriage, removing its inherent systemic defect. In the situation of a 'love marriage', typically a husband like Kumar, Onkar and Umrao views his wife as traditionally as he would in an arranged marriage. He and his kin-group usually expect the woman to live up to their image of femininity and traditional wife. The Indian phrase 'love marriage' bears little relation- ship to the mental picture conjured up in the western mind by the term. In absence of courtship, or, having familiarity with a girl over a period of time because of sex-segregation, that which in the region is called a 'love marriage' in most cases can be designated no more than a marriage by preference or infatuation. Women like Kamla, Omlata and Usha marrying for love had the usual responsibilities of traditionally married women. Prior to their marriages, they did not sort out issues pertaining to their post-marital residence, affinal relationships, and alternate ways of dealing with potentially ugly situations. They entered blithely their patrilocal households with which they had great difficulty coping. A woman marrying for 'love' does not 249 feel a sense of independence from the social structure and a sense of individuality as does a divorcee who self-selects her mate. For the former, the 'love marriage' is a small rebellion directed only against her father's ' authority of match-making and not against the whole social system. Furthermore, the issue of individuality, the woman being a person in her own right, is not the one that calls for recognition in her 'love marriage'. Whereas, in a divorcee's situation, the issue of her individuality, her being an entity - a unit - by herself, has to be faced squarely by the man who marries her. No less important is the associated issue of modified sex roles in the life style of such a couple. Moreover, a remarriage brings to the forefront the aspects of conjugal compatibility and companionship in marital relationship to the exclusion Of kinship networks, which a simple 'love marriage' does not. A woman marrying for love does not pose the same threat to society as does a divorcee by setting at naught the basic framework of society deeply grounded in the concepts Of purity and pollution. Little wonder, th 'then, that though we find in Sylvia Vatuk's ethnographic descriptions a mention of a few love marriages, she categorically states that, "significantly in my survey not a single woman reported a second marriage (either 250 after widowhood or divorce). Possibly remarriages were simply not mentioned because of prevailing attitudes; I have no direct evidence on which to judge." (Vatuk 1972:111). The divorce data confirm that a remarriage is concealed as well as possible it can because its mention lowers the self-esteem Of the couple. On the other hand, a mention of 'love marriage' is gratifying both to a wife and her husband because it implies their mutual liking for each other without the negative implication of their loss of ritual standing. Thus viewed, the 'love marriages' do not undermine the caste and familial organizational structures in the same way as remarriages of divorced women do. TRADITIONAL MARITAL RITUAL vs. REMARRIAGE CEREMONIAL The marriage-remarriage dichotomy is very sharp at the conceptual level in the North Indian society. The first is viewed as an essential sacrament, while the latter merely as a legitimated sexual union with no positive sentiment or expression of approval from the larger society. Remarriages of divorced women are isolated as mere biological events as they do not produce either in the present or the future any relation- ship between kin-groups of the two spouses. However, a more logical explanation of this phenomenon emanates from Max Gluckman's theoretical distinction between 251 ritual and rite. Gluckman (1962:22) emphasized a distinction between rites that have a supernatural referent disgnated as ritual, and a ceremony which has no such referent yet involves the use of modes of behavior which are expressive of social relationships. A remarriage of a divorced woman, though it may be a ritual to some, is generally viewed as a mere ceremonial to create a husband-wife relationship. The traditional first marriage of a maiden is a ritual as it is considered to have been preordained in heaven, and gods are propitiated and invoked to bless the union and protect the couple and their progeny. Even the death of a spouse does not dissolve the spiritual union for the two would meet again in heaven and the after-life. Obviously, a remarriage by the very fact of its repetition is not contracted in the above sense by the parties. A remarriage not being at par with marriage has a brief ceremony, a very attenuated version of the marital rite attracting far fewer participants compared to the first marriage, evoking a negative response in the larger society. The essential function of ritual in the context of the traditional Hindu marriage is to render desirable what is socially necessary. Virgins must acquiesce to their arranged matrimony regardless of their personal feelings in the matter. All negotiated marriages, 252 especially the imposed or forced marriage situations in the data, highlight this aspect of the marital ritual. A remarriage of a divorcee, however, sharply contrasts with marital ritual because a remarriage is a love match by self selection of a compatible mate outside one's caste, entailing no severance of a woman from her natal home or incorporation in her groom's kin-group. The two sets of kin-groups have little or no interest in such a ceremonial. Thus, ritual is tied very closely in with the religious belief system. In ritual men express what moves them most. Its expressive form is conventional and obligatory, revealing the values of the larger society rather than of the particular individuals performing it. In a solemnization of remarriage, the essential connotations of ritual are non-existent; hence it is not quite the same thing as the traditional marriage. A remarriage is coterminous with establishing a husband-wife relationship between a man and woman, and nothing more. .9 THE VIRGIN AND THE DIVORCEE - A.SUMMARY. To summarize briefly the implications of the status Of role incumbents - the virgins and divorcees with respect to marriage and remarriage, I re-state my 253 argument that the cultural roles of the two categories of women are best understood if they are not viewed as‘ ideosyncratic entities and isolates but as the logical result of the underlying concepts of purity and pollution that permeate the culture system. Despite their margina- lity to social structure, divorcees, because of their contrast with virgins, have a central place in the culture theory of the region. One is looked upon as being at a premium and culturally prized, while the other is culturally despised. Even the kinship system under- goes transformation for a divorced woman. On her divorce, a woman's kinship bonds, except with her parents, freeze almost completely with other agnates, often even her siblings. The Hindu kinship system, therefore, clearly implies an identity of ritual status as well. Once a woman loses her ritual purity either by becoming an unwed mother or a divorcee, she finds herself out of her kin- ship universe. The freeze on kin relationships shows that the most fundamental logic of the kinship system rests not as firmly on the bond of 'blood' or consanguinity as it does on the structural logic of the scheme Of purity and pollution for which each relationship is what it is by virtue of its place in the structure so created. The concepts of purity and pollution are superimposed upon the kinship system in such a manner that adjustments become necessary in kin relationships 254 wherever and whenever the latter run afoul Of the ideological scheme created by the concepts. The two categories lead us to a more important cultural implication. Virgins and divorcees show . not only the mechanism of the marital system but also the entire super-structure of cultural expectations and social practices.that keep the women firmly in their place throughout their lives, mandating forever male dominance over the entire "woman-kind" of the region. In the final result, the concepts of purity and pollution are the crucial variables in the emancipation of women from parents, kin-groups, and caste system in the region. Educational achievements and economic success by themselves are not enough to provide women with autonomy from traditional domestic authority structure, enabling them to fashion their life style on individual basis. Thus, merely increased educational and occupational opportunities or even acquiring of a professional status, - however much they may augment the process of women's emancipation, do not furnish them with a status equal to their male kin unless purity and pollution which act as the cultural conditioners of sex role models, are less rigorously practised in their kin-groups and castes. 255 Finally, in the context of my argument, I suggest that those women who do not find themselves tied to the pollution stigma and refuse to conform to the system, reveal an emergent pattern of accelerated individual modernity, a proceSs Of culture change manifested not only through their post-divorce life style but also the mode in which they remarry. Such women and their parents and other close kin viewed the self-contracted remarriage to be a better mode of matrimony not only because the spouses liked it but also the marital union was both class compatible and conjugally companionate. Their remarriages show the direction of culture change in terms of inter-generational differences in the concept Of marriage, family organization and patterns of domestic authority. The modern divorcees succeed in reintegrating themselves at a class level with a whole new set of interacting individuals and relation- ships. However, they do not always remarry. But if they do remarry, it is within the framework of their class, in the context of their personal achievements of new status in terms of education, income and work- related position. MINI-MODEL Q§_SOCIO-CULTURAL CHANGE Modern divorcees are agents of culture change. They provide what we call a mini-model of sociO-cultural 256 Tchange. A mini-model represents a Special focus and deals withrelatively limited relationships between selected processes of culture change. The important features Of the mini-model of modern divorcees are the following: First, the pattern of role transformation seen in certain divorcees implies that individual change, particularly with regard to social roles, occurred in the context of marital crisis and social stress created by the stigma.of divorce pollution. Theirs was an effective strategy for change involving personal preparedness to bring about a change as a result of the crisis. The change involved redefining their social position, highlighting the crisis orientation as to a) their place in the system in terms of social structure after their divorce; and, b) the more adaptive mode of marriage once they lost their ritual virginity. Secondly, this pattern of change shows that the divorcees whose strategy for better adaptation rested upon relocation of their position