Marriage

Dumont has remarked on the importance for South Asia of separating a "true and complete marriage" from other kinds of "marriage." He makes some terminological distinctions that are useful for a discussion of marriage in Bhaktapur (1980, 114 [original italics]):

The only true and complete marriage whereby one moves from the category of an unmarried person to that of a married person is the first. But the cere-

mony which effects this transition is especially important for the woman, and one must distinguish the case of a male from that of a female. In the case of a woman we shall call the first marriage the primary marriage. Once this marriage has been contracted, either it is indissoluble even by the death of the spouse (superior castes) or else the woman may, after her husband's death or even after divorce, contract another union, legitimate, but infinitely less prestigious, involving much less ritual and expense, which we shall call secondary marriage. Secondary marriage, being of lower status, is freer, sometimes much freer, than primary marriage. In the case of a man his first marriage becomes the principal marriage only if it bears him children, preferably sons. But a man has the option, either in the case of the barrenness of the first marriage, or freely in other castes (royal, etc.) of taking other wives, either with full rite (necessary for the wife if she has not been married before) or with secondary rite (if the wife has already been married). Thus for a man there are supplementary or subsidiary marriages, with a corresponding hierarchy of wives.

Dumont further notes that, "in various groups, in order to secure for women great freedom of [secondary] marriage or of sexual unions in general, primary marriage is, or rather was, reduced to a mere ritual formality. Sometimes women are married in this way to a god, an object, a fruit, or a man who immediately disappears from their lives" (1980, 118). Dumont, in fact, cites the Newar Ihi as one of his examples, although he erroneously believes that the consequences of the mock-marriage is to allow Newar girls "probably to have unions with men of inferior status" (ibid., 119).

The Newar mock-marriage is not, in fact, fully equivalent to a "primary" marriage, for the first "real" or "social" marriage still retains in its ceremonial and social implications most of the implications of primary marriage in contrast to any possible further, fully, and "really" "secondary" marriages. The mock-marriage has at least some of the force of a primary marriage, however, in that it allows the "real" marriage to be a postmenarche one, and in that it is associated with a somewhat greater liberality of divorce and with a considerably less disadvantaged position for women.^[17]

Until the late 1950s the Newar Brahmans followed orthodox Hindu marriage practices rather than the Newar modification. They did not have mock-marriages, and were married to premenarche child brides.^[18] In the later 1950s the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans decided to follow Nepalese law banning child marriage and to ease their restrictions on divorce and remarriage.

For non-Brahman Newars in the past (and for Newar Brahmans now) the great majority of social marriages take place when the girl is

postmenarche. Some few premenarche marriages exist among farmers, where the motivation is said to be economic, for in a small and often poor family the bride will help with the work of her conjugal home. Such marriages are illegal under Nepalese law and are frowned upon even among other Jyapus. It is said by Jyapu informants that the ideal age for a woman's marriage among them should be between sixteen and eighteen. Before sixteen she is too young to work and to be of much help in her husband's house,^[19] and if she marries too much later than eighteen, it is said that her children will be still too young to help their father at the time in his life when he ages and will need help in his farming. The Jyapu husband should be somewhat older, between the ages of, say, twenty and twenty-three, among other reasons because "it will be easier for them to manage a younger wife, who will fear them." The daughters of sahu —Chathariya, Pa(n)cthariya, and those lower thar s who are in business and shopkeeping—are said to marry later, often at twenty-two or twenty-three.^[20]

For his "principal" (to use Dumont's terminology) marriage, that is, for the vast majority of marriages, a man will marry a woman who has not been married before (with the exception of the Ihi ), who is within the proper intermarrying macrostatus level, and who is at the proper exogamous distance. The marriage ceremony will be a "major marriage ceremony," modified somewhat from the orthodox Indian marriage ceremony to take the Ihi into account (app. 6).

