Suchergebnisse

Sudha Sharma. The Status of Women in Medieval India. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2016, xi+269 pp., ₹750 (hardback). ISBN 978-93-515-0566-2. Alice W. Clark. Valued Daughters: First Generation Career Women. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2016, xii+199 pp., ₹595 (hardback). ISBN 978-93-515-0888-5. Zarina Bhatty. Purdah to Piccadily: A Muslim Woman's Struggle for Identity. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2016, xiv+196 pp., ₹595 (hardback). ISBN 978-93-515-0824-3.

The overall sex ratio at the national level (the number of females per 1,000 males) has improved by seven points from 933 in 2001 census to 940 in 2011 census. However, the matter of concern is the lowest child sex ratio of 914 girls per 1,000 boys at the national level in the 2011 census as against 927 in the 2001 census. It shows that aversion to daughters continues despite PCPNDT Act and state measures to protect the girl child. This article examines how family plans and uses discrete strategies to limit the family size deciding the number of children, particularly sons and daughters in the family. Why daughters have always been dispensed with and sons' number in the family is again not unlimited? A deficit in the girl child population is leading to 'male marriage squeeze', a serious implication of the shortage of marriageable age girls.

The paper on, "missing brides in rural Haryana: A study of adverse sex ratio, poverty and addiction " highlights that the phenomena of across-region marriages is not new. Such marriages have always taken place especially in Punjab, Haryana and other adjoining states. For example, Jatsfrom Haryana would marry Jatsfrom neighbouring UP and Rajasthan or a person from Punjab will look for a bride from the border of Haryana like Kaithal, Narwana. But what is significant is the fact that now a Jat or Chauhanfrom Haryana is marrying a women of intermediate or low caste from Assam, Bengal, or Bihar. Not only this the frequency of such marriages has also increased and these marriages not only speak of spatial distance but also socio-cultural heterogeneity. This study examines the socio-cultural and economic dimensions of such marriages and raises some pertinent questions regarding the acceptance of such marriages in rural Haryana. How a society which otherwise places so much value on caste, gotra and village exogamy is willing to accept marriages in which women are brought from across the cultural, regional and language context, where caste and sometimes even religion is different. How do such women adjust to a culturally different environment which is rigid and patriarchal than their own? The survey was conducted in three villages of Rohtak and Jind districts of Haryana. The study suggests that these unusual marriages are a consequence of combination of factors like low sex-ratio, poverty, and unemployment.