and reconfiguration of roles, were given parental or peer support for personal growth to accelerate change in redefining their social position and developing a concept Of self identity to alleviate the hardship created in the context of the crisis and stress. However, the parental role in 257 remarriage was eliminated. A reconfiguration of roles, representing the emergent pattern, Sharply differentiated the modern divorcees from their traditional counterparts. Thirdly, these women stated that they were change agents for their unmarried sisters, nieces, and cousins who followed their example in achieving sociO-economic autonomy, and insisting upon class compatibility of potential mates sometimes even contracting marriages outside the caste. Such an influence on their female kin tends to de-stabilize the status-quo of the marital and domestic authority system. Thus, the divorcees see themselves as models. However, the present data are insufficient in providing clear evidence toward verification of such claims. And lastly, the reconfiguration of roles of modern divorcees is a preliminary step towards routinizing and incorporating those conditions that would bring about changes in the marital and familial institutions. One of the major changes wrought by these women is seen in the increased recognition of the importance of the class variable in the selection of spouses for younger relatives in their extended kindred and even members of the caste group. This often leads to a 258 recognition that class similarity of potential spouses surmounts the need for caste endogamy. An increased incidence of class-endogamous and caste-exogamous marriages is seen today among the professional classes in the region. This represents the decline of dominance and control of the traditional marital system - the last and the most important hold-out against modernization. This emergent phenomenon reflects the pattern of change underway in connection with the crucial ideological dimensions of purity and pollution as well as severance-incorporation mechanisms of the Hindu marital system. The above analysis supports the view that the ritual concept of caste based on the sameness of purity level does no longer have the same absolute validity for a marriage as perhaps it did in the past. Consequently, the ideology of purity and pollution which controls the movement of women through marriage and remarriage, is being shaken by the process of individua- tion. The shift currently taking place from the traditiOnal marriage to the emergent one epitomized by caste exogamous marriages particularly those of the modern divorcees, requires analysis of the conception of the Hindu identity in the frames of reference of caste and class. In the context of data, the variables of caste and class are examined in the next Chapter. CHAPTER X THE VARIABLES OF CASTE AND CLASS: THEIR IMPLICATIONS. The caste mobility monographs (Silverbergl968) and the Pan-Indian generalizations of Louis Dumont (1970a and 1970b) leave a reader with a very definite impression that the internal structure of a caste is cohesive, undifferentiated and a closed set, recruitment to which is open only by birth. All theSe studies emphasize the homogeneity of members of a caste. Such an ideal type description obscures patterns of stratification in the internal organization of a caste in an urban milieu. While Beteille (1969) and Srinivas (1968) do make references to the existence Of class outside of caste, they do SO without defining the concept of class. Though the phenomena of caste heteroheneity and segmentation implied both in hypergamy- and caste mobilization indicate an Ongoing process of the culture of the region, the process of individuation is not at issue in any of these studies. By 'individuation' I refer to the processes by which a divorcee under cultural stress enters new educational and occupational niches outside the ritual 259 260 domain cross-cutting the traditional institutional scheme for women in order to regain control over changed cultural situation. The divorce data reveal that the process is not entirely limited to the elite of contemporary India but is diffused also in the middle and lower middle classes of the society of the region. In caste mobility situations, the class variable and the ritual dimension of a caste are fused together and looked on as a group phenomenon. Although Beteille has discussed the class endogamous unit, the concept of individuation has not been brought in focus. Scholars have not yet dealt with this key issue. The data of the two sources - the remarriages of modern divorcees and Beteille's class endogamous groups - suggest that intra-caste equality is no longer a safe assumption in urban milieu if, indeed, it ever was except in ideology. Thus, while in the eyes of an outsider, the caste is a unity, the inside reality of its working is very different. Wherever caste and class overlap in the areas of commensal interaction, the stronger notions Of class threaten to overwhelm caste criteria. David Pocock (1957:28-29) also notes the phenomenon in Gujrat where he finds higher levels of a caste excluding the lower by refusing to give their daughters in marriage, and in this way preserving their 261 distinctiveness without affecting a rupture in the caste. He finds the process of inclusion and exclusion at work in castes relative to their internal composition, but the phenomenon of balancing remains in a constant state of flux. This gradation, according to him, represents a condition of graduality. However, in Pocock's work as well as in the extensively reported North Indian practice of hypergamy based on the differentiated levels of ritual and socio-econOmic statuses of the two kin-groups within a caste, the unit of analysis remains a group and not one Single individual as the divorce and remarriage data show it to be. The data show that a class dis- similarity of the two spouses in a caste endogamous marriage creates tensions in affinal relationships for the bride in her marital home and the class dissimilarity often disrupts a marriage. The remarriages of divorcees who are well placed or educated and physically attractive, with males outside their caste but in their class, expose the myth of supposed homogeneity in caste- composition. The divorce and remarriage data suggest that the Indian ethnOgraphic concept of class includes, among others, three essential dimensions: the mode of earning, the style of consumption, and the roles of women of the household. In this framework, the data . l——- 262 indicate the existence of class elite groups wherein the variable of wealth or large income is not crucial. Membership in the class elite groups depends upon earning one's livelihod through professions or employment in higher civil service, military, or corporations rather than shop-keeping or brokerage, even if the latter yields more money than the former mode of earning (Beteille 1969:204-228). An entrepreneur or a wealthy person w would appear to be includible only if he is educated and is actively associated with some managerial aspect. A combination of education and management participation is necessary for the sons of such entrepreneurs, not a mere co-ownership of business interest as a validation for their entry in the class elite group. This elite corresponds fairly well to the upper middle class in the United States but has considerably more influence in the actual functioning of the government and corporate sector. We see these norms governing the attitudes of middle class and even lower middle class persons as well. In at least two cases, the brides were not only far superior to their spouses in education but also had professional earning potential. Hemlata was already an M.D. when she was married to Hari, a mere pharmacist's assistant because of her father's over-anxiety to marry 263 her off quickly after her younger sister's marriage. Shanti, the law student married to a draftsman also found herself unwilling to stay with a Spouse for whom she had no respect because of his educational and Occupa- tional status. The fathers of these women though profess- ional persons did not have pretensions of belonging to the elite and were influenced by their traditional belief in intra-caste equality. They were so anxious to marry off their daughters that they believed that young peOple once married could reconcile themselves to any situation, making a success of the marriage. The doctor's father refused to listen to his wife's patri-kin or to investigate the status of the potential groom, while Shanti was told that her groom was a junior engineer rather than a draftsman. Both these women refused to return to their spouses once they left them to visit their natal homes shortly after their marriages. For Asha, the young girl from the prominent Brahman family who elOped with Amar, the music teacher of her own caste, the parental objection was based on class and not caste. A music teacher in India is generally not well educated and a non-preStigious individual whose economic potential is very low. Great musicians are as scarce and as honored there as in the 264 West. The style of consumption is the next important dimension of the class elite. The dissimilarity of the styles of consumption between classes was conspicuous in the cases of Tara vs. Tarun, Rohan vs. Rohini, and Raj vs. Rani. All three wives complained about their home budgets and that the manner in which their husbands spent their money irked them most. Absolutely no money was provided for any entertainments at their home, or travel out of town for visiting. Tarun was reported to be easy with his money on ostentatiousness and prestige-yielding items rather than for what his wife wanted. The role of women in the household caused unhappiness for the nurse Omlata amidst her Jat female affines, and for Tara who was denied prOper companionship and had inadequate opportunities for socializing. In the upper-middle class category, wives are accorded companionship with an Opportunity to move socially, unconstrained by sex-segregation rules and share commensalities in mixed company. In many cases, the household budget is in their hands. In several cases the groom was a recent achiever of the bride's class status. The matrimonial matches arranged for Gita, Lila, Rani, Rohini, Ritu, and Tara gave an appearance on the surface at the time of class- 265 compatibility or so it was believed by those who had arranged them. The parents and guardians of all these women thought from their first glance at the credentials of the grooms that they belonged to the same professional status as their own. .Implicit in such parental assumptimn was that the groom belonged to their class-culture. Educated attractive women are scarce in India, because only five or ten percent of the students at co-educational universities and colleges are women even now. While some castes are well-represented among these cO-eds, others have relatively few. The phenomenon of educated women raises various implications in matrimonial bargain- ing and subsequently in marital life. When the young man, as in the case of Dr.Tarun who married the daughter of a family of famous medical practitioners, comes