People are forbidden to marry within an extended and active patrilineal group, the phuki (below), and more vaguely within larger groups thought to have a significant and close patrilineal connection, to be the same patrilineage or kul . Such larger exogamous units are distinguished within different thar s in different ways. Tracing degree of relationship and permissible and impermissible unions through female lines is more difficult, as it is not revealed in present organization, and has to be based on genealogical information. Ideally, any relationship derived from the out-marriage of any woman of the kul within less than six generations (the seventh generation being permitted) is forbidden. In practice, no objection is made after five generations if there is some "good reason" for that particular marriage.^[21]

Almost all the thar s marry within Bhaktapur by preference, and often within the same part of the city.^[22] Almost all marriages are still arranged. The availability and qualities of potential spouses are first discussed among informal networks of friends and relatives. Ideally, as elsewhere in South Asia, a wife should be modest and shy, respectful to

elders, in good health, and willing and able to work as necessary in the particular thar . She should not have any disfigurements, particularly skin diseases, the facial scars of smallpox having been considered particularly disadvantageous. A prospective son-in-law should be able to support his wife through his own efforts or his household situation. He should be of good moral character, a support to his own family, and not a gambler or a heavy drinker. He should be good-natured, and not irritable and potentially abusive to his wife. The reputation and behavior of the other household members, and the extended-family group, the phuki , are also of great importance. Immorality, crime, insanity, scandal anywhere in this group will affect the desirability of all its members.

After an informal decision has been made, a representative of the man's household, a lami , is chosen from among family or friends, and begins a more formal investigation of the potential bride's nature and situation. Eventually, if she seems acceptable, the lami approaches her family to discuss the prospects, and later the arrangements, for the marriage. A symbolic sequence begins at this point which in a number of phases gives the marriage increasing social reality; we will discuss the sequence in relation to rites of passage (app. 6).

In the past the perspective spouses did not see each other before the marriage ceremony, although they usually had some idea about each other from networks of friends or relatives. They could refuse when the marriage was proposed, but this was reportedly quite rare. Now it is customary for the couple to see each other, often at a mutual friend's house, before the arrangement reaches a formal phase, a meeting that may provoke objections to the marriage.^[23]

There were always "love marriages" in the past, as there are now. These are marriages that were in violation of the parents', or phuki members' wishes, and were motivated by romantic love or, sometimes, by pregnancy. As long as these were within the acceptable macrostatus marrying sections, they usually became acceptable to the couple's families. Only marriages violating these regulations caused a rupture of family and thar relationships. Incestuous marriages within the bounds of kin exogamy would be "a great sin" or crime, maha aparadha , and would result in outcasting and banishment.

The bride's family will provide a dowry and will also bear the expenses of the first portion of the sequence of marriage ceremonies, which take place at her house. The groom's family will have the expenses of the subsequent major marriage ceremonies and feasts. They

also provide presents to the bride, which include (particularly among farmers) substantial quantities of gold jewelry. If a husband divorces a young wife, or forces her to leave him, and if this is not considered to be through her fault, she has the right to take back her dowry and keep the jewelry she has been given. If she leaves the household because of her own dissatisfaction (an attribution that the wife's family may dispute, and that may require arbitration), she forfeits these. Among some Jyapu groups some of the wife's dowry is withheld by her family until after she has borne a child, a guarantee that the marriage will probably be permanent. It is estimated that the total expenses of the bride's side and the groom's side at the time of marriage are about equal, or, in the case of Jyapus, somewhat higher for the groom's family.

While the contribution from the bride's side is overtly said to be a dowry, a payment for taking the daughter, the expenses of the groom's side are interpreted as indicating the ability and commitment of the groom's family to the continuing support of the bride. The groom's side also gives gifts to the bride's family in the course of the ceremonial sequence preceding the marriage. Among some thar s these involve substantial cash gifts. G. S. Nepali, in a discussion of such gifts among the Newars, notes that when cash offerings are given in lieu of "symbolic" offerings of sweets by the groom's family, "though the payment of cash is looked down upon by the society, since it amounts to paying for a wife, it has not diminished at any rate; and it is a favoured practice among the poor. There is no social sanction against it, except the moral disapproval" (1965, 215). The moral disapproval comes from Brahmanical ideology of the wife as a free gift or offering, a kanya dana . In actual practice for all except the most Brahmanical families, there seems to be a balancing of both symbolic and material calculations of the value of the marriage transaction to both the giving and the receiving families. Among the middle and lower levels, where the economic value of the wife is most clear, there is an additional emphasis on the tentativeness of the contribution from the bride's side, as it protects her and will be returned if she is rejected by the groom's family. Dumont (in a comment on a claim of L. S. S. O'Malley for Bengal that "bridegroom price" characterized high hypergamous castes; and "bride price," low castes) remarks that it may be supposed for Bengal, as elsewhere, that "there is an exchange of prestations, in which the tangible prestations dominate in one or the other direction (Dumont 1980, 379). In the Newar case the general emphasis on equality of prestations corresponds to an emphasis on isogamy.

