On Sunday 10 Apr 2011 9:00:30 am Udhay Shankar N wrote:
> in a situation where *muscle power* is of monotonically decreasing
> importance to survival, why would the sex ratio be as skewed as it is?
>
As usual the original post is missing from my inbox - something that seems to
happen regularly.
Anyhow I don't think the "average muscle power required by society" is
considered by the individual family where boys are given absurd importance
over girls.
In India societal structures which liberal Indians are wont to either ignore
or deny play a role - and I believe they play a role in one's life before any
well meaning individual has the power to do anything about it his own family.
1) The girl child is seen as destined to leave home and live as part of
another family - taking on the bloodline (gotra) of her husband's family.
2) She is seen as a liabiliity because money must be spent on her marriage
(done by the girls parents) and for jewellery (the more the better) and dowry
in many cases.
3) Given two men of "marriageable age" with equal qualification ("well
settled") - the "boy" with no sisters (or sisters who are already married) is
seen as a better bet by a marriageaable girl's father as compared to the boy
who has unmarried sisters. The assumption is that the burden of getting the
sisters married will have to be taken on by the "boy" being offered for
marriage in case his father kicks the bucket or otherwise disappears from the
scene.
4) An unmarried daughter at home is seen as a sort of millstone who holds up
the marriag prospects f younger siblings because others see her as a burden
who will have to be borne by anyone who marries into that family.
Many of my own relatives and friends are complicit in encouraging this and are
quite open about it. In India they have a readymade excuse - another "societal
structure" that needs to be brought down but nobody does it. They say that
"Elder relatives" (who must always be respected and whose words must be given
weightage) want things to happen in a particular traditional way. Naturally
that way is the one that screws girls and mollycoddles boys - which is the
tradition.
shiv