himself from a family of petty shopkeepers whose women (mother, Sisters, sisters-in—law) are kept in semi- seclusion, his lack of experience with educated women and with the elite consuption style was bound to create problems. Perhaps, worse was the complete disregard of their wives' needs for companionship and consideration shown by Dr.Tarun, Rohan, and Raj. All these men had married educated women from the elite who were accus- tomed to greater freedom of movement. Rohan was a 266 particularly good example. His second wife was a former college teacher and accustomed to greater freedom in handling money. Rohan's affections were tied up in his daughter by his first wife. While Rohan fulfilled every desire of her daughter who projected for him the image of his first wife whom he greatly loved, he could offer his second wife and her son very little either in companionship or in luxuries. This is the only case where a son did not hold the couple together. Rohini was so dngusted by Rohan's treatment that she left him in order to support herself and her child. Raj, the newly recruited IAS officer,was from a family of modest means whose women were traditionally restricted in movement. Because his position made him a desirable spouse, he was able to marry Rani, a girl from a prominent New Delhi family - accustomed to more socializing and partying than Raj was prepared to permit. When his first posting was to a remote area from the provincial capital, Rani found it very lonely and boring. Raj was another of these newcomers to the elite who want educated wives to do their entertaining and act as hostesses but expect them to revert to traditional mores the rest of the time. Such men seem to want wives who are wind-up dolls who can be activated only for a few of the husband's parties, without realizing that 267 educated women are as much individuated by the prOcess of education as are men. The class variable in the role of women to which Raj objected was a more serious problem in other cases where lack of spousal companionship was the basic complaint. Women like Tara and Omlata who was married to the Jat pilot, are the cases in point. Unlike Tara whose husband had at least realized that the class- differences between his wife and his kin-group required his living neolocally, Omlata was forced to live patrilocally. The class variable associated with female affines rather than the caste-exogamy in this case created resentment in Onkar's mother and Sisters who became determined to break up the marriage. Rupa, the attorney, was not the only person whose post-marital achieved class status created severe marital discord. Sohan, the assistant professor, whose early marriage arranged by his parents to a semi-literate village girl when he graduated from high school, proved equally disastrous. Others of his community in the past who achieved professional status had a village wife to look after the prOperty and the Old parents, and a second, educated wife for their urban home. Sohan, already dngusted with the status differential between his wife and himself, left her for one of his female 268 students. In these divorces, the lack of a son was equally crucial. if not more important a variable. There are many cases quite commonly seen where the status differential between the spouses,created by the husband's post-marital achieved status, necessitates his obtaining a hostess from among his daughters, daughters-in-law or even grand-daughters. Such wives, married before their spouses achieved their class elite status, are not divorced because they have produced sons. Such women are spoken of as "not socializing" in the region, a phrase implying that they are traditional and carrying the added implication that they are uneducated. In the elite groups, men with such wives are objects of a kind Of pity. Thus, Andre Beteille's (1969:204-228) description of class endogamy in elite groups is congruent with the present data of marriage and remarriages of several divorced women. In the elite groups, according to Beteille, the accOutrements of class, i.e. personal accomplishment in terms of education, income, occupation, poise and a cultivated style of life are the proper credentials for membership rather than any form of ascribed status in ritual terms. As only few peOple from different castes through their schooling in 269 exclusive colleges become members of such groups, the elite groups become multi-caste in composition and highly Westernized in their style of life. Among the members of the elite, arranged marriages, though not as unusual as Beteille's (1969:215) informant implies, are not as frequent as in the rest-of society and when- ever they do occur they are of less note because the two spouses are of the same class in the first place. The general pattern of marital discord showing class conflict, as discussed earlier, gives an indirect support to the existence of a class-culture. However, class homogeneity seen thethe remarriages of divorcees who self-selected their mates, clearly confirms the existence of Beteille's class endogamous unit. Ritu, after her divorce from Dr.Ramesh remarried a member of the administrative elite from another state outside her caste. Omlata completed her medical education and married a military officer of her own caste despite being a mother. Triveni, who stayed too long in England acquiring her degree and was divorced by Tikam, not only married a high ranking corporation executive but kept Tikam from using his high rank to take their daughter from her. Rupa found for her second husband a high ranking wealthy member of the landed aristocracy. Gita, after her divorce, was marred to the fellow Ph.D 270 whom she wished to marry earlier. Other young divorcees have taken to higher education like Kamla, Tara, and Lila in hapes of meeting a class compatible male as a potential spouse. Moreover, the divorcees reported that subsequent to their divorce, the marriages of their sisters and cousins had been arranged with class compatible grooms in their own caste. The kin groups of the divorcees had learned the hard way and had started taking greater care in ascertaining the class statuses of female affines and the general life styles of the prospective groom's stem family. The many caste-endogamous marriages solemnized in the two cities during my field work characteristically showed class-similarity of a bride and her natal family with that of the groom and his parental family. In one case, a couple discussing the engagement of their young college-graduate daughter specifically emphasized the education and professional statuses enjoyed by the prospective groom's mother and sisters. LAYER SYSTEM 31 THE INTERNAE STRUCTURE 9;; CASTES The phenomena of class within caste and the cutting across of caste boundaries run counter to the caste ideology of honogeneity and undifferentiated way 271 of life for its members. It is clear now that no longer does one simply marry one's daughter to a caste fellow without first confirming his class as well. The processes of internal composition of a caste show a layer system at work augmenting class variables even in caste endogamy. It is through this layering system that traditional society faced with individuation accommodates changes without letting them shake itself to its foundations. The layering system absorbs individuation or the classepotential within each caste. In those segments of a caste where the ritual context remains the only or the dominant motif, we find traditional society negating individuation. This phenomenon of negation of the individual is at the forefront in the cases of parentally imposed marriages. The socially preferred form of marriages combined class compatibility with caste endogamy, which represent the manner in which tradition is modernising itself. This is the mode in which a caste accommodates to change by recognizing the layering system in itw composition. The members of a caste show their sensitivity to the nuances of the layering system in match-making. Among the elite groups, however, the importance of class- compatibility often supercedes the need to marry within one's caste. Such groups reveal the emergence of a different profile of modernity in their becoming 272 class endogamous. What is, however, more important is that they establish a model in which the variable of 'class compatibility' overrides the emphasis on caste endogamy even for those who prefer a combined caste- cum-class endogamy. THE CASTE VARIABLE AND LOUIS DUMONT Dumont (1970a and 1970b) offers no methodology to study in a theoretical perspective the phenomenon of change and formation of class-like units both inside a caste as well as outside the caste system. There is also Beteille's (1969:215) class endogamous elite groups I outside the caste system, created by Western style 'public' school education, a phenomenon for which Dumont's model premised on 'Purity' complex has no place (1970bzl33-150) except to consider the individual as 'an impediment to sociological comparison and Indian history'(Dumont 1970b:133). The data on remarriages of those divorcees who selected class compatible mates on their own outside their caste groups confirm the class-endogamous pattern among the elite, rendering obsolete the adherence to a caste frame of reference as the only valid system. Since the importance of class endogamy not merely exists but grows more important among the elite 273 groups where individuation is of increasing influence, Dumont's neglect of the phenomenon and his criticisms of those who would study it as "having fallen prey to western socio-centrism"(Dumont i970b:150) are illogical. The potential effects of this individuation on the traditional system is not going to be reversed by dismissing the attempt to study the phenomenon in terms of the category of "individual" as mental imperialism of Western importation. Acculturation changes and processes are themselves significant and highly important elements for social science research. The dowry demanding affines who force a bride to flee for her life are as much negative transmitters of the traditional system as are the modern educated Spouses seeking divorce for conjugal incompatibility. However, the persons committing such transgressions do not lose their caste affiliation. Dumont's notion that the sociology of the individual is superficial to the Indian system, is only symptomatic of his inability to perceive the traditional society as anything other than a static system in which the individual is subordinated to the demands of ritual. At the elite level, the notions of 'pure-impure' become less meaningful while individual worth and class credentials rather than an ascribed status in ritual 274 terms assume greater importance. As an alternative interpretation to Dumont's 'pure-impure' complex which encapsulates all hierarchies of the traditional system, is the mechanism of c0ping and accommodation by the traditional system seen through layering with its built- in flexibility technique. Thus, the very layering by class within caste provides a fruitful field of study of the "individual" in the context of the traditional system and the mode of modernization. On the correlations of ritual and secular (politico—economic) statuses, Dumont comments, "This unresolved duality which has not even been prOperly characterized, hangs like a millstone round the neck of the contemporary literature" (1970az75). Instead of squarely facing the problem, he belittles the interactional studies and denigrates the value of behavioral studies by saying that if one starts from behavior, "one can neither account for thexuhole, nor finally build a bridge between Indian concepts and or own"(1970a:76). Dumont's approach which he himself calls "an ideological explanation of the traditional Hindu society" (1970a:263) serves neither to elucidate the changing social reality nor serves as a vehicle to point the direction of future change. His conceptions do have great merit for explaining the traditional structure. 