There exists, relatively rarely among upper levels and somewhat more frequently among farming thar s, "barter" marriages, hilabula , between two households, in which a son and daughter from one household respectively marry a daughter and son from another.^[24] Much less wealth needs to be amassed by the participating families in these cases (cf. G. S. Nepali 1963, 215).

A couple will be married in an elaborate set of ceremonies for a principal marriage (app. 6) and a simpler set for subsidiary ones. The vast majority of marriages are monogamous and endure until one of the partners dies, the survivor living on as a widow or widower. However, the marriage may break up in one way or another for other reasons than death or may be altered by the husband taking a second, additional wife.

Hindu societies, while making it relatively easy for the husband or his family to dissolve a marriage, have severely limited or prohibited a wife's right to divorce. The Newar woman's relative freedom to dissolve her marriage compared to other, including neighboring Nepalese, Hindu groups have led, among those accustomed to standard Hindu practices, to exaggerated statements regarding her freedom and her "licentiousness." Kirkpatrick wrote in 1793 (comparing the Newars and the matrilineal Nayars of Kerala, as is still frequently done), that "It is remarkable enough that the Newar women, like those among the Nairs [Nayars], may, in fact, have as many husbands as they please, being at liberty to divorce them continually on the slightest pretenses" ([1811] 1969, 187). Francis Hamilton visited the Kathmandu Valley a few years later during a fourteen-month period in 1802/03. His remarks on the Newar women are also a mixture of realities, misunderstandings, and prejudice. We can identify the probable source of the prejudice in one Ramajai Batacharji, who accompanied Hamilton on his visit. Batacharji was "an intelligent Brahman from Calcutta, whom I employed to obtain information, so far as I prudently could, without alarming a jealous government, or giving offense to the Resident, under whose authority I was acting" (Hamilton [1819] 1971, 1). Newar manners, Hamilton/Batacharji remarks, are "chiefly remarkable for a most extraordinary carelessness about the conduct of their women" (ibid., 29); to wit:

The Newar women are never confined. At eight years of age, they are carried to a temple and married with the ceremonies usual among Hindus to a fruit called Bel.^[25] When a girl arrives at the age of puberty, her parents, with her consent, betroth her to some man of the same caste and give her a dower,

which becomes the property of the husband, or rather paramour. After this, the nuptials are celebrated with feasting and some religious ceremonies. Among the higher casts [castes] it is required that girls should be chaste till they have been thus betrothed; but in the lower casts, a girl, without scandal, may previously indulge any Hindu with her favours, and this licentiousness is considered a thing of no consequence. Whenever a woman pleases, she may leave her husband; and if, during her absence she cohabits only with men of her own cast or of a higher one she may at any time return to her husband's house, and resume the command of the family. The only ceremony or intimation that is necessary before she goes away is her placing two betel nuts on her bed.^[26]

Hamilton ([1819] 1971, 42f.) further writes:

So long as a woman chooses to live with her husband he cannot take another wife until she becomes past child bearing; but a man may take a second wife when his first chooses to leave him or when she grows old, and at all times he may keep as many concubines as he pleases. A widow cannot marry again, but she is not expected to burn herself, and may cohabit with any Hindu as a concubine. The children, by the betrothed wife, have a preference in succession to those by concubines. The latter, however, are entitled to some share. A man can be betrothed to no woman except one of his own cast, but he may keep a concubine of any cast whose water he can drink.

This kind of view of Newar practices, which starts with a perception of relative differences, and then salaciously exaggerates them, still is held by some non-Newar Nepalis about the Newars, and, indeed, mutatis mutandis , suggests the way upper-status Newars regard the morals and nature of women in the lower Newar thar s—and the way all Newars seem to think about what they take to be the free behavior of women among northern hill peoples. We can find some basis for such reports in some persisting present practices. Other aspects may have referred to practices of particular thar s at the time, or may have been based on misunderstandings. What was fundamentally distorted, however, was the romantic picture of liberty or anarchy.

G. S. Nepali (1965, 247ff.) provides some indication of the amount of separation and remarriage among 734 Newar men and women in 1957/58. Among his 353 male informants, 13.3 percent of their marriages had ended in separation. Some 40 percent of those separations were by formal divorce and the remaining 60 percent, by informal separation. Among his women informants 14.4 percent of their marriages were reported as ending in separation. Of these, about 15 percent were reported as ending in formal divorce and 85 percent in informal separation. Among the men some 72 percent of the men whose marriages had ended in separation remarried, as did about 41 percent of the

women.^[27] Nepali's tables do not indicate to what degree divorce or separation was initiated by the husband or the wife, but his discussion implies that many of the nondivorce separations, at least, involve desertion by the wife. Nepali's survey of divorce and separation suggests, in fact, that marriage among the Newars, if not as fluid as reported by Hamilton, is relatively fragile. We do not have statistics on separation and divorce for contemporary Bhaktapur; it is very possibly similar to Nepali's rates, and almost certainly significantly higher than for non-Newar Hindu Nepal.

"Divorce" is usually referred to in phrases using the word "par " or "pa ," which in other phrases signifies the conclusion of a transaction by making a final payment. Simple separation is phrased in various ways, often simply as tota beigu , "to let go of." Until recently neither marriage nor divorce had a clear legal status under Nepalese national law, which followed the varieties of local customary law. Bennett, in a study of the relations of both traditional and national law to the situations of Nepalese women, writes "Under the present [National Civil] Code, the performance of any form of wedding ceremony or simply evidence of sexual relations (even as a single event) can amount to marriage" (1979, 46). A "divorce" implies the consent of both parties and their kin to the separation, initiated by some kind of formal discussion. The one who wishes to dissolve the marriage obtains permission, often in writtern form, from the spouse or the head of the spouse's household or patrilineal extended-family group, the phuki The wife must agree to leave the household; if she objects to this and resists a separation, the husband may use various means to force her out. Previously, and still in some thar s, the simplest way for a man to separate from his wife was to leave her at her natal home when she returned there for a visit; she was not supposed to return to her conjugal home from these visits unless a member of the husband's household came to fetch her. Another device the husband or other members of his household can use to force a separation is to begin to mistreat the wife and provoke quarrels with her, thus attempting to make her decide to return to her natal home. If the wife wishes to initiate the separation, it is simpler: all she has to do is to leave her husband's house.

Separation is complicated for both husband and wife if there are children. They belong to the father's household, and will be raised by the women there. This is general in Hindu Nepal. "Nepalese law considers the right of child custody as well as the duty to maintenance of the child as the right and liability of the father. A mother has no right upon the issue she has given birth to. The law is based on the Hindu

concept of woman as jaya or one who bears children for her husband. The mother simply gives birth to children for her husband" (Shilu Singh, quoted in Bennett [1979, 64]). The comparative special rights of Newar women do not include rights over the possession of their children.

There is less social stigma attached to an agreed-upon separation, a divorce, than to a unilateral separation. A "divorced" woman is free of the insults and interference that might come from her husband's home if she were only separated, and still in some sense belonged to the household. Divorced or separated, all parties can remarry, however, with a simplified ceremony of remarriage, which as the figures cited from G. S. Nepali (above) indicate, is frequently done.

The most frequent reasons given for breakdown of marriages in Bhaktapur are, as everywhere in Hindu families, one or another of the difficulties of fitting a new wife into the husband's household, that is, her relations with various family members other than her husband, particularly her mother-in-law.^[28] Such problems may arise and cause the marriage to break up even if (and sometimes to some degree because) the husband and wife may like each other and are close to each other. Modernization has produced a different kind of marital problem. In the course of higher education or professional careers young Bhaktapur men and (more rarely) women of the upper levels often meet potential lovers or spouses—sometimes from other communities and ethnic groups—who are attractive to them often because they share more modern values and interests. These men and women have often been previously married in an arranged marriage with a spouse who (again, this is the case particularly for the men) has a more limited, traditional, and conservative upbringing and experience. Although the families have approved and arranged such marriages, the spouse becomes a target of the husband's (or wife's) resentment. The wife and her children have close relations with others in the household, but the husband (who may have a "girlfriend" outside the household) will be cooly proper and more than conventionally distant from her. Occasionally such marriages also end in separation.