275 However, only little is achieved in explaining away a social system exclusively in the ideological context by rounding off its angularities which in fact deserve a are more serious attention than can possibly be given through Dumont's conceptual framework. What Dumont has achieved as a result of three decades of research is a philosophy of the structure of Hindu society or a static model, incapable of explaining how the traditional system adjusts to the changing needs of individuals. The question which must be raised to determine the effectiveness of any model is "does it work?". The answer to Dumont's model is "only partially", for while his model explains present traditional reality, it fails not only in accounting for but even recognizing the manifestations of current social change. His model keeps acculturation changes veiled because for Dumont, "Human reality is coterminous with order, not with individual man" (1970bzl41). This position at once renders behavioral and interactional studies irrelevant and insignificant to his concept of social science, and reverts us to what Weston La Barre (1970) once called the days when acculturation and culture change were not considered fit tOpics for sockfl. science research. 276 THE CLASS VARIABLE: MODERNITY AND INDIVIDUATION It remains, however, the case that modernity cannot be described with any degree of conviction in terms of institutional modernization before showing' individual modernization. It is by investigating the phenomenon of individual modernization that one can account for the modernization of societal institutions. The "class variable", the affinal class-compatibility a manifestation of modernity seen in the caste endogamously married neolocally-reSident couples and the remarriages of divorcees by self-selection of mates, leads us to see the process of continuity in individual modernization. Such individuals are seen creating the 'layering' effect in a caste, sometimes even segregating into a class outside the caste frame of reference. These individuals are purposive, caping social actors who must adapt to both traditional and modernizing elements in their social environments, and cannot be wished away as Dumont's concepts would have us do. Social science has to be reflexive, working back and forth between alternative theoretical formulations which may in part be contradictory while. it tries to conceptualize a phenomenon. No single formulation is likely to be more than one, very 277 perspective-determined, vision of the social reality of the region. Indian social reality is rich and we can ill-afford to let any one perspective dominate our conception of it to the exclusion of others.. Thus, the limitation of Dumont's concept must be recognized if theory is to conceptualize the emergent phenomena. Although we do not know what the processes are in cases that account for modernity, we do see that in the divorce situations, some women on finding that their earlier frame of reference, i.e. the traditional system and beliefs in which they had been raised has been rendered incongruous and irrelevent by ascriptive pollution, makes serious attempts to relate themselves to the world at the secular level by obtaining the necessary education and placing themselves in occupa- tions and professions. The sequence of events of their lives tells us that they were persons generally raised in a traditional environment, most of whose kin-bonds and commitment to tradition had been sundered by divorce. We have in them an example of how certain individuals assemble behavioral modes relevant to their traditional and modern existences into a coherent whole, i.e. coherent in the sense of an orientation that allowed them to cope with their universe without undue strain. These modern divorcees though raised in traditional 278 society knew that they had a purpose in life and tried to cope with their situations and contextual factors in a reasoned and rational manner. Still another issue here is the fact that modernization of tradition has its own limitations inasmuch as the layerings in a caste cannot go on indefinitely to an unlimited extent without the occurrence of segmentation. There is a breakoff point where caste-referencd ceases to be a reality, and class commonality becomes pre-eminent, taking absolute precedence over caste. Individuals amply reflect this phenomenon by becoming caste-free and class-endogamous as is illustrated both in the data and Beteille's elite groups. The data provide empirical reality to the differentiated conceptual levels at which we view the 'individual' - the one we encounter as a part of a category in the general fact of experience of the traditional society and the other seen in the modern milieu who is volitional, autonomous and not encircled by a web of dyadic and triadic familial relationships. An understanding of the differentiated levels of the concept of 'individual' is crucial to Understand the paradox that the divorce legislation and the secularized class-conscious society pose in relation 279 to traditional and caste relationships. The traditional culture conceives an individual as an agent of a dyad, whereas the divorce statute views an individual as self- propelling independent person acting on his own. The two conceptions create a paradox. This contradiction in actual life Situations is not only very real, but often remains unresolved. We see it epitomized in the refusal of Onkar, Lachman and Madan to remarry despite parental pressures for remarriage. These men, however, remain unclear in their minds as to for whom and why should they remarry once the earlier marriage as in the case of each one of them was terminated largely because of the parental dislike of the wife. They are not sure what they want out of a marriage and what kind of family structure they Should have. This delimma was clearly resolved by women like Gita, Omlata, Ritu, Rupa, add Triveni in favor of becoming a completely individual 'self'. And we see it reflected in their mode of remarrying by self-selection of mate, and living neolocally. A similar resolution is reflected by Hemlata, Kamla, Lila, Rohini and Tara who after the disruption of their traditionally arranged marriages, took to preparing themselves for being their own 'self' and find their own mates. Dr.Tarun also looks forward to meeting a class- 280 compatible mate. However, those men and women who adhered to the traditional mode of marriage after their divorce, simply did not see the dilemma for they continued to remain, as before, the agents of the earlfla: father-son or father-daughter dyad, - unexposed to the experience of being the individual 'self'. Among the questions raised by the concept of 'individual' is "Who are the males who enter into marriage knowing of the divorced status of the women they marry?" These marriages reflect class homogamy. The males are neither marrying up nor down. The women they marry are of their own class, having an educational and social background similar to theirs, though if viewed in ritual context the women would be inferior. But the caste exogamously married couples do not maintain an intense consanguineal or affinal ties much less caste connections. Since in the professional circles or elite class, it is considered bad manners to ask another person's caste background, nobody would learn about the ritual status unless so informed by the spouses themselves. It will be all the more true in large urban centers. In these marriages, both spouses consolidate their individual social status as well as emotional and economic well-being. At issue in these marriages is a theory of marriage bargaining, a give and take, wherein a divorcee 281 trades off her educational and professional position or physical attractiveness or both for the advantage of gaining a prOper marital status. Physically attractive, educated women are much scarcer than educated . males in the region. As was said before, co-eds number fewer than ten percent of the five million college students. Knowledge of a divorcee's loss of ritual status becomes common within her own caste group, and males of her own caste generally refrain from developing any close relationship because of the inherent risk of loss of status not only of their own self but also of their kin-group in ritual ranking in their caste. Only one divorcee remarried within her own caste - Omlata whose second husband was a military officer from that extremely anglicized section of the elite where the caste frame of reference had been shorn of meaning for him. Of necessity, however, a divorcee marries outside hercmste where her ritual status is unknown and her socio-educational status makes her very acceptable. The caste exogamous marriages, particularly those of the modern divorcees, pose a challenge as how to comprehend this new social reality in the caste society of the region. Directly linked withthis question is the problem of response the other modern divorcees make to cope with their post-divorce life 282 by choosing to remain single, or adopting a child as Sarla did to lead a familial life suited to self expression. Here, the crucial variable is 'personalityh While the term personality has so far defied an acceptable definition, to explain the above phenomenon of modern divorcees the relevant criteria include: a sense of gaining self identity, a recognition of their individual needs, a behavioral coherence in their particular sequence of action, a consistency in their mode of conduct during the post-divorce life, and a propensity for initiative. All these tend to preserve the notion of differentiation, uniqueness and voluntarism in action and thought. Though the social forces for personality formation of modern divorcees are multiple, they do not include supportive traditional structures of kin and caste. In their changed cultural situation, what is necessary for these women is education, occupation, and socialization at levels different from the previous ones through a network of peers and friends. These new acquisitions accelerate the process of individuation which generates a conduct to fit the post-divorce life. It is these new directions in conduct that help them to reassert control over the changed socio-cultural situation. These women who exemplify individuation create wider implications 283 by reconstructing their marital and familial life undermining the traditional structures and ideology. These situations point to the change occurring not only in elite groups but also in individuated middle class and lower middle class persons whose behavioral modes cross-cut caste lines, acting as a feed back process for the rest of the society. Individuation in urban society which remains unrecognized in Dumont's conceptual format exists, operating on its own pace. How influential it is likely to be, depends largely upon the access to Western style education. The English language magazines pOpular with those educated in anything other than the vernaculars are dearly loved transmitters of the mores of the class elites as well as somewhat superficial ideas of westernization. Moreover, these articles are translated into the different regional languages, transmitting much of the same ideas. The society news is replete with wives of administrative and military elite entertaining and handling the roles such women play in the Western world. The articles of Femina magazine tell us of Indian women of the elite groups taking over industries and new careers well past the age at which most non-Indian women would do it. The women described and held up for emulation are highly 284 educated and highly individuated professional women. In one, a short story even sympathizes with an adulterous wife whose class incompatible husband perpetually puts her down (Deshpande 1973:21-23). Veena Rangnekar (1973:35) speaking of "The Other Woman" points out that the phenomenon of the adulterous husband had a long history in feudal India. Saroj Sarukkai (1973:37) quotes many husbands as implying that Indian women are "biologically, mentally inferior". In fact she summarizes their viewpoints with the remark that this is yet another area of life where man is more equal than woman. She refers, however, not to the women's intellectual inferiority but to their lessened ability to commit adultery. The class variable in the caste system which Dumont (1970a and 1970b) ignores by describing it as a worthless topic of study, is found in the data on divorce and remarriage of the divorcee to be a highly significant vehicle of potential change of the traditional society. The class phenomenon that creates layering in castes, forces parents of daughters to seek clas-compatible Spouses. The achievement of higher class status by males (and a few females) in their post-marital period puts serious strains on parentally arranged caste endogamous marriages. The greater 285 sophistication and higher status attained by young adults than their parents create demands for a different kind of marriage. Parents who arrange intra-caste marriages_for their daughters with spouses newly achieving the elite status discover that class compatibhe attitudes do not always accompany achievement of economic, educational and/or professional elitehood. The careful parent must now check out the females of his future son-in-law's lineage. This class compatibi- lity draws sons-in-law closer to their wives' kindred. This creates bilateral trends as are seen in the cases of Usha, Sarla and Tara whose ties with their natal kin are typical of certain modern trends that were extensively noted in the upper middle professional class households in Lucknow and Jaipur. From the perspective of one who had been a resident of one or the other city until 1962 and then returned to India in 1973 after an absence of eleven years, I will describe the kinship behavior. We will view these changes which occurred since 1962 in relation to the social structure in order to make the analysis of the kin-affinal interaction more than merely psychological. 286 THE EMERGBNT BILATER_AL__ TRENDS Since the professionally oriented, well-to-do, upper middle class sector enjoys a position of pace- setter for many other groups, and since it is this group to which Usha, Sarla and Tara belong, it is important to note-that the kin-interaction suggests the existence of a close and intense relationship of married daughters and their nuclear families with their natal homes. In a 1973 wedding in Lucknow, the bridegroom was photographed at his home with his brothers and his sisters' husbands to the exclusion of his father's brothers sons and father's sisters' sons as well as the sons of his mother's brothers and sisters, who would not have been so excluded in the 19505 in on such formal occasions as weddings in this social class. The same pattern was repeated in the reception and the ceremonial dinner arrangements at the groom's home. It was clear that the sisters' husbands were being shown a preferential position compared to the extended patri- kin giving a very clear impression that they, compared to the patri—kin, enjoyed greater affection and friendli- ness. Also, such families did not organize any celebra- tion and feasting without the active participation of their married daughters and sons-in-law. Nor did they hold any prior consultations with their patrilateral 287 kinsmen before announcing dates for social events. The convenience and facility both of the married daughters and their husbands were given t0p consideration for social engagements, whereas the patri-kin were requested to participate after the events had been planned. On an occasion of illness or a celebration of a rite of passage of a child in a daughter's marital home, her natal kindred were seen rallying around to do the necessary chores more frequently than her affinal relatives. Formerly, the woman's natal kindred had no role to play in such matters. Furthermore, the children of a married daughter often stayed for support and education with their matri-kin for longer periods than in the homes of their father's brother or a father's brother's son. Traditional Hindu rules severing the natal kinship ties of a woman and incorporating her into her husband's patri-kin group had changed rather drastically in the urban upper middle as well as middle classes as among even the wealthiest business families all of whom earlier adhered to the traditional norms. These new patterns of social behavior are more congruent with class criteria than with closeness of patrilateral kin. Whenever a married man was closer in 288 professional or socio-economic status with his affines,_ but clearly higher in such status than his consanguines, the similarity of class criteria with his affines brought about closer and warmer relationship with them than the rule of formal avoidance prescribes in this regard. Thus, when young men rise in the socio-economic and professional status above their patrilateral kindred I and are married to women whose parental family status matches with their own acquired status, they tend to maintain closer ties with their wives' natal homes rather than their own patri-kin. ,In such circumstances, the relationship of a married daughter with her natal home Operates at a preferred level compared to whatever relationship She develops with her husband's patri-kin. These social Situations show that in kin-affinal interactions, class criteria superceded genealogical proximity based on the ideology of patriliny. The frequent development of intense and enduring ties of married men and their nuclear families with their wives' natal homes supports this analysis. The newly emerging structural emphases are a departure from the traditional structural scheme of familial and lineage institutions. They run counter to the norms of relationships that are supposed to exist among the members of a patrilineal group. Such emergent structures of relationship with 289 sons-in-law and their children render the network of social interaction with patrilateral kin at best secondary, if not formal and peripheral. These relation— ships further provided the focal point for the process of socialization of children of married daughters. Their children did not develOp exclusive and intense ties with their father's lineal and collateral kin on the traditional pattern that characterized the lineage institutions. The children often were more attached to their matri-kin, giving rise to a bilateral patternhx; of behavioral and structural relationships. Although in many cases the bilateral trend strengthens the marriage as in one case where an engineer, injured in an automobile accident, was nursed back to health primarily by his mother-in-law, a magnificent warm hearted woman to whom he is naturally devoted, in others it tends to weaken the ties between the couple. Nearly all the divorces that occurred in neolocal households indicate that there is no adherence to the traditional model of severance of natal home bonds after marriage. Generally the women who have been raised in nuclear parental households are more prone to reverse the severance model. Usha also rejects her husband's network of kin relationships, and despite living patrilocally, maintains close natal home bonds. 1.1 It'll... I l! 290 These relationship trends show that the bilateral ethos are rushing in as if the patrilineal-kin—dyke is cracking under the strain of the upper middle class life style. CASTE AND CLASS VARIABLES CONTRASTED: Ascriptive ritual pollution does not attach on a divorced male, and there is no pressure on him to change or modify his role relationships with anybody in any way. His caste fellows do not avoid him and he continues to be totally included in the ritual and other elements of caste membership since his divorce does not in the slightest way disturb any element of the structural arrangement of social organization. For that reason, the divorced male is an individual of no potential interest as an agent of culture change. It is for the divorcees and not the divorced men that the two variables - caste and claSs are crucially important. The divorcees become differentiated from the rest of the women in society in terms of status ascription in the socio-ritual framework implied in caste variable. They, however, reintegrate them- selves in the larger society with the help of the class variable. This process requires a further explanation. 291 In the urban milieu, the class variable —- diffused and coexisting with ritual structure of castes - does not pose a challenge to the ritual status of women. The college educated or professionally placed unmarried, as well as married, women who are comparatively few in every caste compared to men, have available to them both the ritual and class status advantages. Thus, the two variables - the case and the class though separate,“ stand parallel and juxtaposed in society. But as the ritual status loss occurs as a result of their divorce, the class variable becomes crucial for divorcees as the potential for their social friendships is tied in the class variable. Furthermore, by retaining or improving her class status, a divorcee creates in her Situation a sharp dichotomy between the two variables, eliminating the complimentarity that earlier existed in her marital and pre-marital life between her class and caste statuses. Once the ritual status is lost as a result of divorce, the class variable holds out a potential support to her. The class variable provides a replacement for the ritual status which in traditional society is fundamental to the caste structure. It is in this manner, that while the caste variable separates divorcees from the rest of the society in terms of status ascription in the socio- ritual framework, the class variable helps them to 292 reintegrate themselves in the larger society. However, by giving the divorcees a second chance, the class variable undermines the traditional structure. The position of women which is fundamental to the ritual caste structure loses its centrality through their _ divorce and remarriage. The women who challenge their ritual position in the structure of caste society through their divorce, become sources of erosion of the traditional system. In net result, the class variable enables them to transcend their ascriptively polluted status in the traditional set-up, saving them from becoming examples of persons visited by sanctions of the 'purity-pollution complex'. In this manner, the cultural cOnception of a female under the mandate of purity whereby a woman is either a virgin maiden under the control of her father or a wife dutifully obedient to her husband, undergoes a change on her divorce when she becomes an individual in her own rights, having an identity of her own independent of any or all dyads of which she once was a part. This transformed image in her post-divorce life and remarriage, reflecting female autonomy outside the ritual complex, portends culture change. Thus, the greater potential for change as a result of the divorce statute is in the individuation of women with its consequent repercussions on the traditional society. '3! 1|. 1 ill]! Jail-ll lull]! . . .l I! ll. 1].! 293 My analysis suggests that so long as the breaking of traditional set-up produces a terrible punishment even on innocent victims of it, eSpecially when in the traditional system it is commonly implied that their predicament was the result of their having committed sins in their previous life, the ritual system through its purity-pollution complex would continue to have a strong hold over women. But any ameliorating of the punishment and every successful challenge of the system by modern divorcees weakens the effect and control of the ritual complex. This shows that Dumont's composite concept in his 5992 Hierarchicus (1970a) which projects a unidimensional image of a Hindu in ritual terms encapsulating the elements of power, wealth and religious ideology, is increasingly becoming incongruous with the reality of the urban society. The evidence of diffusion of class variable strongly suggests that any such composite has to be distinctly two dimensional in the urban context. THE DUALITY OF IDENTITY: In the data the social actors - the parents and the spouses alike, do not usually play one role only, but shift back and forth between class and caste variables, living their lives with alternative modes of reference. In real life both come into play, 294 creating a very high ambiguity causing stress in the actors and their society. Layering is not a distinct characteristic for it tends not to go far enough to resolve the ambiguity, only far enough to give rise to contradictions. Unlike Beteille (1969:204-228) to whom layering is so clear-cut that his elite exists outsideithe caste system, I find synthesis of modernity and tradition present, but only nascent and emergent and not fully integrated. The mode of their interplay is not yet smoothed and these inconsistencies have relevance for the incidence of divorces, and explaining the circumstances and incongruities in meaning for individuals. Beteille (1969) sees clear-cut boundaries between caste and class roles and behaviors, whereas I find only an attenuation of roles with no actual boundaries, no complete rupture between the systems. The class framework does not provide an alternate identity for that provided in the ideology for anyone in the society except divorcees. Since the divorcee has no ideological identity in the caste system, her class identity is not a true alternative but only a substitution. Thus, while Dumont (1970a) indicates no power conflicts within the 'Jati' arising from differences in class status and heterogeneity, and Beteille (1969) finds the class layering a finished 295 product, my data supports the concept that caste and class remain in constant interaction presenting an uneasy phenomenon, as yet neither fish nor fowl, but a bit of both in a process of vascillating imbalance. We find this process in operation in the present data where a Hindu in the urban milieu experiences pressures for his upward mobility from two sources and for different reasons during his various life stages. First, he is under pressure to emulate the level of other members of his class who may come from any or all castes forming the class elite. We see Dr.Tarun laboring under this obligation to live in a civil lines neighborhood, to conform to the class level of his fellow doctors even though at time he was torn between this need and his feelings for his kin-group who lived in the old section of the city. Once a Hindu becomes the part of his class elite and has a daughter or sister to marry, he is faced with another obligation. The second obligation that he experiences is to help his fellow caste members to improve their class status so that he can marry off his daughters and sisters more suitably in his own caste group. We see this phenomenon exemplified by Saroj's father, a famous jurist, in trying to help 296 his caste fellow Sanjay and perhaps some others in order to be able to marry off his plain looking daughter. Generally, of course, such help to caste fellows is extended more broadly rather than in the particular form of an enormous concentrated financial help in lieu of dowry to a son-in-law as Saroj's father did. It is in the discharge of these dual obligations that both class and caste identities of a Hindu become equally relevant in the urban milieu. And typically, the social actors maintain both identities, emphasizing one over the other depending upon the circumstances of the situation. Thus, the clarion call of the modern Hindu is, "Follow that model of individuation and modernization, but don't forget the small segment of society which is your own caste and to which your reproductive success is tied". In fact, if the caste system did not exist, and marriage could be arranged through out the system, there would be no obligation to raise the class status of one's caste fellows either by opening educational institutions on caste names or providing student scholarships on such a basis. Since, however, one's genetic survival is tied to a specific group of people, limited and identifiable as 'the jati', the obligation for upward mobility becomes not only dual but often very onorous, 297 as the jurist must have felt in his sadder but wiser moments. SUMMARY: THE NATURE Q§_SYNTHESIS Q§_THE TWO VARIABLES In summary then, the concept of 'layering system' helps us to identify and describe the constant balancing of ritual requirement and the need of class compatibility in close commehsal interaction that quietly goes on without creating large ripples in the caste structure. This mode of interaction typical in urbanites reaches its epitomy in matrimonial match- making in order to cape with the modernity—aSpiration demands of young men and women. We see this phenomenon at work in the caste exogamous marriage of the two doctors (Appendix A) whose kin-groups participated in the solemnization of the marriage which was the first for both the spouses. In such a mode of marriage, a semblance of cultural continuity is maintained in the format of ceremonialization of the wedding. The invitation card announcing the wedding Shows the dates and timings for forming the groom's traditional marriage party, their conventional reception at the bride's home, the performing of the ritual of 'Kanya-daan', and the ritualized farewell "Bida" for the bride and the groom's party. Wrapped around the traditional trappings of the 298 ceremonial format, the marriage is intrinsically very different from a traditional one and is entirely modern, representing self-selection of class compatible marriage mate outside one's caste. Both spouses coming from professional parental nuclear-households, and themselves members of the medical profession, were married with the participation of their respective kin-groups. In this manner, the acceptance of an ideology of modernity by such persons does not result in linear forms of socio-cultural change. While the traditional trappings of a wedding are maintained, the kernel of marriage changes revealing cultural transformation at three distinct levels. First, class-compatibility acquires primacy in the concept of marriage. Secondly, it is the middle-class professional persons who tend to marry caste-exogamously by self selection of marriage mate. Thirdly, a participation of the kindred of both the Spouses including those of the parental generation suggests that the inter-generational differences in the concept of marriage are drastically diminishing. Sylvia Vatuk implied this process at work in the class-endogamous Westernized circle in a small provincial town of Meerut where ”mixed ancestry is of minor importance" (Vatuk 1972:93). 299 Thus, neither Dumont's approach using only 'Dharma' as a referent . nor Beteille's suggestion concerning the new pre-eminence of 'Artha', is satisfactory single answer to the orientation of contemporary Hindus in the urban milieu. The conflict created by the ambiguities of two divergent referents remains one to be solved at the individual level. Since acculturation concerns itself directly with individuals, its individuating effect is in continuous conflict with the traditional society's opposition to and non-recognition of 'individual' instead of role categories. The analysis of data sheds light on an essential quality of culture-—-its g2; generis nature, that meanings in a culture are developed during the course of its evolution and not all meanings are given at the start of a culture. The caste exogamous marriages particularly those of modern divorcees and the divorces in general, provide a context where the concept of marriage starts to undergo a redefinition. In these situations, the concept of marriage ceases to represent the organizing and over-riding social structural factors, and starts to focus on the 'individual'. Thus, 'indivflhmd' emerges as the basic unit of social organization, becoming the prime causal factor of culture change. Such an emergence of 'individual' highlight the mode of change in the cultural scenario of the region. CHAPTER XI c o N c L U S I o N S The bridal absorptive model with which I began correlates with the research findings, by suggesting that the process of absorption of a bride in her groom's lineage is completed upon her giving birth to a son. The prime variable in the successful marital reconciliation situations is also the existence of a son. The birth of a daughter neither arouses a sense of responsibility of fatherhood nor a commitment to the marital bond. An explanation for this relative lack of a man's marital commitment is traceable in the bridal absorptive model itself. The model Shows that a daughter is looked upon by her own kinsmen as a temporary and transient member of her natal home. She neither adds to family fortunes nor extends her parental family descent line. In fact, she is a liability because of the potential of dowry. Hence, we find several cases of neolocal-nuclear households where couples having one or two daughters were divorced. The sex of a child or children born during marriage sets a definite pattern in divorce situations, 300 301' a social fact congruent with the bridal absorptive model. In only one case of neolocally resident couple did a divorce occur despite their having a son. The case, however, entailed a very unusual set of circums- tances responsible for divorce, as earlier discussed in the analysis. On the basis of the absorptive model, I had potulated that once the proceSs of bridal absorption is completed either through her giving birth to a son or her having been fully accepted by her co-resident affines, it would be the husband and not his wife and children that would have to leave the patrilocal household in a divorce situation. The analysis of data supports this hypothesis in several ways. The period of duration of marriage in patrilocal house- holds was very short whenever divorces occurred. Only in two cases was a longer span of marital period involved, Madan vs. Maya and Onkar vs. Omlata. However, neither Maya nor Omlata had a son, nor were they ever accepted by the co-resident affines. Furthermore, in the case of Savitri vs. Sohan, we see Savitri returning to her parents-in-law to live permanently with them when her marriage was terminated by Sohan while living neolocally in another state. 302 Sohan had to sever all connections with his kin- group because of his divorce. The analysis of reconciliation cases also shows that patrilocality provides stability to the marital bond once any of the two aforementioned conditions is satisfied. A husband seldom, if ever, provides in patrilocal living the real causation for divorce. Such a phenomenon is in conformity with thebehavioral mode expected of a husband in the bridal absorptive model. The divorce situations occurring in neolocal households Show that a duality of allegiance of a bride during her marital life continued and a severance of her natal home bond did not occur because the brides were not teen-agers but fully grown-up and educated women of an age range from 21 to 28 years. These women had an alternative locus of affiliation even after their marriage and did not laCk parental support for ending marriage like Sarla and Tara reflected in their marital life. In neolocality, the prospect of absorption was further diminished because of lack of interaction with affinal group. The absorptive model works effectively in patrilocal households, especially when brides are in their teens with their identity-formation-process incomplete 303 because of their pubescent age which is the most desirable age to facilitate bridal absorption. The model also implies the phenomenon seen in almost all divorce situations that conjugal companionship is not especially valued. The model emphasizes marriage to be largely in the nature of a rite of passage -- a phenomenon fully borne out by the dissolution of sexually dysfunctional marriages, the pre-maritally pregnant brides and the parentally imposed marriages even on educated and unwilling daughters. Thus, the data analysis shows definite correlations, often direct, with the dimensions of the marital model. It is also borne out that individual and idiosyncratic causes of divorce, unrelated to any of the dimensions of the marital model, are rather infrequent. My analysis of data on dissolution of marriage and divorce situations reveals that the concept of purity and pollution are not ancillary or tangential, but central to the working of familial and marital institutions. The various manifestations of the concept of 'purity' are seen in the special emphasis on virginity, the general attenuation of a divorcee's kinship universe, and the modus operandi of parents It till! “.1 ill .II. 304 in the situations of unmarried pregnant daughters, or daughters with congenital sexual deformities, or divorced daughters being remarried by actively concealing the fact of their earlier dissolved marriage. The imperative nature of the marital rite of passage, as seen in the aforementioned situations, is found to be mandated, or so the social actors thought, by the ideology of ritual purity. However, this aspect was not emphasized in marital model. The analysis of marital discord in patrilocality shows that the loci of all marital interaction is the membership-composition of a household. The type of membership-composition not only provides the locus of control of inter-spousal relationship but determines the character of a bride's relationship with the co-resident kin as well as all outsiders. A marriage is followed by a formative period of conjugal bond. The primacy of relationship of a married man with his parents, especially his father, remains undiminished, and often cross-cuts his marital dyad. Not for him is there the cleaving of husband to wife in the Christian tradition. Thus, the "Devar 305 Bhabhi" dyad becomes the one bright ray of friendship in the gloom of loneliness for the bride in her patri- local household. The supportive dyad of "Devar Bhabhi" which so far has remained unexamined from a social structural standpoint in literature is crucial to the prOper functioning of a bride's affinal relationships in her conjugal household. The analysis of this dyad highlights not only the rationale behind the distinctflxl between "formal avoidance" and "informal intimate" relationships and its relevance for the stability of marital bond in the context of patrilocality, but also the mode in which the dyad operates to the enduring benefit of the married woman during her widowhood as well as her progeny. The examination of these dyads reveals that the unit of analysis is not "individual" in isolation but rather a "relationship" that links one person to another within his or her wider family, kin group or caste. Such a relationship could be dyadic, triadic or wider still. The data substantiate that such a relationship has the potential to shape a marital life or disrupt it. Relative to the practice of dowry giving, the data show that it is given even if it be token in all cases and, often, without being asked by a groom or his parents. The rationale for giving of dowry is that a 306 groom by agreeing to marry helps his father-in-law in the discharge of the latter's fatherly ritual obligatflxz toward the daughter, generating spiritual merit for his parent-in-law. The dowry is, therefore, to an extent in the nature of his reward. Also because a daughter does not inherit to her father, dowry is viewed as a pre-mortem inheritance at the time of severance of jural bonds with her parents and male agnates. The analysis of the data further reveals that dowry is used as a manipulatory mechanism to ensure a better reproductive success of one's daughter. The principal aSpect of complementary filiation -- the emphasis on the bond of affinity which is structurally secondary to descent among patrilineal Hindus, puts pressures on parents to contribute and advance the prospect of marital success by giving ever larger dowries. However, there is ample evidence in the data to the effect that dowry demands have assumed extortionist proportions, often putting marital strain in patrilocality. The analysis reveals that a household structural type has with it an associated pattern of marital discord and divorce. In patrilocality, the span of marital period is generally Short, and three independent variables have positive correlation with divorce: first, a dowry unsatisfactory to the parents of the gnxmu 307 secondly, the "love marriage" by self selection of marriage mate when combined with patrilocality; and finally, a lack of birth of a child of either sex. Nevertheless, there is a substantial counterbalancing evidence that patrilocaUJardissipates spouSe-generated . marital discord. There was no case where a divorce was caused by a hquand entirely on his own, such as his lack of financial support of his wife, or his committing adultery or inflicting cruelty on his wife. In neolocality, the marital span of the divorced spouses is longer. According to the data, marital discord originated over discrepant domestic obligations of a husband or wife, or a wife's attempts to build a career for herself. Mostly, however, the discord related to inter-spousal incompatibility in terms of educational, class and natal home family backgrounds. Thus, the major causation for marital discord in neolocality comes from the spouses themselves, whereas in patrilocality, it emanates largely from the co- resident members of the household. In the former situation, a divorce can be equated with a simple interspousal failure to carry on a conjugal relationship, whereas in the latter - such a presumption is invalid because the peremptory nature of the father-son dyad and 308 pre-emptive nature of mother-son relationship often gave no Opportunity for the husband-wife dyad even to form. In neolocality, a marital relationship could be as mature as the two persons involved in it, whereas inherent in patrilocality is the existence of a complex dyadic web of relationships that cross-cuts a husband- wife bond. The analysis does not suggest that kin relationships in patrilocality are always a disruptive force in marriage. Even though patrilocality stems the growth of conjugal companionship and intensity in inter- spousal relationship, it definitely prevents peOple from getting married miscellaneously, obtaining divorce after a couple or more years and presenting the society with children from broken homes unlike the record of divorces among the neolocally resident couples. Neolocality in the region belies the presumption that it is approximately the same as its Western counterpart. Firstly, neolocality in itself does not create an intensity in the husband-wife dyad. The sex— segregation, a factor of socialization process in the earlier life of an individual, tends to convert the new marital relationship with the wife who is not otherwise categorizable as a relative, into a purely sexual one. 309 A friendship with any non~kin woman is difficult to develop unless one is drawn into the idiom of kinship even if it is fictive. The birth of a son which turns the wife into kin through the triad, becomes the crucialdbterminant of jural stability of marital bond, as is amply revealed by the marital reconciliation cases. Secondly, the birth of a daughter in a neo- local nuclear household does not promote a father's commitment to his role. Finally, neolocality fails to develop independence from parents in decision- making despite a spatial distance involved between‘ the two households unless, of course, there is an intervening variable of superiority of educational and professional statuses of a married man compared to his father. Thus, in a nuclear neolocal mode of living, the residential distance of a husband's kin-group does not have a clear effect on the intensity of spousal commitment to their marriage. A factor which has a positive correlation with divorces being initiated by wives in all types of households,is associated with the socio-educational level of wives and their economic potential to be on their own. The analysis strongly suggests that where women have educational or occupa- tional Skills, they possess greater bargaining power 310 in marriage to have a household of their liking, failing which they resort to divorce to pursue an independent life style, or remarry when they are able. Uxorilocal mode of living requires role- rearrangement for spouses and imposes upon them burdensome demands for behavioral adjustment to correSpond with role change. It puts greater burden of making behavioral adjustment in marriage on the male rather than the female. Social upbringing and role models prepare neither girls nor boys for this kind of marital living. This type of marital household, therefore, is appropriately viewed with discomfiture. Thus, a household structural type is an organizing concept for data analysis, providing a necessary framework to conceptualize the phenomena of marital discord leading to divorce and correlating it with the operation of familial and marital institutions of the society. The sources, causes, patterns and processes of marital discord show that they are all intertwined with the social structure, the functioning of which must first be understood in order to identify and understand the implications of divorce. For purposes of analysis, therefore, the phenomenon of 311 divorce was differentiated in terms of types of household strcutures of the divorced couples. This methodology was not arbitrarily chosen. In view of its soundness to bring order to data, to identify patterns and processes underlying marital discord, its ability to shed light on variables and similarities, I believe that the perspective has merit both for its objectivity and heristic worth. While the household typology formulated by Kolendagives order to an enormous mass of data, it requires modification since the category of "Supplementxi Nuclear" household needs to be narrowed down to refer to kin other than a surviving parent. A married couple who lived in the household of the husband's surviving parent should be classified as "Truncated Lineal-Extended" to accurately describe the dynamics of interactional reality, discussed earlier. This modification would lend further precision to Kolenda's nomenclature without making it unduly burdensome. In many societies, the dissolution of one marriage usually signals the preliminaries for contract— ing another, but in the Hindu system, the ritual purity complex strongly discourages the prospects of remarriage of divorcees because the repetition of the central 312 marital rite of the caste system - the "Kenya-daan" or the ritual prestation of a virgin daughter, is incongruent with their blemished status. In the ritual purity complex not only do divorcees forfeit their claim to ritual virginity, they are no longer subject to the authority of their natal kinsmen or an affinal group. When women leave a specifically assigned category in a manner not provided by the culture, they render the structure anomalous and diffuse its internal lines of authority. The culture, therefore, mandates automatic ascription of ritual pollution for all divorced women regardless of the circumstances of their divorce or dissolution of marriage even if a marriage in question was not consummated. The structure through "Purity" and "Pollution" - the twin pillars ofthe stability of the traditional marital system, makes the caste-endogamous parentally arranged marriage the only viable mode of marriage. Because of the inevitable ascriptive ritual pollution, women seek divorces largely to save them- selves from Oppressive marriages, not to remarry, while men divorced their spouses in a few cases primarily to remarry as expeditiously as possible. 313 The effectiveness of ascriptive ritual pollution on a divorcee reflects the nature of internal caste composition which represents itself to its members as a network of kin relationships. A divorcee blemiShai by permanent defilement in the scheme of ritual purity not only forfeits her consanguineal bonds but also diminishes the potential for bonds of affinity through her remarriage. An attenuation of kinship bonds of a divorcee reveals the criterion of ritual purity in the caste organization. This lessening of kin bonds coupled with a divorcee's inability to marry within her caste shows that even though kin relationships and caste relationships are not exactly the same and identical things, the two are not mutually exclusive either -since a kin group itself is but a small segment of the larger unit known as caste. In this manner, the purity-pollution complex is superimposed upon the conventional kinship - the routinized system, thereby creating a broader cultural dimension in which social actors organize and maintain, or, attenuate and cancel their relationships with their kin. Thus, a Hindu's universe of internally organized domestic relationships of the kinship system undergoes a shift in the context of pollution. Kinship in the region is more than a mere category pertaining 314 to consanguinity and affinity. Divorced women under ritual blemish made two types of responses in coping with their post-divorce life. The first pattern is reflected by those who enacted the role that sustained their definition of themselves as ritually polluted, characterized by sockfl. seclusion, non-participation in festivities and social events, and guilt feelings. These women, classified as traditional, either led the life of domestics, or, were again married off concealing the fact of their dissolved marriage to unsuspecting suitors or to old widowers. The second behavioral pattern is reflected by those women who acquired a life style independent of tradition, and made "self" the sole reference point for their post-divorce or remarriage life style. These women reflect modernity in their behavioral capa- city to readjust, receptivity to-change, and willingness to handle life needs on a rational basis. Their remarriage is not just acquiring another husband but a whole different life style in which the kinship ties of both Spouses with their respective kin are conspicuously non-existent. Their remarriage gives us a sharp view of new structural configurations wherein the "individual" is pre-eminent as the primary unit of 315 social organization in place of some larger unit. In this manner, the post-divorce life of modern divorcees shows the importance ofthe two variables, the "caste" and the "class". The "caste" variable differentiates them from the rest of the women in society by leaving them without a status in the socio- ritual hierarchy, whereas the "class" variable helps them reintegrate in the larger society. The "class" variable is identifiable in the layering system seen in the internal composition of a caste in the urban milieu. Through the concept of "layering system" that represents the internal stratification in a caste group, I have identified and described the constant balancing of ritual require— ment and the need of class compatibility in close commensal interaction that quietly goes on beneath the surface in every caste in the urban milieu without creating large ripples in the system, and maintaining cultural continuity. The data on remarriages of divorcees who self selected their mates and the post-divorce lflkastyles of highly individuated men and women, exemplify the disregard of "layering system" by their orthodox parents in a rush to marry off their daughters, highlighting the phenomenon 316 of inter-generational conflict in the concept of marriage itself. More often, however, caste endogamous marriages are class compatible also and do not become a part of divorce statistics. The analysis of data strongly suggests the layering system in operation in caste groups guiding social interaction of its members without becoming too conspicuous. The member- ship of each caste tends to play it down in the interests of the ideology of caste homogeneity. Dumont's ideal type model has no potential to conceptualize the non-conforming individual behavior that portends culture change. Further, his model leads to systematic inattention to the evidence of culture change. The phenomenon of the "layering system" in castes, the manner in which tradition adjusts itself to the demands of modernity, and the contrasting mode of remarriage of modern divorcees, would have been inadequately identified remaining merely unexplained paradoxes, if the analysis had been limited to Dumont's approach. Social science should not exclude human characteristics or emergent patterns of human behavior Simply because they are difficult to conceptualize within the framework of existing theory. Any such exclusion would be arbitrary, and limit our understandhm; 317 of the social reality and culture change. Indian cultural reality is too rich to let one perspective dominate our conception of it. The analysis of data compels the conclusion that artificial insulation of women by sex segregation allow- ing them no place in decision-making regarding their matrimony ultimately victimizes both sexes in the younger generation, though the male sex is spared on divorce the ignominy of ascriptive ritual pollution. The net result of purity requirements for women is that the true locus of the society's power belongs almost exclusively to men. The divorce and remarriage data do Show a disregard of the ritual purity complex. They also reveal a duality of identity of the social actors in the caste and the class frames of refernce. The future studies on divorce should be undertaken to make advances in such socio-cultural concerns as status of women, their post-divorce ceping strategies, the nature of kin, caste and general social support in their achieving socio-economic autonomy to regain control over their lives, and the extent the judicial process protects and promotes their interests through alimony, child support. Through such studies, the direction and extent of change in the domestic institu- tions of the society can be noted. 318 APPENDIX 1 of Mathur Dissertation .m.u< mcmém< 5.30 63.. cubsxzuma .v 52.253 Epcot; onus“. 8:55 ..oo< o .. ES\ centralised» 5...: wcmzamx‘ .m .2 .1 .s .m .t 334‘ 4245. .3023: 523: .z .m .5 «c 32950 <.—=G_~—S «ilv ...G x :2 I m « I < ~— A .ua cOm LEE *0 omit—or: 2.: To counouuo msqun—sc 2.: :0 ...—_CQEOU .503 _0 3395.1 9.: Imus—cue 9.2.le or e a. .eeco vvvv'vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Z.cmn. oestrus. to 23.630 b3. beacon brew antes: .030 GEESHUOHW s 1%??? ”News «one‘uuQV u BIBLIOGRAPHY- Bailey, F. G. 1960 Tribe. Caste and Nation. Manchester Unviersity Press. Banton. Michael. ed. 1966 The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies. ASA Monograph #4 Tavistock Publications. - Beteille. Andre 1965 Caste. Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in Tanjore Village. University of California Press, Berkeley. . I 1969 Castes: 01d and New. . Essays in Social Structure and Social Structure. Asia Publishing House. Bombay. ' Beteille. Andre and T. N. Madan, ed. 1975 Encounter and Experience: Personal Accounts of Fieldwork Honolulu. The University of Hawaii. Bharati. 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